September 2006 When White Isn't White — Flower Macro Class — Tutorial

[CharM]

I love white flowers! They look so pristine, sparkling in the summer's sun!

White flowers present the perfect challenge for discussing a little colour theory... and I LOVE colour theory...

An object that appears to be red or green (or any colour), will absorb ALL natrual spectrum colours EXCEPT red or green... those colours will be reflected back off the surface... Anyway, objects that appear to be white have absorbed all colours in the spectrum... Yes, they've absorbed all those colours! It's a very important concept...

So... why do we see those beautifully coloured shadows??

What you're seeing is reflected light... remember, there's even some amount of light in deep shadows, otherwise you'd see nothing...

Objects that appear to be white, will reflect colour from ALL the objects around them... in the case of florals, we'll see colour from the surrounding leaves, other flowers, the stamens, the SKY!

Michael Wilcox and Hilary Page have written books about colour and I recommend them... Nita Leland also has an excellent book that's worth it's weight in paint tubes...

So... what are we going to paint? I've chosen a rose, reference by Stephie and I've had saved in my folder of things to paint...



I selected this because of the complexity with the number of petals... but I just LOVED the light! Also, I really liked the pattern of shapes... there's a recurring set of triangles throughout the bloom that I really liked... As it is now, however, I felt that it needed some compositional changes to work as a painting...

I cropped it square and softened the background... I also increased the colour saturation to help you *see* the colour that's there...



Typically, any macro looks best when the flower's petals are touching three edges of your paper... it's just one of those *rules of thumb* to remember... rules are meant to be broken, of course, but for this exercise we'll take the traditional approach.

In my edited image, can you see the reflected colour? Look carefully... there are blues, reds, greens, yellows... and even a few neutrals...

I have taken the time to create a line drawing for you, if you'd like to follow along... If you wish to use it, download it and then resize it to fit your paper... Tracing is allowed for this... If I were painting a portrait, I'd draw it because of the importance in getting a likeness... just a mm *off* would change the way a person looks... but drawing a flower is a little tedious and exact likenesses are not paramount!

Of course, the theory can apply to ANY white flower, so if you'd prefer to paint something of your own choice, by all means draw it up!

Because we'll be working with high key colours, be careful to keep your pencil lines fairly light. I don't normally draw in the highlights or shadows... in this case, I HAVE included the stronger bits that I want to incorporate into the petals...



I'll be painting this on Arches rough, 140#, 14" square... In my next post, we'll begin talking about pallette choices and brushes.

Please post your questions and paintings in the Homework Thread for this class. Thanks, the Moderators

[CharM]

Ok... before I get to my pallette choices, I'll share a few more reference images... I love these too!

Droll13 - Poppy


Jaytee - Iris




Mustcreate - Mum


Olga - roses


Madmum - tulips

[CharM]

All the examples above can use the same techniques I'll be demonstrating... if there's something you like, look for the reflected light and colour in the petals... think about your composition...

For Stephie's rose, I have chosen to use:

Ultramarine Blue
Quinacridone Rose

UB + QR = mauve shadows

Burnt Sienna

BS + MS = Neutral shadows

Quinacridone Gold

Hookers Green OVER UB, QG, QR (never use tube green alone)

Napthol Red + Quin Gold = Stamen Shadows

Sepia
Burnt Umber

My brushes are all rounds, kolinsky #10 and #14, and sable mix #12 and #18.



So... where to begin??? I don't usually have a *set* place to start a macro... it's usually wherever the mood strikes me... This time, I plan to lay in some background washes in the upper left... they'll be wet-in-wet and allowed to bleed gently onto the petals...

[CharM]

Oh! I just noticed that I've got company!!! Oh, how wonderful!!! We'll have a blast... especially since there's already food! I've just brewed a rich pot of espresso coffee, too! Perfect!

Ady... I never have a *set* place to start... sometimes it helps to begin with the background... for a couple of reasons... your background will set the stage for your values... and it'll begin to eliminate the HUGE piece of white paper facing you... With this reference, I could also have started with the stamens...

Greg... White objects actually ABSORB all colours... They REFLECT colour from adjacent objects... What ever is reflected back, is the colour that we *see*... and, yes, that's what makes it soooo much fun!

I forgot... I always like to add a colour that's a little unexpected... in this case, I'll be placing a little pthalo blue here and there... just for spark!

