Yet Another Henry Hensche Method Thread

[Pez_Espada]

Carlos did you download the HH ART OF SEEING AND PAINTING pdf from the HH fb group page? It may not be a very good copy, but if you read the chapter Painting a Still Life, which is about 9 or 10 pages, in it you will find everything a person needs to focus on direct from the recorded mouth of Henry Hensche. He had a series of panels illustrating his talking points, but I don’t know if those images are in the pdf. But the main thing is the panels show how the student progresses from raw beginner to beginner to intermediate and so on. In other words, not a step one step two step three concept, but the specific way a beginner should work for a few efforts, before going to the next level. In my comments above I have paraphrased those, saying how the raw beginning stage is characterized by using pure tube color, while the next effort is to mix 2 different pigments together to make the mass color areas, of course using some white as needed. You’re right about the Hensche and Hawthorne relationship not having very widespread awareness. When I was first in college art classes in the 70’s the art department recommended the Hawthorne on Painting, the collected notes of his wife Marion Campbell Hawthorne, but none of them had any knowledge of who HH was, and he was still teaching at the Cape School at that time. Hawthorne’s teaching system, the color spot and the mud head, were the most radical innovations in painting teaching up to that time (1900), but the idea wasn’t understood any further than using local color in values. HH started the Cape School of Art about 1932, 2 yrs after Hawthorne had died, and he continued to further develop the Hawthorne ideas, but had decided using colored blocks was an easier way to study the color changes that occur by plane changes in forms. So in beginning study the colored blocks were used along with simple opaque still life objects to do the study of the outdoor light key and how the colors of forms were changed. HH felt any student could develop a more acute seeing by doing the color study method, with the goal of recognizing how the outdoor light key changes the visual character of color across forms.

I’m indeed just reading through the Still Life section of the “Art of Seeing and Painting” pdf uploaded in the HH FB group and unfortunately it does not seem to come with the figures HH keeps referring toin his explanations, which is a bit frustrating as it sometimes can be hard to imagine what he is describing. Do you know where one may find these pictures, they would be very illustrative.

On the other hand, regarding on what you have suggested previously, I wonder if I got this straight. I understand the colors studies (for the absolute beginner) should start by separating the color masses of a simple life still under direct sun light into lit and shadowed areas and then put down pure color tubes (with perhaps adjusting with a little white), no care on value, edges or drawing. The student should make several of these only-one-color statement studies of still lifes made of simple objects of different colors and under different light conditions. After a number of these are made, then the student is allowed to used two tube colors (plus white if needed) to state the color masses. In this second stage, should the color studies be only one statement per color masses too? I.e. no “refinement” or second restatements of these first put colors are advisable a this stage yet?
Many thanks
Carlos

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows
Dexter Gordon

[bigflea]

Hi Carlos,
Here are the 6 images that were in the original published ART OF SEEING AND PAINTING as the illustrations for the PAINTING OF A STILL LIFE chapter. (The book had other images also but not specific to the chapter being discussed here.)

One important point to make is HH did these 6 panels in north light, indoors. At the school, all of our color study was done outdoors, not indoors in north light. HH intended to make another version of this illustration outdoors. He didn’t get around to doing it, although he did numerous outdoor demonstrations over the years.

Re. your question, I think for beginning study it is best not to do “refining” of any kind. The basic goal is to make a simple large mass of color leaving white divisions unpainted. What the student gains in doing this is visual color recognition without second guessing and without sidetracks into making better drawing or better shapes.

Color massing first, followed by color proportions, or, how much mass of shade compared to mass of light. The reason for that has to do with seeing color as proportional masses. Students want to refine things into corrected drawing and shapes before their vision for the color key and proportions has been developed.

The evidence of that is the fact that quite a lot of HH students were very good at drawing and shaping etc. prior to study with HH, or with Hawthorne for that matter. But the lesson was that all that corrected refinement didn’t lead to seeing color relationships in the prevailing light key, and only tricked the brain into thinking the study was good because the drawing was.

