Ron Francis journey in colour

Abstraction

This is one for geeks probably in terms of thinking about colour. It's a chronological journey in terms of his thinking about colour. Because it's 30 minutes, to get a feel for it, you might want to pick it up at 5:10 where he talks about the luminousity in the room; or 8:25 with the boy on the roof. The children with the crocodile also fascinating.

I do love his paintings - if you google his name and paintings you'll get a feel for his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk_P_av0Meg&t=1025s

toujours

Will watch tomorrow.  Have vertigo now from viewing the image!!

tassieguy

I love this. It's so Sydney eastern suburbs. But it could be any of the urban areas on the NSW coast. He's used photography, as the lean on the pole at left indicates, but it doesn't seem to matter. It's a great painting. But I guess he could have deliberately made that pole lean as a device to center the eye on the boy and the long slide down to the sea. Who knows?

tassieguy

I just watched the video. @Abstraction.  I no longer have any qualms at all about using photography as an aid and I'll feel no guilt at all about using all the image editing power I have at my disposal. But I'll still use my colour checker and make colour notes on site on scraps of canvas. That will always be the starting point for me re the colour in my landscapes.  But I can tweak it in my image editor. And, for composition, well,  why wouldn't you use an image editor along with your photos and thumbnail sketches to get it to look how you want it? If the old masters could use the camera obscura then I can use the camera. If they had had modern cameras they would have used them. Purists be damned. I get angrier every time I read their pompous, self righteous, elitist crap.

I'm so glad you posted a link to the video, @Abstraction. 

Richard_P

Interesting. As he constructs complicated scenes he needs these colour models to create the lighting effects he needs. So far I've painted from photos, so don't need this. Some of the things he's describing are what a 3D renderer needs to do with the light ray calculations.

I agree with Rob. I've seen it argued that it wasn't until the invention (and use) of lenses that paintings could show tremendous detail in all areas. Great old masters also commonly used cartoons to transfer images, grid systems and other such techniques.

Image editing on computer and the ability to zoom in on a digital photo is an invaluable tool.

allforChrist

Wow!!  incredible inner feeling that this one evokes.

Abstraction

allforChrist said:

Wow!!  incredible inner feeling that this one evokes.

I just so relate to that feeling in my childhood.

Weekend so I found a higher-res image above.

Abstraction

@tassieguy @Richard_P Agree - it's well-established that artists used whatever they could. They still had amazing skills. One of the arguments is that we should develop our drawing skills. Fine, but that isn't an either/ or proposition. And I sometimes get to paint on a good weekend and have only produced on average an original painting every 2-3 years.

My teacher never sketched (because of the method) but taught me to use things like black glass, mirror, upside-down, and a polarised lens scope - can't recall what it was called. Have you ever seen it? Brilliant. 2 polarised lenses like a short telescope in some PVC pipe. As you turn the front lens around it builds contrast until, of course, everything goes black because the invisible vertical black lines on both polarised lenses are aligned. At some point as you turn it before it goes black, you look at your painting and the source, it shows you clearly whether you have the values correct because it simplifies it. Simple to make. I have an illustration in a book if anyone is curious. I'm not at home this week though.

Richard_P

That sounds interesting Abstraction!

When you learn about artists like Constable and Rembrandt you find out that they often did compositional sketches and then smaller (but still large) full colour paintings ahead of their final piece. This must have taken many hours to do. Well, when I use the computer to alter an image for use as a source photo it also takes many hours, trying different things, improving lighting, colours, compositional changes, etc.. It's just a modern way of doing the same kind of process

tassieguy

Richard_P said:

... when I use the computer to alter an image for use as a source photo it also takes many hours, trying different things, improving lighting, colours, compositional changes, etc.. It's just a modern way of doing the same kind of process

Exactly.