Ultamarine Blue
Cuallito
Craftmanship, and he said that he hated Ultramarine Blue becuase it
was too opaque and even worse , it really dulls the intensities of any
other color it's mixed with. I've always liked the hue of the color
(mixes neutraly), and I have noticed that it sort of does have these
flaws; it doesn't really 'jump' out at you like the cadmiums. It also
does get sort of muddy when mixed. I tried Cobalt Blue, it is more
brilliant, but it has a tendency to mix to green. Of course I always
buy the cheap generic brands, should I try some higher quality stuff?
If not, what do you recommend?
keith o'connor (tinmangallery.com
If you had read Turner you would have discovered that he excluded violet
from his pallet.
Like Richard you have learned the following:
They seek him here they seek him there those dammed ... they seek him
everywhere - that dammed illusive pimpernel.
I feel sorry for you so I will be kind to you and give you a clue: when
Titian was asked how he mixed his colours he said "with brains".
k
Cuallito <cual...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:300552a8.02111...@posting.google.com...
Sharr Truce
cual...@yahoo.com says...
>Hey guys. I just finished reading Dali's book, 50 Secrets of Magic
>Craftmanship, and he said that he hated Ultramarine Blue becuase it
>was too opaque and even worse , it really dulls the intensities of any
>other color it's mixed with.
I have a "formula" for painting skies.
I start at the top with ultramarine,
which transitions to cobalt then to
cerulean then to a lighter "tanned"
color at the horizon. Otherwise I use
ultramarine very rarely.
>Of course I always
>buy the cheap generic brands, should I try some higher quality stuff?
>If not, what do you recommend?
If you ever plan to 'grow' as a painter,
you should buy a few of the best quality
colors you can afford rather than a
full complement of cheap ones - IMO.
One thing ANY craftsman knows, painters
included, is that the finer your tools are
to begin with the fewer your problems
will be in execution.
Erik A. Mattila
> A quick answer -
>
> Don't use ultramarine with anything but white (a little or a lot, depending
> on the tint you want). Same for cobalt and cerulean blue.
>
> Use Pthalo blue as your mixing blue - with white, yellow, pthalo green,
> etc., you can get what you want. You can use ultramarine with white and raw
> umber to make a terrific gray that you can modulate through a lot of hues
> by adding more or less blue and white.
>
> You can, of course, use the other blues in some mixes, but it is more
> difficult and the above guidelines will get you through most situations.
I don't know, Dan. You can use Ultramarine and let it do its thing -
the challenge is to control it, of coure (bend it to the iron will of
the artist, eh?")
I'm just saying that because it is such a lovely color. I did a
painting of some Mexican fishermen hauling a hammerhead shark into their
"panga" (boat) several years ago, and I used all Ultramarine. I got a
very startling effect that I can't imagine getting with any other blue.
That was the effect of intense sunlight (which Baja is famous for) has
on your eyeballs. I think your irises shut down so tight that it's like
looking at the world through some sort of fancy tinted sunglasses.
Anyway, the Ultramarine caught that perfectly. Its defects became its
virtues.
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <300552a8.02111...@posting.google.com>,
> cual...@yahoo.com says...
>
>
>>Hey guys. I just finished reading Dali's book, 50 Secrets of Magic
>>Craftmanship, and he said that he hated Ultramarine Blue becuase it
>>was too opaque and even worse , it really dulls the intensities of any
>>other color it's mixed with.
>
>
> I have a "formula" for painting skies.
> I start at the top with ultramarine,
> which transitions to cobalt then to
> cerulean then to a lighter "tanned"
> color at the horizon. Otherwise I use
> ultramarine very rarely.
>
> >Of course I always
>
>>buy the cheap generic brands, should I try some higher quality stuff?
>>If not, what do you recommend?
>
>
> If you ever plan to 'grow' as a painter,
> you should buy a few of the best quality
> colors you can afford rather than a
> full complement of cheap ones - IMO.
Seems to me, Jack, that if you ever want to "grow" as a painter one
should resist painting skies by formula.
Erik
Sharr Truce
>Seems to me, Jack, that if you ever want to "grow" as a painter one
>should resist painting skies by formula.
I did NOT say it was my ONLY formula!
Everyone should do what works for them.
I find that for cloudless blue skies
the formula referred to serves me well,
and has for lo these many years.
As for "growing" as a painter, at my
age that is the very least of my worries.
SURVIVAL (longevity?) is my primary worry!
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <3DDBE9B1...@oco.net>, emat...@oco.net says...
