by Dan Frenette BS (Art Education), MA
In this series of articles I have been covering information on how to make things look near and far. I have written about placement, overlapping and, diminishing size. In my last article I covered “placement” (meaning that things that are placed closer to the top of the page look further away and things close to the bottom look closer to the viewer). At the end of that article I asked you to put your drawing aside so we could use color on it next time. Well, the time has arrived to paint on that drawing! Please go back and review part 3 of this series if you missed it.
When using color it is wise to remember that colors have temperatures. Soom colors appear “cool” and some appear “warm”. As a real of thumb I like to think of red, yellow and orange as warm colors and blue, green, and purple as cool colors (though this is not a hard and fast rule). I suggest looking at a color wheel and just getting a feel for the warmness and coolness of colors (there is a book called A Book by artist Anselm Keifer which beautifully illustrates warm and cool colors using watercolor paint- unfortunately it is a bit hard to find). Next, using a simple inexpensive watercolor set and any white paper you may have try to make a few non-representational or “abstract” pictures using only cool (then warm) colors. This step serves as a chance to get a “feel” for the warmness and coolness of colors.
After completing a few “abstract” (I am using the term abstract in the broadest sense) paintings in both warm and cool you will be ready to paint your landscape(s). In your landscape painting try to keep the paint “loose” (using a lot of water and not painting precisely). Then later after it dries a bit you can add some detail. The main thing o remember is that you want the cool colors far away (toward the top of the page), and the warm colors near (close to the bottom of the page), and as always HAVE FUN!
Dan Frenette has over 20 years of experience teaching art to students aged 5 through 16. His main creating situations where children can experiment with and “play” with the ideas found in the elements of are and principles of design. See his lessons here: http://www.youtube.com/dandanart
In this series of articles I have been covering information on how to make things look near and far. I have written about placement, overlapping and, diminishing size. In my last article I covered “placement” (meaning that things that are placed closer to the top of the page look further away and things close to the bottom look closer to the viewer). At the end of that article I asked you to put your drawing aside so we could use color on it next time. Well, the time has arrived to paint on that drawing! Please go back and review part 3 of this series if you missed it.
When using color it is wise to remember that colors have temperatures. Soom colors appear “cool” and some appear “warm”. As a real of thumb I like to think of red, yellow and orange as warm colors and blue, green, and purple as cool colors (though this is not a hard and fast rule). I suggest looking at a color wheel and just getting a feel for the warmness and coolness of colors (there is a book called A Book by artist Anselm Keifer which beautifully illustrates warm and cool colors using watercolor paint- unfortunately it is a bit hard to find). Next, using a simple inexpensive watercolor set and any white paper you may have try to make a few non-representational or “abstract” pictures using only cool (then warm) colors. This step serves as a chance to get a “feel” for the warmness and coolness of colors.
After completing a few “abstract” (I am using the term abstract in the broadest sense) paintings in both warm and cool you will be ready to paint your landscape(s). In your landscape painting try to keep the paint “loose” (using a lot of water and not painting precisely). Then later after it dries a bit you can add some detail. The main thing o remember is that you want the cool colors far away (toward the top of the page), and the warm colors near (close to the bottom of the page), and as always HAVE FUN!
Dan Frenette has over 20 years of experience teaching art to students aged 5 through 16. His main creating situations where children can experiment with and “play” with the ideas found in the elements of are and principles of design. See his lessons here: http://www.youtube.com/dandanart
