Sunday, August 2, 2009

simultaneous contrast/ Opal Light

9x9 pastel on Uart

There are two ideas that Richard preaches: 1. simultaneous contrast, and 2. value does the work, color gets the glory. I will begin with simultaneous contrast. First read the section from Richard's blog.
Basically put in my words, simultaneous contrast is the song of painting. It's about relationships. A color does not sing until it is put next to another color and it relates to it. A light yellow green might appear warm but next to a yellow orange it is now cool. That same light yellow green appears very light but when placed next to the white yellow of the sky it seems darker. (simultaneous contrast works in terms of light and dark too) In this painting look at the trees near the top right. Here, there is a play with warm and cool. I used the same value to create an opalesence/ light. Because of their relationships the colors sing.

4 comments:

blogger said...

really a good explanation

Donna T said...

Beautiful painting! I admire your ability to add other colors to make the greens less dominant. I thought about you yesterday as I was trying to paint the sea of green soybeans behind my house ... I need more simultaneous contrast!

loriann signori said...

Hi shail and thanks for checking out my blog!

Hi Donna! We live in a very challenging area... the greens DO dominate, since we normally see little sky. I hope your time with the soybeans was fruitful. Thanks for visiting my blog!

Jala Pfaff said...

Very wonderful. And thanks for sharing things from Richard.