North light studies are too difficult for beginners, because the differences between masses fuse easily, and the student doesn’t see the shock of color that exists in outdoor sunlight study.

[Pez_Espada]

Hi Carlos,
Here are the 6 images that were in the original published ART OF SEEING AND PAINTING as the illustrations for the PAINTING OF A STILL LIFE chapter. (The book had other images also but not specific to the chapter being discussed here.)

One important point to make is HH did these 6 panels in north light, indoors. At the school, all of our color study was done outdoors, not indoors in north light. HH intended to make another version of this illustration outdoors. He didn’t get around to doing it, although he did numerous outdoor demonstrations over the years.

Re. your question, I think for beginning study it is best not to do “refining” of any kind. The basic goal is to make a simple large mass of color leaving white divisions unpainted. What the student gains in doing this is visual color recognition without second guessing and without sidetracks into making better drawing or better shapes.

Color massing first, followed by color proportions, or, how much mass of shade compared to mass of light. The reason for that has to do with seeing color as proportional masses. Students want to refine things into corrected drawing and shapes before their vision for the color key and proportions has been developed.

The evidence of that is the fact that quite a lot of HH students were very good at drawing and shaping etc. prior to study with HH, or with Hawthorne for that matter. But the lesson was that all that corrected refinement didn’t lead to seeing color relationships in the prevailing light key, and only tricked the brain into thinking the study was good because the drawing was.

North light studies are too difficult for beginners, because the differences between masses fuse easily, and the student doesn’t see the shock of color that exists in outdoor sunlight study.

Hi Ken,

Many thanks for the images and the explanations I see how outdoors studies can make color differences in the masses more obvious and easier for the beginner student. The pictures are now uploaded in the HH Facebook Group.

About my question: by “refinement” I meant “color refinements” rather than refinements of the drawing. In other words, I meant refinements as successive color restatements of the masses (by comparing them both to the subject and among themselves on the board) in order to eventually achieve a more specific “truth” closer to what is actually seen under that specific light key, as HH would say. Or should the beginner be content with slinging different colors onto the different light & shadow masses of the composition only once and move to a new board with different setup without any further color development of the masses? If I understand correctly you have mentioned that the beginner should spend some time making one statement studies (or making many “starts”). If this is so, it is still not completely clear to me the aim of such initial exercise. However, I understand the reason why one should leave gap between the color masses too. On the other hand I think I have read in the G. Thurmond’s piece that the student should restate the color masses until she feels she cannot improve the colors reaching thus her current visual perception level.

This discussion is very clarifying indeed. Many thanks!

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows
Dexter Gordon

[bigflea]

Hi Carlos,

The reproductions themselves may not be good facsimiles of the actual panels, but they give you something to look at while reading the HH description of each panel.

My thinking about getting beginners started gives more weight to building some momentum by doing more starts instead of trying to refine(or let’s use the term develop) one start. At the school, the emphasis was on doing a lot of starts before trying to develop any one painting to a less crude state.
But, in actual practice, a beginner, even one used to doing finished tonal paintings, can’t get too far past the crude, over colored, or pure color start, because seeing in pure color is the first hurdle one has to master before trying to be less colored. It takes that kind of deliberate over stated color to establish seeing color purely as a habit one needs to replace the perception of local color in values. Local color perception in values is what the brain decides, not what the eye is capable of seeing, so the point of doing the pure color starts is to begin recognizing what the eye sees instead of letting the brain decide on local color relationships.

So let’s pretend for the moment that we have just spent our first week or 10 days at the Cape School doing nothing but simple crude saturated color starts, with different objects and times of day. Maybe by that point, the student can go back to the first crude studies and then try to restate all the masses, using at least 2 hues in each mass, mixed into a new, flat color. Then they could do that with the rest of the crude starts, with the goal similar to the example in HH’s panel no. 2, where the color masses are a bit less exaggerated or pure as colors. Also, at the same time the proportions could be developed more so there is a better visual sense of the proportion of light to shade, by color.

