Today is the darkest day of the year, made extra dark this year by the pandemic. The good news is that from this day on, the days get brighter. I’ll hold my breath on the other.
Today’s post has a collection of low light and nocturne paintings by Sangram Majumdar, one of my favorite painters.
Look for the compression
As light decreases, so does color perception. In low light, the range of values compress into the lower range. The colors compress as well. The colors in a low light situation aren’t just dark, they’re dim. Notice how sometimes Majumdar darkens the values and dims the color, then uses pops of color to represent moments of illumination. Whenever there’s a pop of color, look to see what’s around it to see why that color is so brilliant. Cover that color pop with your finger, and see how much value and color contrast is in the rest of the painting. What percentage of the painting is bright, and what percentage is dark or dim?
Majumdar’s suggestion to painters: try replacing white with color.
[image_with_animation image_url=”5970″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Sunrise looks like sunset, with this much smoke in the air. Yesterday every smoke alarm in my building was wailing, and my phone, no longer under my control, said “fah-yer. fah-yer.fah-yer.fah-yer.” The view outside was orange and hazy, and for a short childish moment, I thought the entire world …
Between 1914 and 1917, Matisse made a series of 69 monotypes, the only monotypes of his career. Matisse created his black-and-white monotypes by covering a copper plate with black ink and then lightly and swiftly scratching into the pigment with a tool, so that the linework emerged through the dark ink ground. To transfer the …
Kathy Paul was a student in my figure drawing class when a sequence of strokes in her optic nerves left her almost completely blind. She has been drawing nearly every day since. In her multi year work of rehabilitation, Paul has produced a series of extraordinary drawings that call attention to the experience of sight …
[image_with_animation image_url=”10498″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Martha Soriano Here are some figure paintings from our recent Friday night session. We played with light and shadow colors, and simplification of forms. It’s incredibly enjoyable to hang out with people and make stuff. I think I might have the best job in the world. Friday night, I hang …
Majumdar’s Nocturnes
Today is the darkest day of the year, made extra dark this year by the pandemic. The good news is that from this day on, the days get brighter. I’ll hold my breath on the other.
Today’s post has a collection of low light and nocturne paintings by Sangram Majumdar, one of my favorite painters.
Look for the compression
As light decreases, so does color perception. In low light, the range of values compress into the lower range. The colors compress as well. The colors in a low light situation aren’t just dark, they’re dim. Notice how sometimes Majumdar darkens the values and dims the color, then uses pops of color to represent moments of illumination. Whenever there’s a pop of color, look to see what’s around it to see why that color is so brilliant. Cover that color pop with your finger, and see how much value and color contrast is in the rest of the painting. What percentage of the painting is bright, and what percentage is dark or dim?
Majumdar’s suggestion to painters: try replacing white with color.
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[image_with_animation image_url=”5970″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Sunrise looks like sunset, with this much smoke in the air. Yesterday every smoke alarm in my building was wailing, and my phone, no longer under my control, said “fah-yer. fah-yer.fah-yer.fah-yer.” The view outside was orange and hazy, and for a short childish moment, I thought the entire world …
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Between 1914 and 1917, Matisse made a series of 69 monotypes, the only monotypes of his career. Matisse created his black-and-white monotypes by covering a copper plate with black ink and then lightly and swiftly scratching into the pigment with a tool, so that the linework emerged through the dark ink ground. To transfer the …
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