Color Study

Ja Fang Lu, another one of our instructors, demonstrates a color study. A color study is not a finished painting, it's an opportunity to see color as a relationship, and to deepen perception.

These are the steps for a color study, from Studio Incamminati:

• Consider a problem you want to explore
• Compose your color study so that you can make five to seven initial color statements
• Make a grisaille underpainting clearly differentiating what's lit and what's in shade.
• Make strong statements of color, maintaining the differentiation of what's lit and what's in shade.
• Use enough paint to make definite color statements.
• Make each statement a strong identifiable color.
• Cover the entire canvas, and make adjustments to individual color statements to relate to the whole.
• Keep scanning the entire set-up and the entire canvas to adjust colors. Try not to stare into a color, but instead look at colors around and next to it. Flick your eyes, blur your vision, and shake your head to see the color in relation to what's around it.
  
• Continue to make adjustments until no further adjustment suggests itself.
• Evaluate the color study by how well it conveys the sense and feeling of the set up.