But once again, if we are 2 beginners, we aren’t going to get too far in developing the color because we are still learning to recognize the subtle shifts the key makes, and are still at a somewhat crude seeing level. So, the restatements may not yet have the visual quality we instinctually feel must be there, but are limited in our understanding of how to attain.
But here again, build momentum instead of getting sidetracked into developing one painting, since it takes more time and practice to get the visual growth HH always talked about.

And this is what was done at the school. A student might have 6 paintings to work on each day, with the goal of restating masses in each painting before trying to close out any white space. It is also the case that we would try to develop the coloring of masses less crudely and ruin the entire effort because the visual understanding wasn’t developed.

In practice restating masses, a painter should go ahead and put in the hues they believe they recognize, but mix them in to make a new flat color for the mass. They don’t have to do just one hue or two at a time. And one has to experiment. For example, let’s say we keep making all cast shadows either blue or violet. To attain some visual growth, the painter should try mixing some other hue into those blues or violets and see what happens, even if they don’t believe they see it. Or , if foliage always is made with green, the student needs to try mixing another hue into the green, or without green, and do a real study of the problem as if they are searching for the key to the color problem. (Foliage as green is an example of the brain telling you what the color is, while the eye is capable of seeing more complexity in the color.)

HH always used to remind us of the eye growing tired and the need to stop trying to make improvements in the coloring once the eye was unable to distinguish things. And that remains true for advanced painters also. Better to keep things more stated as color.

As the student progresses it may be possible to begin masses with 2 or more hues mixed as a flat color. In other words the eye begins to recognize both the light key effect on all the local surface color, but also what each tube of pigment does when used together with the other palette colors. At that point the student has stopped thinking in terms of local color in values, and is actually studying the color key and the visual color composition.

Once the large masses are stated well then the white dividing space can be eliminated. Usually there are half light or half shade color variations at the transitions between masses of light and shade, and these end up being the color in the white dividing space. But that is taking the study up to about panel 3 and 4 in the HH illustration. At that stage the painter is no longer a beginner.

Going back to your comment and question, whenever you believe you see the color more accurately by putting a new hue into the mass, do so, because your eye will tell you whether or not it worked. Experiment.

Going back to my first comments about momentum, the cautionary tale is of beginners simply spending too much time trying to develop one study into a finished picture, when the main purpose of this approach is to attain visual color growth by doing a lot of different starts. Of course, the good ones can be taken to further levels of development.

[Pez_Espada]

Hi Carlos,

The reproductions themselves may not be good facsimiles of the actual panels, but they give you something to look at while reading the HH description of each panel.

My thinking about getting beginners started gives more weight to building some momentum by doing more starts instead of trying to refine(or let’s use the term develop) one start. At the school, the emphasis was on doing a lot of starts before trying to develop any one painting to a less crude state.
But, in actual practice, a beginner, even one used to doing finished tonal paintings, can’t get too far past the crude, over colored, or pure color start, because seeing in pure color is the first hurdle one has to master before trying to be less colored. It takes that kind of deliberate over stated color to establish seeing color purely as a habit one needs to replace the perception of local color in values. Local color perception in values is what the brain decides, not what the eye is capable of seeing, so the point of doing the pure color starts is to begin recognizing what the eye sees instead of letting the brain decide on local color relationships.

So let’s pretend for the moment that we have just spent our first week or 10 days at the Cape School doing nothing but simple crude saturated color starts, with different objects and times of day. Maybe by that point, the student can go back to the first crude studies and then try to restate all the masses, using at least 2 hues in each mass, mixed into a new, flat color. Then they could do that with the rest of the crude starts, with the goal similar to the example in HH’s panel no. 2, where the color masses are a bit less exaggerated or pure as colors. Also, at the same time the proportions could be developed more so there is a better visual sense of the proportion of light to shade, by color.

