Color theory tutorial

Color theory tutorial

Intro

It's safe to say that art and colors go hand in hand, and obviously art wouldn't be the same without all those wonderful colors. And colors it what this tutorial is all about. Even though color theory can be a lifetime study the basics are actually quite easy to learn, so lets get going and dive right into the matter at hand.

Color System Basics

You might have heard of RGB which is used to display colors on computer screens such as the one you are looking at right now. RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue and depending on how they are 'mixed' they display all the different colors on your computer screen. You might have heard of CMYK also which is used for color printing processes. But for now we will focus on the traditional basic colors which are red, yellow and blue. With these three basic colors you can create any color you desire.

Info: Before we continue here are some facts about the color wheel. The color wheel shown below is a classic RYB (red, yellow, blue) color wheel. It consists of a primary, secondary and tertiary part. Colors on the opposite sides of each other in the outer circle are called complementary colors. Mixing these creates what are called neutrals as they 'cancel' each other out.

The Wheel Construction

You have most likely come across a color wheel before. There are many versions of the wheel but they all serve the same purpose which is to show us what colors we get by mixing the three basic colors. Take a look at the picture below. In the center we have a triangle containing the three basic colors (red, yellow, blue). Mixing these we get to the colors of the secondary part; the hexagon. Continuing we get to the colors of the outer circle, the tertiary part.

How To Use The Color Wheel

Here is an example of how it works: By mixing the pure red and pure blue (shown in the inner triangle) say 50/50, you get the purple color shown at 6 o'clock in the outer circle. By mixing these two with a little more red than blue, the red becomes more dominant and you will end up with the color shown at 5 o'clock. If you make the blue more dominant than the red, you will end up with a color close to the one shown at 7 o'clock. The same principle applies when mixing red and yellow, or blue and yellow.

Once you have mixed your desired color you can then add black or white (or any color you wish) to make the color darker or lighter. For example, if you add a little black to an orange color it will get brownish, and if you add some white to a red color you'll end up with a pinkish color. A word of advise regarding the use of black; be careful with it if you wish to create a darkish color. Black is very dominant, and you might end up with a 'dead' color if you overdo it.

A Few More Words

As you can probably imagine the amount of different colors you can make is almost infinite. I suggest that you start experimenting with some inexpensive artists colors to get a more practical sense of how it works.

Wait, there's more!

If you wish to know even more about color theory you can visit wikipedia and read their color theory article, but before we end this art tutorial I have supplied a link to a high quality color wheel free for you to print and use. Download the color wheel right here.

Enjoy!

Drawing is Seeing

Drawing is Seeing

Intro

In my early teens (that's quite a few years ago if you have to ask) back when I took my first steps into the wonderful world of art, I had in my possession a danish art book with a title going something like this: "Drawing is Seeing". Being young and impatient I never quite understood the essence of what the title was trying to pass along. Had I only read the book rather than just looking at the drawings inside, and had I only understood what the author was trying to tell me, I might have been a more skilled artist today. Later it turned out not to be such a mystery as I (wisened by age) realized what the book was actually trying to teach me. Ironically, given it's title, it never opened my eyes back then, a mistake that needn't be repeated by hopeful new artists. I therefore strongly recommend that you read this short tutorial as it contains one of the most important elements of being a serious and ambitious artist.

Picture It

Take a look at the picture of the young girl on the right. In just a fraction of a second your mind will process and interpret the information of the picture. After just glancing at it you could most likely point out and recognize the face in the picture amongst thousands of other faces with ease. All by memory. That's because your mind has processed countless of different faces throughout your life and is trained and able to distinguish between each and every one of them.

So having done this many times before you've become naturally more skilled at doing it. Here is the problem. The human mind is lazy. It takes shortcuts, ignores heaps of details and remembers only what is necessary. If you wish to recreate a face (or anything else) using nothing but pencils and paper you have to reverse things.

Reverse It

Here is an example. If you're looking at a face the interpretation of that particular face ha

Art and Proportions

Art and Proportions

 

Intro

Most artists gather their own unique experiences as they go along and improve their skills. They discover neat little tricks and techniques on their own, often keeping these little discoveries to themselves. But since sharing is the big thing nowadays I thought I'd share a little discovery of my own rather than being oh-so secretive. It ain't nothing grand or fancy it's just a neat little trick you can add to your own bag of tricks. Let's move on with a simple analogy.

