Colors have a way of playing off each other, creating energy and movement that grabs your attention. This is called simultaneous contrast—when two or more neighboring colors intensify each other, making them seem more vibrant and alive.
I’m looking at paintings for simultaneous contrast examples. Paintings that set colors one right next to the other, let colors dance and interact. From a distance you get the mix, but up close the colors vibrate, dance. Take a look at these red dominant paintings by Philip Guston. See how that obnoxious green recharges our eyes to be more aware of the red? Like green scrubs in surgery, this gives the eyes a break, so we don’t get too accustomed and become less aware of the red. Notice how often Guston uses the same green trick of green, often even in a similar location in the composition.
This painting by Chaim Soutine is regarded as one of the greatest portrait paintings of the early 20th century. If you were to say what was one of the greatest contemporary portraits of the 21st century, what painting would you choose, and why? Madeleine Castaing was an internationally renowned French interior designer, and a friend …
Take a class with SAL – anywhere! Recently I posted about The Language of Color, in which I relate pinking shears to pink, the color. Please allow me to clarify. According to WordHistories.net, the noun “pink” is first recorded in 1566, but not as the name for a color. “Pink” was the name for a flower, …
How Diebenkorn Abstracts the Figure Watch the diagonals: how they form shapes, intersect with each other, form pathways across and divide the canvas. See how he crops in close, balancing the positive and negative shapes to be equal in weight, colliding the diagonals with the edge of the canvas or paper, so the edge also …
Today’s post is from special guest star Anne Walker. Anne majored in Fine Arts with a focus in painting at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT in 1989. She started taking classes at the League a couple of years ago. I met her in Fran’s Giant Figures workshop in February 2020 (shortly before our classes went online). …
Simultaneous Contrast: Philip Guston’s Green
Colors have a way of playing off each other, creating energy and movement that grabs your attention. This is called simultaneous contrast—when two or more neighboring colors intensify each other, making them seem more vibrant and alive.
I’m looking at paintings for simultaneous contrast examples. Paintings that set colors one right next to the other, let colors dance and interact. From a distance you get the mix, but up close the colors vibrate, dance. Take a look at these red dominant paintings by Philip Guston. See how that obnoxious green recharges our eyes to be more aware of the red? Like green scrubs in surgery, this gives the eyes a break, so we don’t get too accustomed and become less aware of the red. Notice how often Guston uses the same green trick of green, often even in a similar location in the composition.
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Greatest portrait painting!
This painting by Chaim Soutine is regarded as one of the greatest portrait paintings of the early 20th century. If you were to say what was one of the greatest contemporary portraits of the 21st century, what painting would you choose, and why? Madeleine Castaing was an internationally renowned French interior designer, and a friend …
Origin of the word “Pink”
Take a class with SAL – anywhere! Recently I posted about The Language of Color, in which I relate pinking shears to pink, the color. Please allow me to clarify. According to WordHistories.net, the noun “pink” is first recorded in 1566, but not as the name for a color. “Pink” was the name for a flower, …
Diebenkorn’s Figures
How Diebenkorn Abstracts the Figure Watch the diagonals: how they form shapes, intersect with each other, form pathways across and divide the canvas. See how he crops in close, balancing the positive and negative shapes to be equal in weight, colliding the diagonals with the edge of the canvas or paper, so the edge also …
Postcard from Cezanne’s show at MoMA
Today’s post is from special guest star Anne Walker. Anne majored in Fine Arts with a focus in painting at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT in 1989. She started taking classes at the League a couple of years ago. I met her in Fran’s Giant Figures workshop in February 2020 (shortly before our classes went online). …