Color Study Classroom

What is color?

Human beings can distinguish about ten million variations within the visible light spectrum. When our eyes see the whole range of visible light together, they read it as "white." When some of the wavelengths are missing, they see it as "colored." But colors don't really exist, except that our minds create them as an interpretation of vibrations that are happening around us. Everything in the universe is shimmering and vibrating and constantly changing. Every substance in the universe absorbs or reflects light.

From Color: A Natural History of the Palette, by Victoria Finlay

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.
  

Tonal Paintings

The next stage, after closed grisaille, was adding tonal variations to the painting. We were encouraged to stick with just three tones; light, medium and dark.

The painting on the top is my first attempt. The one on the bottom is my final tonal painting before we moved on to color studies. It's one where I felt that something was "happening," where the concepts I was learning were starting to come together.

Reading Terminal Pastries

I write here as though I love painting, which is funny, because I also sort of hate it. Not hate exactly, but it is so frustrating. In good moments I love the challenge of problem solving, but other times I don't. Wandering and looking freely at shapes and colors and people and things at the end of a day of painting helped bring me back to balance.

Reading Terminal

As if it weren't heaven enough to be painting all day, the studio was a ten minute walk from Reading Terminal. I loved my daily routine: ride the trolley, stop by Reading Terminal for a cup of tea, walk to the studio, paint, lunch at Reading Terminal, paint, snack at Reading Terminal, wander the streets, trolley home.

Lea

I told Lea that I was frustrated because I could understand what she was teaching us, and I could see it when she was doing it, but when I went to paint, I couldn't do it myself (which brought to mind this post).

She told me this, that really helped, "Awareness comes before ability."

Lea and Steve

The instructors at Studio Incamminati are amazing, not only for their talent and knowledge, but for their generosity. It's no secret that the art world can be heavy with ego and mystery. The instructors there make painting seem possible.

Lea Wight and Stephen Early were the primary instructors for the workshop. Here they're seen doing a two hour portrait demo. Lea's work, in the early stage, is in the middle, and Steve's sample, further along, is at the bottom.

One of the things I appreciated about the workshop is that they do a lot of demos. Often, demos were with two or three instructors a time, so you can see the variation in approach, though the principles used are the same.

Blue Glass, Pink House

The other thing that made this trip possible was my grandparents. I'd received some money from the sale of my grandmother's house. It arrived in perfect time to catch the free fall.

It was more than the money, though, that made this journey possible. It was here at the Pink House that I started to notice something mysterious, or that something that previously seemed mysterious was starting to become real.

When I walked into St. Mary's in Maine, I was in awe of the blue glass. I took an enormous chance driving across the country to a rental I found on the internet. It was scary, but as soon as I entered and saw the blue glass, it reminded me of my grandmother, and I felt safe. And here, in Philadelphia, again to an apartment I'd never been to in a neighborhood I'd never heard of...blue glass.

I never knew my grandmother well. I loved her New Jersey accent, homemade canned peaches, and the holly that grew outside her kitchen window. She had four kids and a red and white checkered cloth on her kitchen table. Perfectly content being at home, a grandma, no great dreams of travel.

But wait, how would I know? Do our outer worlds always reflect our inner worlds? Grandma, is this a trip you always wanted to take? Is the blue glass leading the way?

Barrel Chest

It's amazing how much you can't see unless you step away. The painting at the top is the initial open grisaille completed before a break. When I returned to the canvas after 10 minutes, I could see immediately that the painting had a barrel chest that the model didn't have. I slimmed my painting down, and began the closed grisaille stage.

On the bottom right of the canvas you can see the color samples for the closed grisaille. I found it challenging to mix a color that is not too orange or pasty white.

Closed Grisaille

In closed grisaille, you add a color where there is light (thus closing the grisaille). I'd never painted the figure in oils before, and found myself welling with excitement at this stage.

Green Lanterns, Chinatown

In the Spring, in the height of the falling apart, I had a dream. In the dream, I jumped onto a small boat that was cruising along at a smooth but high speed toward a meditation retreat. I was in a deep state of bliss, my bare feet gliding over the turquoise green water.

Every now and again I would jolt awake, flooded with fear. "I have no shoes! I didn't pack any bags! I have no money! I don't know where I'm going!" But the bliss would overtake, and I'd fall back into the dream.

I found myself on a tuk-tuk, riding through the streets of an Asian city, moving at the same smooth but high speed. There were bicycles swerving all around. Someone who loved me, found me. His hands grasped hold of the back of the tuk-tuk and he trotted along at the same pace. Then the bicycles turned into Nascar race cars, we began to move at top speed, he fell behind. I found myself alone, on a city bus.