Speaking of values... sometimes, it helps to convert your image to greyscale... this isn't always successful... for instance, red and green will actually appear to be the same value when in greyscale... However, it will benefit us this time...

[CharM]

At this stage, taking photographs is notoriously difficult... the dark background on the left really doesn't show up properly against all the white space still to be painted...

Anyway... Using very juicey colour, after wetting that corner and the adjacent petals, I allowed the background colours to bleed just a little onto the petals... then, I wiped them back with clean water on a thirsty brush and dabbed with a tissue... this creates a fairly soft edge, allowing the background to reflect off the edges.

In the background, are hookers green, quin gold, burnt umber and sepia.

I then began charging neutral blues and reds into those petals while they were still a little wet. When nearly dry, I swiped a few vein lines to help create form...





Frankly, it looks ugly right now... I know that in my heart of hearts, these petals needed to be shaded and neutral... if I were just beginning to learn watercolour, I'd chuck this right now... instead... I'll forge ahead... I know that the light is still ahead of me!

Bless your heart, Llalena... now you can begin awarding Merit/Mentor points to everyone you think is deserving!!! It means a lot!

Welcome aboard to our Newcomers... we have food, thanks to Kate... and tea and coffee already being served... With this group, I think I'd better go pop some double chocolate brownies into the oven!!!

[CharM]

It took me a long time to understand what was being absorbed and what was being reflected... As I mentioned earlier, it's really an important distinction...

White objects ABSORB all colours of the spectrum. Therefore, when you look at a white object, your eye is NOT processing any colour reflecting back from that object.

Include other objects of colour adjacent to the white object. It will now reflect back the colour from those objects off its own surface. Your eye will now process that reflected colour.

Black object REFLECT all colours of the spectrum. Those colours bounce off the object and your eye processes what it sees as subtractive colour... (this is a whole 'nuther topic, btw)... Combine your primaries and you'll get black...

Anyway, I had unexpected company this afternoon, so didn't progress very far with this... I have begun to work to the right outermost petals... since they are reflecting the blue sky, I've begun to *blue up* my neutrals...

[CharM]

I should have set this up as a Classroom, right from the getgo... I have now separated this thread into two parts...

This portion will house my tutorial information...

Please do not make comments here...

I have also set up a HOMEWORK THREAD and you can ask away, over there... If you've decided to join along, you can also post your *homework* in that thread...

[CharM]

Grainne shared the following, which can now be found in the Homework Thread... however, I felt that it was certainly worth repeating here in the Tutorial...

Originally Posted by CharM

It took me a long time to understand what was being absorbed and what was being reflected... As I mentioned earlier, it's really an important distinction...

White objects ABSORB all colours of the spectrum. Therefore, when you look at a white object, your eye is NOT processing any colour reflecting back from that object.

Char, I hope the following will be of interest and not too far off topic—

When I was working my way through university as an undergrad, my most interesting job was a year's stint giving lecture tours in an art museum. When one of the curators was training me, by walking me through the museum and informing me about some of the more significant pieces of art, we came upon a wonderful portrait of the patriarch Jacob weeping over the coat of his son Joseph, by an old Master (I can't remember which now).

It was a powerful piece, Rembrant-like chiaroscuro, showing only his tragic face, his shoulders, arms, and hands with the coat held up toward heaven as if asking "Why?" I was shocked when I realized that instead of a fabric of many-colored stripes, the coat was white! When I asked about it, he informed me that as wonderful artists as the old Masters were, they were not bible scholars. Apparently the original Hebrew words for "richly ornamented robe of white" was mistranslated as "many-colored," and because Ancient Egyptian paintings depicted people of power wearing stripes, Joseph got the stripes too.

Your explanation of white actually being the presence of all colors of the spectrum reminded me of that incident.

Somehow the idea of the absorption of the colors of the spectrum must have been bound up in the Hebrew word for white and was misunderstood.
So much for Joseph and his amazing technicolor dreamcoat

It would be interesting if any of you could authenticate the curator's explanation.

Grainne

Pampe replied, and the image is also worth sharing here...

was that this one...I love this piece

To which, Grainne replied

Oh Pam, I like this one too, but it is not the one. The one I remember was more close-up, with Jacob looking up (strongly heavenward) to the viewer's left, and there was much more angst and questioning in his face. But both coats are white, which means someone else got the translation right!