>
>
>
>>Seems to me, Jack, that if you ever want to "grow" as a painter one
>>should resist painting skies by formula.
>
>
> I did NOT say it was my ONLY formula!
> Everyone should do what works for them.
> I find that for cloudless blue skies
> the formula referred to serves me well,
> and has for lo these many years.
Same difference. One, two or a thousand formulas is still painting by
formula. What about actually "seeing." You know, some days that storm
cloud is Davy's Grey, another it is pthalocyanine dropped down with a
neutral grey. It's all about "seeing," not studio tricks. Hark! is
that cadmium orange I see in those creosote bushes? You know what I mean.
> As for "growing" as a painter, at my
> age that is the very least of my worries.
> SURVIVAL (longevity?) is my primary worry!
You should hope that your last chortle will be rasped in a growth
scenario, right?
Erik
Andrew D
Fox) wrote:
>A quick answer -
>
>Don't use ultramarine with anything but white (a little or a lot, depending
>on the tint you want). Same for cobalt and cerulean blue.
Of course, it really depends what you're trying to achieve. I use French
ultramarine as my main shadow mixer. Mixed with Permanent Crimson (a
modern, lightfast substitute for Alizarin) it can make a very decent
purple and with a little yellow or yellow ochre it makes a subdued shadow
tone suitable for adding to local colours as a "greying agent". This works
well here in Western Australia where we have (I'm told) the bluest skies
in the world - so our shadows contain a lot of blue.
However, ultramarine makes an attrocious range of bright greens (it's good
for dull greens though) and will also never match the true colour of our
morning and evening skies so for those I use Cerulean as my starting
point.
Ultramarine mixed with burnt sienna makes a rich dark that can lean either
way depending on the ratio of each colour. Bring in a bit of crimson or
cadmium red to really add some 'zing'!
Andy D.
"I'm a great speller - but a hopless tpyist!"
Andrew D
Truce) wrote:
>In article <300552a8.02111...@posting.google.com>,
>cual...@yahoo.com says...
>
>>Hey guys. I just finished reading Dali's book, 50 Secrets of Magic
>>Craftmanship, and he said that he hated Ultramarine Blue becuase it
>>was too opaque and even worse , it really dulls the intensities of any
>>other color it's mixed with.
>
>I have a "formula" for painting skies.
>I start at the top with ultramarine,
>which transitions to cobalt then to
>cerulean then to a lighter "tanned"
>color at the horizon. Otherwise I use
>ultramarine very rarely.
Sounds like my skies - except I don't own any cobalt. I sometimes use a
little ultramarine at the top, especially if there's more sky than ground,
then work down through a pale cerulean and into a little yellow ochre. I
often modulate these with a little crimson if it's evening and almost
always lighten one side (the sun side) with a little white and cad yellow
if it is a strongly side-lit subject (and it often is) so that the sky
vignettes side to side and top to bottom.
> >Of course I always
>>buy the cheap generic brands, should I try some higher quality stuff?
>>If not, what do you recommend?
>If you ever plan to 'grow' as a painter,
>you should buy a few of the best quality
>colors you can afford rather than a
>full complement of cheap ones - IMO.
>One thing ANY craftsman knows, painters
>included, is that the finer your tools are
>to begin with the fewer your problems
>will be in execution.
I think it depends to some extent what stage you're at and what you hope
to achieve. If you want to be a realist painter and are still battling
with the fundamentals of perspective, composition and tonal relationships,
then the cheap colours probably aren't much of a hindrance. But if the
only thing that seems to be holding the artist back is colour and the
paint medium itself, then it might be time to invest in some "real"
paints.
Andrew D
>Sharr Truce wrote:
>> In article <3DDBE9B1...@oco.net>, emat...@oco.net says...
>>
>>
>>
>>>Seems to me, Jack, that if you ever want to "grow" as a painter one
>>>should resist painting skies by formula.
>>
>>
>> I did NOT say it was my ONLY formula!
>> Everyone should do what works for them.
>> I find that for cloudless blue skies
>> the formula referred to serves me well,
>> and has for lo these many years.
>
>Same difference. One, two or a thousand formulas is still painting by
>formula. What about actually "seeing." You know, some days that storm
>cloud is Davy's Grey, another it is pthalocyanine dropped down with a
>neutral grey. It's all about "seeing," not studio tricks. Hark! is
>that cadmium orange I see in those creosote bushes? You know what I mean.
I can't speak for Sharr Truce but I would say my method is a combination
of each. When I look at the cloud or the sky, I assess it in relation to
what could be regarded as my "standard colour" for that item. So yes, some
days the clouds have an incredible warmth and may be far from the standard
purply-grey I would use if painting a "standard" scene.
