More on flesh.
Well I’m back on those faces I discussed in an earlier post, ‘The importance of understanding what’s below the surface’. I’ve decided to experiment with rendering each using different palettes and consider how this affects their readings.
It can be a struggle as just when I think I have that perfect flesh colour on my pallete, I put it onto canvas and it looks like I’m painting a terracotta pot in a mass-produced Greek tourist painting, over saturated and way too orange!
It’s extremely interesting how much a colour needs to be neutralised/calmed down, before it actually looks realistic. If I told you the blue and not the flesh colour on my palette below left is the flesh on my painting below right I am sure you would find it hard to believe but its true. Paint is a magical and unpredictable substance that is effected by what's underneath it, next to on top of it and light reflected on it.
For those not into colour theory, what I mean by neutral is, for example, if I had a bright yellow that’s too bright but the right tone, what I could do is say, take a dab of purple, from the opposite side of the colour wheel and sure enough it will calm down. Add more purple and you reach the neutral midpoint when the colour is neither yellow nor purple before it then heads off into the purple zone. Another example terracotta red could be neutralised by a green/blue. If you are keen to know more look up Quiller, he explains it far better than I do. I have one of his books called Making Colour Sense out of Colour Theory, a really naff cover but don’t be put off there are some gems in there.
I am getting to grips with the fact that flesh in the broadest sense contains a yellow, red and black/blue. That doesn’t narrow the options significantly as there are so many versions of each colour but I am making a start.
There is a lot out there concerning colour palettes, one limited palette that artists use frequently is the Zorn palette, named after a Swedish artist, Anders Zorn (1860-1920). It is, titanium white, Ivory black, yellow ochre and vermillion (cadmium red in modern day) give or take a few controversial adjustments. I’m experimenting with this and it is incredible how many colours you can make from just four tubes.
I have only just started experimenting with Zorn and I’m sure some artists out there would shoot me down for saying this but, I already feel Zorn’s earthiness has limitations for me. Zorn was pre Technicolour film and most definitely pre High Dynamic Range (HDR) which gives us an expanded range of available colour (click if you are keen on a 5 min history of colour film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V0Vc5iRoLY ).
I often paint with filmic sources in mind, always taking screenshots of scenes in films that hit me emotionally with a pallet I would love to experiment with. If I wasn’t an artist, I would love to have been a cinematographer, a filmic painter manipulating lighting and composition to convey emotional state.
One experiment I’m dealing with now is how the colour of flesh changes dependent on the colour of the light. I am starting with painting flesh with a cold blue light cast on it. I have in mind two options:
I could just paint the colour I see ignoring the fact that it’s flesh or I could think like a cinematographer that takes the flesh as flesh and casts a blue light across it. Actually a painter can achieve a cast of blue light using a wash or glaze of transparent paint mixed with a medium, a bit like looking through a coloured acetate or rose tinted glasses.
So I decided to start with painting what I see, an opaque blocking in of the blue hues. To be honest it doesn’t seem to be that successful yet I appear to have produced some kind of blue skinned Avatar character.
On to my next experiment, starting with pale flesh I will glaze over with a transparent blue and see what happens. Somewhat embarrassing that I am taking my inspiration from the Twilight series but it’s the colour I’m looking at and seriously not an obsession with Robert Pattinson. No blue glaze yet but I’ll let you know how it goes. All these faces are work in progress I should just be focusing on how to paint realistic looking flesh as I haven’t even sorted that one out yet but hey ho.
Before I leave, a quick Cardiff covid update. The city is open, with yellow, Wizard of Oz, one way paths running clockwise up and down the streets. My favourite experience so far is sitting in, Cardiff Castle grounds. They are open and free, you can buy food/drink and just in case you weren’t sure about social distancing they have sprayed perfect circles all over the grass for you to sit inside.