[CharM]

Working my way around the perimiter of the back petals, I also felt I needed the background in place to help visualize my values.

As I move around from left to right, my mixes become less *dirty*... that is, I do not add as much burnt sienna to the shadow mix... I also have begun to use a little ultramarine blue in very light washes on those petals.

To form the *roll* on the petal edges, I will charge a deeper value of my M.S. (mauve shadow mix) while the initial wash is still wet but not shiny...

I found it necessary to go back and strengthen a few minute shadow areas on the left.

The background was worked wet-in-wet, with hookers green, quin rose, burnt umber and a little sepia and a little quin gold. I've allowed the petals on the right to have crisper edges.

[CharM]

I don't like using masking fluid for highlights... it makes a very hard edge that's difficult to soften and blend into the petals... However, what I do use may seem a little extreme to you.

I have a metal craft knife with a VERY sharp blade... I carefully scratch my highlighted areas, along petal edges for example, to get to white paper. This does not damage or tear my paper... but I must caution that you have to take your time and do NOT exert a lot of pressure.





Now... I realized that my drawing had faded so badly that I could no longer see my lines... while redrawing the lower half of this composition, I decided to use masking on the stamens... both the light and dark bits... that way, I could paint the petal behind them. Because the stamens DO have hard edges, I decided to risk it...

I introduced a bit of warmth into my dirty red to shade the petals surrounding the stamens... and I've incorporated a little more pthalo... just using touches of this staining colour adds brightness to the petals... once again, I'm having a little trouble getting the camera to correctly report my colour... so I've tried to label my progress images...

[CharM]

I painted the sepal area with warm dirties... that is... burnt umber, a little green, sepia... I then washed my M.S. (mauve shadow colour) over much of the area to dirty it up a bit... Why? Because I wanted the next step, the reds and oranges to really stand out...

I removed the masking and painted the stamens and sepals... it's really quite random and certainly not exactly like the photo... but I like it!

I continued painting petals, introducing some green shadows along with a few warm areas close to the centre...





I'm beginning to like the way this is taking shape... and, it's beginning to look like a *white* rose... go figure...

[CharM]

Coming into the home stretch... I think it gets exciting when your composition begins to take shape...

The lower right hand detail with the background completed... Notice that the lower petals are lighter in value and cleaner in colour, even though they still appear in shade.

When working in high key, I find it difficult to maintain my highlights... I have a personal *no scrub* rule that I follow religiously... However, I felt it necessary to drag out the proxa brush to lighten up a few areas to help give them form...

The proxa brush does NOT damage your paper... gently wet down the area that needs to be scrubbed. Wet your proxa brush and brush it gently over your paper. Dab the water up with a tissue... (you can't know how much I HATED having to include this paragraph in the demo... )



Lower left hand detail... I used a lot of warm colours in this area. Rather than use my hookers green, I mixed pthalo + quin gold for my yellow green and ultramarine blue + quin gold for my blue green. The REALLY deep greens have sepia added to this mix.



And... the finished product...

[CharM]

It was mentioned in the Homework Thread that someone was inspired to paint a magnolia... Never having painted one, I went searching for reference images. I have a few pictures of my own, but they're not very good quality and a lot of tweaking, compositionally, would be required.

I found this image in our Reference Library, submitted by Intrigued. Now... it definitely has some composition issues that need to be resolved and I'll begin working on those. For instance, the black study lamp definitely needs to be eliminated... and the upper right background can be blurred to create some spatial distance.

Here is the original image...

[CharM]

Well... I really did love the lace curtains in the original pic. However, I had to ask myself what my intent for the composition was... there are two things here that attracted my attention...

1. The main magnolia bloom with the interesting petal shapes and warm centre.
2. The reflections of the vase on the table surface

Knowing where I wanted to go with this, I titled it Magnolia Reflections... ok... that will help keep me focused on what to do with it next...

In PhotoPaint, I started cropping and cloning out the unnecessary elements... The vase and its reflections are now in the lower 1/3 of my proposed final image... I like that...

The pattern of light and shadow is interesting and helps to balance the lower portion of the composition... It leads me to the petals and the leaf helps to guide me up and round the bloom... I think this is ok...

So, here's where I'm at with my manipulations...

[CharM]

If you'd rather not paint a still life, Doug (Yorky) has very graciously sent me some wonderful images of his magnolias... and should you want a better quality pic to work from, pm me with your email address.