But once again, if we are 2 beginners, we aren’t going to get too far in developing the color because we are still learning to recognize the subtle shifts the key makes, and are still at a somewhat crude seeing level. So, the restatements may not yet have the visual quality we instinctually feel must be there, but are limited in our understanding of how to attain.
But here again, build momentum instead of getting sidetracked into developing one painting, since it takes more time and practice to get the visual growth HH always talked about.

And this is what was done at the school. A student might have 6 paintings to work on each day, with the goal of restating masses in each painting before trying to close out any white space. It is also the case that we would try to develop the coloring of masses less crudely and ruin the entire effort because the visual understanding wasn’t developed.

In practice restating masses, a painter should go ahead and put in the hues they believe they recognize, but mix them in to make a new flat color for the mass. They don’t have to do just one hue or two at a time. And one has to experiment. For example, let’s say we keep making all cast shadows either blue or violet. To attain some visual growth, the painter should try mixing some other hue into those blues or violets and see what happens, even if they don’t believe they see it. Or , if foliage always is made with green, the student needs to try mixing another hue into the green, or without green, and do a real study of the problem as if they are searching for the key to the color problem. (Foliage as green is an example of the brain telling you what the color is, while the eye is capable of seeing more complexity in the color.)

HH always used to remind us of the eye growing tired and the need to stop trying to make improvements in the coloring once the eye was unable to distinguish things. And that remains true for advanced painters also. Better to keep things more stated as color.

As the student progresses it may be possible to begin masses with 2 or more hues mixed as a flat color. In other words the eye begins to recognize both the light key effect on all the local surface color, but also what each tube of pigment does when used together with the other palette colors. At that point the student has stopped thinking in terms of local color in values, and is actually studying the color key and the visual color composition.

Once the large masses are stated well then the white dividing space can be eliminated. Usually there are half light or half shade color variations at the transitions between masses of light and shade, and these end up being the color in the white dividing space. But that is taking the study up to about panel 3 and 4 in the HH illustration. At that stage the painter is no longer a beginner.

Going back to your comment and question, whenever you believe you see the color more accurately by putting a new hue into the mass, do so, because your eye will tell you whether or not it worked. Experiment.

Going back to my first comments about momentum, the cautionary tale is of beginners simply spending too much time trying to develop one study into a finished picture, when the main purpose of this approach is to attain visual color growth by doing a lot of different starts. Of course, the good ones can be taken to further levels of development.

Ken,
Excellent elaborations and clarifications, many thanks!

Carlos

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows
Dexter Gordon

[bigflea]

Carlos,
this image is one of the drying racks inside the Cape School where students could park their studies when not working on them.
It shows how ‘real’ studies actually looked, with all the flaws and variety in handling.

One of the misconceptions at the beginning is in thinking studies are going to become finished paintings. At the school , surrounded by other students working on studies, the idea of having these learning stages (as something different from a step by step picture making technique) was easier to comprehend, and we could see the different stages in the different studies being displayed on the racks.

Realizing that it became easier to think more in terms of having a good beginning statement of large masses. Then a student could work on having some plane variations in the large masses. The goal wasn’t to “refine” the study but to understand how to develop the first the color key in the mass statements, and then some of the form by showing plane changes as color variations within a mass.

HH was never concerned about how nicely ‘drawn’ any forms may be, and in fact he wanted students to practice drawing separately from color study. His first priority with any student was helping them develop the color key in the mass notes, as best as that was possible. If the student came close to that then he would have the student observe the proportional relationships more, still keeping all the white divisions between large masses of light or shade. Finish was never really important to the study effort and it could actually become a distraction to a real study .

[Pez_Espada]

Great picture, and very illustrative!

I understand that a finished painting is not the goal of the color study however I see in many of these studies what it seems at least a few color restatements beyond an initial crude and raw color massing (corresponding to figure 1 in the HH series of demos).

I mean seeing these studies (if my eyes don’t trick me) they seem that many of them are at the level of at least the stage of figure 3 and some even figure 4 of the HH still life demos previously discussed. I guess these were painted by students different levels of visual development and no many real beginners in this sample (?).