At a smooth but high speed, in a deep state of bliss, alone on a city bus. I didn't know where I was going, when I was getting off. Moving through tunnels, past tall buildings and city lights. I sprang up and turned quickly when I saw through the window a stone statue of the Virgin of Juquila from Oaxaca . "How could she be here, no one knows her here!", I thought. But by the time I turned my head to double check, we were too far along, and she was already gone.

I fell back into the boat, my bare feet gliding over the turquoise green water. At a smooth but high speed, in a deep state of bliss. We passed stone Buddhas and Egyptian statues rising out of the water, silently calling, "This way" and "Yes." We arrived at an ancient hotel on a small island. The other passengers were unloading their luggage. Heavy suitcases, bolsters, meditation cushions, eye pillows, and those circular things that go around your neck.

I jolted awake, flooded with fear. "I have no shoes! I didn't pack any bags! I have no money!" I didn't know where I was going. I just went.

White Sculpture, Blue Van

I fell in love with reflections on this trip. My cell phone camera pointed out how much you can see inside them, I hadn't really noticed before. I love how they capture two worlds that exist at once.

As we walk along, we think of ourselves as the Universe, seeing all there is to be seen. These photos ask, "Who is doing the Seeing? Who is being seen?"

Chinatown

After class I loved to wander through Philly's neighborhoods, until the sun would tilt in the sky and it was time to catch the trolley home. Studio Incamminati is near Chinatown. There was record breaking heat during my stay. I wandered slowly. When the heat slowed me down, I noticed more of what was going on around me.

Shadow and Markers

On my walk toward the trolley stop after the first day of class, I noticed the shadow on City Hall of the Marriot, where I stayed last summer. High above I could see my beloved caryatids that were eye level back then. The bottom photos are of tape markers on the floor that help painters return their easels to the correct spot after a break.

Writing feels creaky these days. Post graduate school, I find the words stack like concrete blocks, instead of flowing like waves. "My attendance at Studio Incamminati enabled me to engage in a meaningful occupation," I start to say.

Is it okay to say that I loved it, and it was really really great?

"Yes," says the Muse, "It is safe to dance on your own page..."

Open Grisaille

Art, which has always been squeezed in between making money and doing dishes, adored being attended to during the day. For two weeks, I painted from 9-4. I painted in the morning, talked to painters about painting during breaks, and returned again to painting in the afternoon. At the end of the day, I had an end of the day, not an exhausted post-work self filled with guilty thoughts about why I don't paint.

Grisaille means "grey," It's a painting of tones ranging from dark to light. In the grisaille stage you use straight lines, because lines and angles allow for room to move, and adjustments can be made. In contrast, circles, such as making the head a circular shape, are complete. And then you are sort of stuck with it.

In this stage you get the whole figure in quickly, its fundamental essence, slant, and weight.

Pink House

One of the great discoveries that made this trip possible, and even more fabulous than expected, was airbnb.com. I found it just before my trip began. You can rent a couch, a room, a studio, or an entire house. If you have an extended stay you can often get a discount. I loved being able to stay in neighborhoods I never would have known about. I felt like a local and didn't have to suffer continental breakfasts at hotels across the country.

I stayed at the "Pink House" in West Philadelphia, and rode the trolley to the Studio. The last picture was taken during my daily commute, the one above it is Milk & Honey, where I bought groceries, down the street from the Pink House and across from the trolley stop.

Studio Incamminati

I discovered Studio Incamminati in the summer of 2009, when I took Sherrie McGraw's workshop. I'd never heard of it before and was in awe when I walked in. It was what I'd been longing for as an artist; huge studios, lots of light, well organized, great instructors, and professional models. I was impressed with the quality of the student's work on the walls. I knew I had to get myself back there somehow.

This is the first day, we began with gestures. Mine is the one in the middle.

About gesture, the instructors said, "Exaggerate the gesture in the beginning, because it will mellow as time goes on," and, "Art expresses emotion, get that feeling in the initial stage."

Philadelphia

Years ago, I made a small box in a silversmithing class that illustrated a Sufi tale called "Fatima, the Spinner, and the Tent". Inside the box, I put a tiny treasure chest to represent the riches bestowed upon Fatima at the end of the story. I went to a local gem shop and bought a tiny diamond, sapphire, emerald, ruby, and piece of gold. They were each the size of a pinhead, and all the jewels together cost less than $20. They were small, but they were real.

It turned out that Fatima's journey, looking in each moment like never ending struggle and disaster, was ultimately leading to her own true happiness.

In the summer of 2010, with everything falling apart around me, I reached out to create my own tiny treasure chest of things I'd always longed to be. Small, but real. I longed to live on the coast of Maine, my days formed by the rhythm of nature, and I wondered what it would be like to truly have time to write.

In Philadelphia, I wondered what it would be like to spend my days as a painter...

Above, John Hancock, poised to make his freedom declaring, no apologies signature, inspired me as I strolled past Independence Hall. He with his feather and parchment, me in the glow of my laptop.