Rendering Architecture

Here a 4" x 5" study where more accurate architecture and the correct values of  the buildings are essential.

 

Quiet Afternoon

Poster Tempera

City Composition Stems

The amount of detail that a typical cityscape has makes harder to focus on rendering correct values. Here I used the values of the bridge as reference to determine the correct values of the surrounding houses. Painted with Black and White Dick Blick's Premium Tempera and Vegetable Glycerin.

Counterbalance or Steel Yard Composition Stem

This one is a little over 6" x 4". Here I attempted to capture more of the true light of the scene. To that effect I did not use pure black. Notice that the medium dark mass of the slop and the small trees on the left counterbalance the dark shapes of the foreground tree. This is a well tested successful composition format.

 

End of the Tree Line 

Premium Tempera on hotpress watercolor paper

B & W Landscape Comps

Here is a set of landscape comps made with  Dick Blick's Premium Tempera as a substitute for the much more expensive Lukas and Utrecht brands. I used hot-press watercolor paper as a surface.To slow down drying time I use Vegetable Glycerin USP 100% pure. Glycerin also helps tempera to stay flexible.

 

These compositions are no larger than 2" x 2-1/4". The comps show their relative size to one another.

Doing black and white composition allows me to understand the relative values, identify the best composition  and potential problems in placement and size of the main elements. If the values are placed accurately, It also gives me an idea of the particular "light" of the landscape. 

Gouache and Tempera, unpretentious as they are, are a very sophisticated media, capable of very fine detail. They also are a good stepping-stone toward learning to paint with oils.

Another Study

Here is a small Painting of a farm in New Mexico. Painting the foliage structure was tricky.

Oil on Canvas Paper

These winter scenes were painted on paper canvas. Personal collection.

Oil Studies on Poster Board

I painted these small studies on white poster board primed with Gesso. This is a very nice surface to paint on.

Testing Canson Board

This 6x8 was painted on Canson linen textured board.

Painting on Polyester Canvas for InkJet Printer

This was painted on a piece of 8x10 in. Polyester canvas. Very nice surface to work on and of archival quality. Primed with Liquitex Basic Gesso.

Experimenting with Dick Blicks Premium Tempera - Poster Paint

Here are a few landscapes done in gouache and Dick Blick's Premium Tempera (Poster Paint). I am amazed at the quality and concentration of the pigments. Great for doing studies.

The Rule of Light Regarding Value Contrast

One of the properties of light is its intensity. The intensity of the light that falls on an object allow us to perceive the local color of the object and the range of tones of the color between very dark and very light. We use this property of light to determine the quality of the light. Because of this property, in order to create the illusion of light and shade is not only important to follow the rules regarding cool and warm colors but also to the rule of value contrast. The rule to remember regarding value contrast for a given color is:

"The lightest value of a color in the shadow is of darker value than the darkest value of the same color in the light "

So, it follows that "white is darker in value in the shadow than the value of black is in the light." Since the value of all the other colors (painting pigments) fall within the value range between black to white, we have a rule that can be applied effectively to create high-key paintings, high contrast and dark muted scenes.

This rule is very important when we are painting a sunny scene with wide dynamic range between the shadow and the light areas. In all cases we need to determine, before we start painting, the threshold values of each main color of the painting that will separate the "light family of the colors" and the "shadow family of the same colors". For example, in digital painting we would first create the color notan. This abstract placement of black and white shapes can be replaced by painting masses of the basic dominant colors in the scene. Placing only colors of the shadows family and of the light family. By following the value contrast rule: laying down the large masses of color in such a way that the darkest color that "lives" in the light would never be darker that the lightest color that "lives" in the shadow family. Please see how the value range rule is applied in the gray scale example. I also carefully selected the purple colors in the shadow that were exactly the complementary color to the red and orange colors in the light.

The point is that no matter how intense a given color may seem in the light, is never darker than the lightest value of the same color in the shadow. Notice in the color sketch that the family of reds in the light are never darker than any of the reds in the shadow. In this sketch the purple values are all at or below the Value 140 in the HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) color model, regardless of the saturation.

City Sun. Digital painting made with Painter 11.