I think I am getting to understand more and more how it was done in the Cape School in the times of Hensche. Many thanks Ken.

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows
Dexter Gordon

[bigflea]

Hi Carlos,
I think there are two examples of beginners, both block studies. They may not be beginners but the way the color is stated has the look beginner studies usually or often had.

But quite a lot of these are by students who knew what they were trying to do and show what we can call the intermediate level of study. To me that is someone who has learned how to state the key in the mass notes and is able to make plane variations that stay in the mass and show the form.
Looks like 3 or 4 have close out the white space which would indicate they were happy with the mass statements and moving into the form variations.

I am guessing one painter may have done 2 or 3 of the more developed studies. So each study isn’t done by a different person. After getting familiar with the individual mannerisms of different students it gets easier to tell who painted what.

There are 2 good looking block studies right in the middle of the image.
But you can also notice how much people really stick to a somewhat crude handling where the shapes of separate objects are not carefully worked out, but nevertheless the color makes its visual impact well enough that your eye doesn’t bother too much thinking about correct shapes of objects.
I think its a bit of a misconception for new students if they have the idea that shapes of color have to be given a kind of precision for a study to work visually. If you think about it shape is really getting to the edge relationships. Generally its best to leave plenty of room in the white space to adjust shapes, but the mass of the color can be fully stated before shape is finalized.
An object with a simple shape like a block isn’t too difficult to understand visually, where curved forms need more restraint or more care before getting to the transitions between the form and the surrounding adjacent color.

Of course we did not have digital photography during the HH era of running the school. We had snapshot cameras or 35 mm slide film, all expensive and unpredictable and time consuming.

[Pez_Espada]

Ken, once again I appreciate you taking the time to clarify and explain all this. I found the whole thing extremely interesting. It seems to me that the approach is so logical, sound and deep. I really need to keep working in my color studies!

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows
Dexter Gordon

[bigflea]

One more from the school. It looks like the raw beginner studies, or some of them, are sitting on the floor leaning against the model stand. Another rack has a slot to hold paintings that no one is looking at.
The display rack has a few more developed works, still with white divisions.
Looks like at least one beginner study on the display.

The landscape at the bottom is a view of a house across the street from the school that was sometimes studied. HH did at least 2 different key studies of that same house.

[Pez_Espada]

One more from the school. It looks like the raw beginner studies, or some of them, are sitting on the floor leaning against the model stand. Another rack has a slot to hold paintings that no one is looking at.
The display rack has a few more developed works, still with white divisions.
Looks like at least one beginner study on the display.

The landscape at the bottom is a view of a house across the street from the school that was sometimes studied. HH did at least 2 different key studies of that same house.

This is great! Thanks Ken.

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows
Dexter Gordon

[bigflea]

Carlos,
In reference to you comment about “successive restatements”, a way to understand the learning curve and how study actually progressed at the school, is one of HH’s comments where he describes how panel 3 was done. Just so everyone understands, panel 3 is intended to illustrate how a student who has studied for several months (or longer), might be able to make the first large mass statements. (We have to remind ourselves that almost anything HH painted looked good, i.e., not as crude as our own efforts might look, so even panel 1 intending to show a raw beginner effort looks quite nicely handled). So he says panel 3 statements could probably be quickly and easily “dashed in” by the student, because they have previously done all the grunting ground leg work needed to have such an ease both seeing and handling the statement of large masses. So there is the clue one should take heed of, in terms of how much time should a beginner spend making what is called here “successive restatements “. Are we supposed to keep restating and restating mass color until it works visually? Based on what the guy who invented the approach says, the answer is no. Instead we aim to quickly state mass colors, and when the student has done a lot of the previous level of study, they probably can mix a mass color from 2 or 3 pigments on the first statement and get fairly close to the mass colors for the key. (Of course, we have our good and bad days). But a beginner doesn’t really gain much in terms of progression by getting sidetracked into continually restating mass colors. More progress is made by working on different versions of the same problem without trying to “perfect” any one, until it become easy to solve that first level or second level problem. So, when looking at works shown in the photos of actual school studies, keep in mind the more advanced color and forms were not done mechanically, or by repeated restatements until the thing worked. They more likely were achieved rather quickly because the student had previously worked at the beginner level of simpler, overstated colors and cruder shapes etc., the stuff every painter goes through to get out of the local color and correct edge drawing conventions.