Our "standard" morning sky here is a variant of Cerulean. How much it
strays from Cerulean determines the actual colour used. I even made up a
colour chart using each of my palette colours. Each page has a base
colour, say ultramarine and a square of that colour mixed 50/50 with each
of the other colours then a square of each mixed colour mixed 50/50 with
white. It took about three hours to make and comes in handy when the
colour before me is indeterminate. Sometimes it's surprising which colour
mix gives the closest match.
But of course, if it's acceptable for some people to just drag a big swipe
of Crimson mixed with Viridian across a canvas and call it "Day at the
beach", I don't think Sharr's got too many problems using formulas when
they suit him.
Erik A. Mattila
> I agree with Erik about formulas in general - but if you want a good
> formula for impressionist-type skies, try mixing your cobalt with a little
> alizarin crimson for part of the sky. I remember doing this kind of sky
> when I first started painting, and your post jogged my memory very
> pleasantly.
I think just about everyone learns these kinds of formulas, which, in my
mind at least, has a direct influence on "seeing" itself. It's not too
different than the "schemata" that Gombrich wrote about in "Art and
Illusion" (is that the 'best' art book of all time? Sometimes I think
so.) Since we were talking about the "growth of the artist" here, I
think the resistance to formula is an important factor to the, shall we
say, the "liberation of vision." I mean, to start seeing what is
actually there, instead of what we are taught to see.
The visual impact of the urban sprawl in Southern California is so
perfectly reflected in Diebenkorn's "Ocean Park" painting, in my
opinion. I don't know if it would be necessary for the viewer to have
had a lot of experience looking at LA to make this match. But it hit me
the first time I ever saw these paintings. Of course the geometry was
important to make this connection, but I think Diebenkorn's colors is
the factor that make these paintings "landscapes," in that they
reinforce the geometry in a way that creates the sense of scale that is
readily apparent if you are standing on Mullholland Drive looking over
the city, looking down Western Avenue which bisects Los Angeles.
Thiebaud told me that Diebenkorn was obsessed with color, and would
apply layer after layer after layer to get it just right. I guess you
can think about color in two ways - one is "inside" and deals with the
colors and values of the painting itself, which has a certain grammar to
respond to to make the painting hold together. The other is "outside"
and deals with our experience of seeing the world - and it mediates
between vision and painting. It's rather obvious in the arena of
representational art -- less so with abstract painting, but nevertheless
there. Diebenkorn is a prime example.
So, in my mind, it has to do with ideology. I think we tend to regard
"seeing" as a given, a truth, and we are less aware that "seeing" is a
learned experience, and it has a lot of bias according to culture and
experience. The perfect example of this is formula painting. The
artist learns how to construct a representation that means "sky" for
example, and a broad range of others accept it and believe in it. We
have, then, a visual "language" that operates as a language with certain
rules that cannot be broken without creating a disturbance. But I'm
sure just about every artist has made great discoveries with "seeing"
that stretched the ideology of vision. The discovery of a color in
nature, for example, that is completely hidden because we have learned
to look at the world in a certain way.
Visual belief systems crop up all the time in the history of art.
Archaeologist uncovered a critique of a moasic Madonna that was
installed in Hagia Sophia in the 2nd Century, for example, that lauded
the mosaic as the ultimate in realism (even though it looks like a
cartoon to us). The Eastern Roman stated it was so 'real' that you
could sense life in the representation. What's strange about this is
that in Constainople at the time was a great collection of Roman
"ultra-realism" sculpture - those pieces we look at today and see
incredibly accurate representations of the human form. Another is a
long series of rock paintings in Baja, representing the work of the same
tribe over an 800 year period(a very rare occurance). The early
paintings are very realistic and betray 'in situ' work from the artist.
The later work betrays idealism, as if the 'model' for the painting is
the earlier work, reduced down to essential ideological elements. The
same thing can be seen in comparing the transition between Olmec,
Mije-Zoquean and Yucateca art. The Olmecs carved bas reliefs from live
models and a few hundred years later the Mayans used an exclusive
vocabulary of idealized form for their productions.
Oh, yes - back to Constainople. Art dealers would peddle their Icons of
Christ with the promise that the Savior actually posed for the painting.
Anyway, this is getting suspiciously close to philosophy. I'll leave it
at that.