Acclimation And Proportion

We have all experienced travelling at fairly high speed by car (or by train or plane etc) and know how the feeling of moving fast slowly fades as time passes. The scientific term for what is happening is acclimation. When working on a painting or drawing over lengthy periods of time without any breaks, we experience something similar. Now, we can't change how our brains function but we can do a little mindbending and speed up our working process.

The Forgiving Eyes

When an artist works for many hours on a specific drawing or painting without taking any breaks his mind starts to dwell on things. He slowly builds up a tolerance for the piece he is working on, a kind of blindness for proportions, symmetrics, and shapes. His eyes get increasingly uncritical the more time passes. Most artists solve this by leaving the work for a while returning later with a less clouded view on their work. After a nice break flaws and errors will stand out more clearly. But how can we go about eliminating this tolerance without taking any breaks and thus become more productive by wasting less time on breaks?

A Simple Solution

The solution is actually deviously simple. All we have to do is to mirror our art work in any way we can and take a good hard look at it. Try working on a drawing or painting for some hours then mirror it and you'll see just how powerful this little trick is. With your art piece mirrored all flaws and errors will stand out disturbingly clear. So instead of taking hour long breaks wasting valuable time simply mirror your work, and almost instantly you will know what needs to be worked on.

Wait, there's more!

To end this tutorial I've made a short list of some ways to mirror your work. There are likely more ways to do it so just find one that works well for you.

Here they are:

• Flip over your art piece and hold it up against a strong lightsource and look through it (works only with fairly thin paper)
• Scan/photograph your art and open in your preferred graphics application and mirror it
• Hold up your piece infront of a mirror

That's basically it. Thanks for reading and happy mirroring!

Perspective Drawing

Perspective Drawing

Intro

Anyone can learn the basics of perspective drawing, and with the few simple rules described in this art tutorial you'll become able to add the power of perspective to your own art. If you've ever read a Spiderman comic (or any other comic with an urban setting) you should be quite familiar with perspective drawings of tall skyscrapers reaching for the clouds above, or Spidey standing on a rooftop looking down at the disappearing streets below. Typical comic book scenes like those all take advantage of the rules of perspective drawing, and it's stuff like that we will have a closer look at in this beginners art tutorial. With that in place let's move on!

1-Point Perspective Drawing

Lets start with a simple 1-point perspective illustration. Imagine you're looking down a street with buildings on each side. Notice how, by using only a few nifty techniques, a basic single point perspective adds a great sense of depth to an otherwise plain illustration. The horizontal black line at the bottom is called the horizon and the dot in the center is the vanishing point where all the lines adding depth converge. The eye level in this illustration is close to the ground but could easily be placed up higher if we wanted. That's 1-point perspective. Lets move on and have a look at a 2-point perspective illustration.

2-Point Perspective Drawing

Again we're placed at ground level (our eye level). This time we're looking at a single building rise above us. As you can see we now have 2 vanishing points. All the vertical lines of the skyscraper eventually meet at the same point located above the building. That's vanishing point 1. The lines giving the building a sense of depth all meet at vanishing point 2. That's 2-point perspective. Lets move on to the final part where we'll add one more perspective to our building.

3-Point Perspective Drawing

Here we're looking at our building from above. The vertical lines all meet at the same single point below. The lines of the rooftop continue in two different directions where the lines will eventually converge far beyond the boundries of our illustration. That's 3-point perspective.

A Few More Words

There you go. The basics of perspective drawing. Naturally things will become far more complicated as you add more buildings and details, and even more so if you add buildings and objects oriented differently than the others. But I suggest you start out with these basic setups and then move on to more complex scenery adding more buildings and details, and when you're ready and have the basics nailed you can step up your game making entire cityscapes or scenery with similar complexity.

The Golden Ratio

The Golden Ratio

Intro

Ever since its discovery the golden ratio has been subject of debate and pondering amongst both artists, philosophers and mathematicians. The golden rule of proportion seems to supply us with an almost perfect principle of balance in both a mechanical and aestethic sense. We will not deal with the technical and mathematical matters of the rule in this art tutorial but just for the sake of it we can describe it by the formula given below:

B/A is equal to A+B/B (same deal with B related to C)

Note: B and A (and C) represent lengths (see illustration below).