[Pez_Espada]

Carlos,
In reference to you comment about “successive restatements”, a way to understand the learning curve and how study actually progressed at the school, is one of HH’s comments where he describes how panel 3 was done. Just so everyone understands, panel 3 is intended to illustrate how a student who has studied for several months (or longer), might be able to make the first large mass statements. (We have to remind ourselves that almost anything HH painted looked good, i.e., not as crude as our own efforts might look, so even panel 1 intending to show a raw beginner effort looks quite nicely handled). So he says panel 3 statements could probably be quickly and easily “dashed in” by the student, because they have previously done all the grunting ground leg work needed to have such an ease both seeing and handling the statement of large masses. So there is the clue one should take heed of, in terms of how much time should a beginner spend making what is called here “successive restatements “. Are we supposed to keep restating and restating mass color until it works visually? Based on what the guy who invented the approach says, the answer is no. Instead we aim to quickly state mass colors, and when the student has done a lot of the previous level of study, they probably can mix a mass color from 2 or 3 pigments on the first statement and get fairly close to the mass colors for the key. (Of course, we have our good and bad days). But a beginner doesn’t really gain much in terms of progression by getting sidetracked into continually restating mass colors. More progress is made by working on different versions of the same problem without trying to “perfect” any one, until it become easy to solve that first level or second level problem. So, when looking at works shown in the photos of actual school studies, keep in mind the more advanced color and forms were not done mechanically, or by repeated restatements until the thing worked. They more likely were achieved rather quickly because the student had previously worked at the beginner level of simpler, overstated colors and cruder shapes etc., the stuff every painter goes through to get out of the local color and correct edge drawing conventions.

Ken,
This is good to know that the approach aims to reach to a level where the right light key of the perceived object can be achieved by relatively few color restatements or many done quickly.
I admit I used to spent too much time trying to get my masses “right” in successive color restatements made in several sessions. Now I think that I understand better the reason why one should go for many simple “starts” when doing color studies rather than spend more time in trying to reach one’s perceptual level limits by successive color restatement in fewer studies.
However I think this is not very intuitive for the layman as usually one is used to try your best at each effort. As one can hear from teachers that one should be aiming to a “master piece” level at every study one make. Also I have read somewhere that Cézanne spent months working in a single still life to the point of using starched drapery and wooden fruits to preserve the scene for longer time. But this is perhaps is one of the many urban legends in painting.
As said, I like the idea to be able to develop with time the enough confident to build the illusion of the light key in your board by few color restatements (or many restatements put quickly) so when you eventually go out to the field to paint Nature you don’t feel pressed that much for light quality changing so rapidly
So in this line of thinking, should one constrain time slots for color studies to let’s say 90 minutes approx? At least at the beginning?

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows
Dexter Gordon

[bigflea]

Yes Cezanne did spend extraordinary lengths of time working on both portraits and still life, and probably landscapes as well. But by that point or time in his work, he had abandoned the fundamental impressionist idea of a particular light key and it having a duration of time, which in most conditions, is 90 minutes at the longest, but with many keys having spans of 5 minutes. It’s a well established historical fact that Cezanne wanted to attain a particular pictorial quality which he felt was similar to the works of Poussin. He felt Poussin understood how to make color “behave” (for lack of a better term), and be used to construct a solid composition. For this reason he was credited with making impressionist color “solid”, i.e.., making solid appearing forms. But the fact is he simply didn’t understand the light key problem that Monet and others were addressing. (However Monet had great admiration for C.’s works, and owned some.) HH has stated that C. simply stared into the forms too much and began seeing all the local color value changes. Based on C’s. recorded statements, it seems clear he worked too long in a session, with the result being a blending of one key into another into another. But that is just an opinion. In terms of the seasonal key change, you don’t get months in a row of a key, at least no place I have lived. Perhaps if you live on the equator, the key shifts are not so blatantly obvious. But I doubt in the south of France, Aix, which is where he was working, that light keys last longer in minutes or months. Monet painted in that area, or near, and felt the color keys were far different from his northern France problems.