Erik
Andrew D
[snip]
>So, in my mind, it has to do with ideology. I think we tend to regard
>"seeing" as a given, a truth, and we are less aware that "seeing" is a
>learned experience, and it has a lot of bias according to culture and
>experience. The perfect example of this is formula painting. The
>artist learns how to construct a representation that means "sky" for
>example, and a broad range of others accept it and believe in it. We
>have, then, a visual "language" that operates as a language with certain
>rules that cannot be broken without creating a disturbance. But I'm
>sure just about every artist has made great discoveries with "seeing"
>that stretched the ideology of vision. The discovery of a color in
>nature, for example, that is completely hidden because we have learned
>to look at the world in a certain way.
And in my view, the artist who can introduce this "discovered" colour into
their painting in such a way that the viewer simply accepts it as natural,
has achieved a great deal. But some artists insist on pushing this colour
so far beyond reality that few people could accept it was there in the
real world to start with.
As an example, our morning skies are quite often a very noticeable shade
of green. Tell that to some people, or even try to point it out when
they're faced with it, and they'll probably give you a wide berth in
future. But I paint skies with that shade of green quite often and people
recognise it as early morning. They may not even know why because they've
never thought of skies as green (and probably don't even notice the
green-ness of the sky in the painting anyway) they just know it looks
familiar. I believe it's these subtle little differences that separate
some realists from others.
Some artists will push that sky colour till it becomes almost a spectrum
green - and at this point I'd suggest the majority of the audience is
alienated and for what benefit? Just so the artist can prove they see
green where most people believe they see blue?
Erik A. Mattila
> x-no-archive: yes
> Dan Fox wrote:
>
>
>>"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>>
>>>>You can, of course, use the other blues in some mixes, but it is more
>>>>difficult and the above guidelines will get you through most
>>>>situations.
>>>
>>>I don't know, Dan. You can use Ultramarine and let it do its thing -
>>>the challenge is to control it, of coure (bend it to the iron will of
>>>the artist, eh?")
>>>
>>>I'm just saying that because it is such a lovely color. I did a
>>>painting of some Mexican fishermen hauling a hammerhead shark into their
>>>"panga" (boat) several years ago, and I used all Ultramarine. I got a
>>>very startling effect that I can't imagine getting with any other blue.
>>> That was the effect of intense sunlight (which Baja is famous for) has
>>>on your eyeballs. I think your irises shut down so tight that it's like
>>> looking at the world through some sort of fancy tinted sunglasses.
>>>Anyway, the Ultramarine caught that perfectly. Its defects became its
>>>virtues.
>>
>>intended to help a beginner get going with the easiest ways to handle the
>>colors. Controling these colors in other mixes takes a lot of practice and
>>experience, but is worth the effort.
>>
>>I know what you mean about the light in Baja - I was in Cabo San Lucas a
>>few years ago and got some great watercolors. Photos are tough for an
>>amateur photog like me, however, because of the difficulty in capturing the
>>intense light.
>>
>>--
>>Dan
>>http://www.danfoxart.com
>
>
> What hit me immediately when I landed on the west coast was the light.
> It got more brilliant as we travelled down the coast on the train. The
> train more or less follows Highway 1. Diebenkorn gives a glimpse
> of that wonderful light in his Ocean Park series. It blurs details
> and makes everything shimmer.
Innit? Cresencia and I were just driving around the fields here in the
Imperial Valley this morning, and I noticed that all the fields made
these perfect Diebenkorn triangles. He would have gone nuts here.
Erik
Andrew D
<pottedmeatproduct...@user-38ldtrh.dialup.mindspring.com>,
pottedme...@ix.netcom.com (dkra) wrote:
>x-no-archive: yes
>
[snip]
>We are taught that not only is the sky always blue, but shadows are always
>gray. However, like the sky, shadows are full of color. One night I saw
>yellow-pink incandescent streetlights casting shadows on gray pavement,
>and was astonished to see shadows of viridian green!)
This is similar to the phenomenon we experience when we stare at a red
light then when we close our eyes we see a green dot. Colours shift
according not only to the local colour and the colour of light shining on
them but also the surrounding colours. As our eyes search back and forth
between two adjacent colours, each colour is affected by its neighbour.
A similar thing occurs with dark/light contrasts where a dark surrounded
by light appears darker and vice versa. Another thing new artists need to
understand is that our eyes adjust according to where we're looking as our
iris opens and closes in response to varying light. This explains why we
can often see detail in the well-lit distance and in close shadowed areas
while a camera, with it's one aperture per shot often manages to properly
expose either light or shadowed areas - but not both. The printed photo
has even less range than the film and will often make the light and dark
contrasts even greater. And this is why inexperienced artists are well
advised to get out in front of their subject before they start relying too
heavily on photos as source material.