It's Everywhere

The golden ratio can be found in the construction of many buildings such as the great pyramids, in geometrical shapes, in music, fine art, various places in nature and even the human DNA seems to have been constructed with this rule in mind. It's quite a mystery really and if you feel like digging deeper into this enigmatic rule a link is provided at the end of this tutorial. But lets move on.

An Example

Take a look at the arm below divided into three parts; the upper arm, lower arm and the hand. Notice how the upper arm is a bit longer than the lower arm, and the lower arm is a bit longer than the stretched hand. Now, take a close look at the little finger of the hand. As you can see the three parts of the finger are divided in the same manner as the entire arm. The same rule also applies to the human head, the legs and many other parts of the human body.

Vitruvian Man Example

For the sake of another example I took the liberty to use Mr. da Vincis excellent Vitruvian Man and edited him a bit. I hope he doesn't roll over in his grave. Now, as you can see in the picture below the golden ratio applies to the entire body as well, where:

A = Head/Neck
B = Body
C = Legs

Again, if we look at a single leg it would then be divided like this:

A = Thigh
B = Lower Leg
C = Stretched Foot

Please bear in mind that it is not absolutely necessary for you to understand all the mathematical details of the golden ratio. Just make sure you understand it well enough to use it to your own drawings and paintings.

How can I use it in my art?

The golden ratio is an excellent tool for getting the right proportions drawn. The only requirement is that you have this rule in the back of your mind when you draw or paint. And when you have it worked in real good you can even start bending the rules of proportion and get some interesting results.

Wait, there's more!

Art Composition

Art Composition

Intro

Composition is all about placing the elements of a painting (or drawing) where they deliver most impact, and adds to the balance of the art work. If you have ever studied the art works of the masters you might have noticed how they have an almost calming effect, even though they can be quite complex and extremely detailed. This is because the artist has taken great care in placing the various elements of the painting in the right places. The important elements are usually placed where they create balance and communicates most efficiently across to the beholder.

TIP 1:

Remember this when starting on a new piece; place the important elements of your work where they are most pleasing to the eye and in a way where your piece communicates it's message most efficiently across to your audience. A poor composition can ruin an otherwise good painting and a less good painting can become good with a proper composition. In other words; remember it.

Good composition can be accomplished in many ways, and one of those is to conform to the rule of thirds. By dividing your piece into nine equally sized rectangles or squares and placing key elements on, or close to some of the focal points and along the lines, you can create a much more eye-pleasing piece of art. The four spots where the lines meet are called focal points where the upper and lower right spots are the most important. The reason for this is that most of us were taught to read from left to right and so it is the most natural way for us to look at an image also. We start from the left and work our way towards the right. Study the composition below and memorize it.

More Composition Styles

There are many other ways to compose an art piece; the L-Composition, the Iconic composition, and the Cross composition just to name a few. They each have their own strenghts in communicating to an audience. Look at the illustrations of the three different compositions styles below. By placing important elements on top of or along the lines, or directly on the focal points you can create a more powerful work of art.

Returning shortly to the rule of thirds it is important to mention that the focal points do not necessarily need to be covered by solid objects. For instance, if you wish your piece to be spacious you can easily let the area surrounding some of the focal points have alot of space. Also, you should avoid having more than one important focal point in your paintings. If you don't the different focal points will compete with eachother over the viewers attention and become confusing rather than solidify your art work.

TIP 2:

Try to compose your work in a way where the beholder ends up looking at the most important element/s of your painting. This can be done by leading the viewer using objects, lines and colors etcetera. Just make sure the leading is not too obvious. Think of your painting as a maze where the exit is your most important focal point.

A Few More Words

That's pretty much basic art composition. Please bare in mind that this short tutorial is only the first few steps into the world of art composition and a reminder that composition in art can make or break your hard work. Solid composition can make a mediocre piece look good, and a good one look great. Once you are comfortable with the basics you can even combine different styles of composition but that takes a little more practice to master. The possibilities are pretty much endless.

Wait, there's more!

Before the final punctuation of this art tutorial, I want to share a link to one of the best in-depth composition tutorials the web has to offer (well atleast in my own humble opinion).



Enjoy!

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

This blog is meant for art learners who seek free knowledge of art, I hope they can gain something from this blog.