At any rate, this is why the HH color study idea is not what one should think of as a step by step technique, where successive additions leads to a predictable conclusion. As beginners, (especially if we are used to local color in value massing), we “intuit” the only difference is a change in the palette. Chase and other American impressionists more or less thought that too, but the paintings never went as far into the description of forms in a light key as Monet did. Chase got a brighter palette working at Shinnecock, his outdoor school, but it was still largely a local color approach. Hawthorne never got past local color in his portraits but he made exquisite modeling of the head and figure with it, similar to Venetian paintings in their subtlety and beauty. But in his watercolors, Hawthorne showed he understood what the light key was about.

So it isn’t intuitive in the sense that you just plug in the new palette and the painting goes down the assembly line and pops out as a color key study. It isn’t mechanical in the sense that you keep adding color over color, or carefully deconstruct the planes of forms and then reassemble it with color shapes and there it is. It comes down to the visual color sensation learning curve, as well as having a real understanding of the forms one is dealing with. For that reason HH recommended people study sculptural anatomy, or at least draw regularly when they are not painting. For that reason he had us set up simple forms to learn the way color is seen, and ignore drawing or proportions in the beginning level.

As painters progressed past the beginner levels the forms were more proportioned and plane variations made the volume and spatial depth in the key.

So at first it’s an uphill slog, assuming one has totally abandoned the academic convention of modeling forms. Flounder is the main course until it becomes fun making the simple overstated color starts. One progresses by getting to more complex mixtures of color in the first mass statements, which we see in that panel 3 (although that was done indoors and is probably less colored than it needs to be to illustrate the point for outdoor study; outdoors color is more pronounced and extreme). And that gives the student something to work with as a foundation.

Every demo HH did was what we are discussing, i.e.., he could begin with the pure hues, but quickly the mass color became a complex color with a specific hue dominance, which would vary depending on the location in the form. In 2 hrs. or less he would make these beautiful and nearly complete 24x 28 portrait or still life demos, and made it look like it was the easiest thing a person could do. Of course he had been studying the problem for 50 yrs. and understood both the forms and the color key.

By regular practice vision improves along with paint handling ability.

[bigflea]

A bit of addendum to the previous, it isn’t too difficult to progress from the raw beginner stage, seen in panel 1, to the panel 3 stage, where convincing mass color statements can be more easily and quickly made.(Again the indoor illustration isn’t colored enough to illustrate how outdoor color study ought to look.) It doesn’t require any technique or skill other than simply putting pigment down on a panel. A palette knife is about as simple a tool as can be made, and if you ever spread butter on bread you have a complete knowledge of how to use one. No illustrations needed. The study progress revolves around doing enough at the panel 1 beginner level before trying the panel 2 level. The only real difference is by panel 2 level the student is able to both see what a mass area is and mix some colors together to make a statement. Do enough of those so it isn’t awkward or difficult and then dive into the panel 3 exercise where the eye is able to more easily see what the main hue ingredients are for each large mass. Do a lot of those before trying to close out white space at panel 4. The big goal is to get to the panel 4 stage. A person should allow themselves the time devoted to doing enough studies to get to that stage. It’s at that stage where you get the benefit of the previous stages, and color massing can be done fairly quickly. The eye can recognize the color relationships but the time has to be expended to understand what the eye is seeing or sensing, which is different from the brain’s perception of color. Once the student progresses into the panel 4 level painting studies can become more developed without losing the large mass notes or large variations.

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