Hipeastrum project - second stage

TONES

Considered by many to be just as important, if not more important than colours. Sounds odd doesn't it? I guess it depends whether you are a colourist or a tonalist.

However I tend to agree, and not because I consider myself more a tonalist. I heard an artist hero of mine say once: if you can get the tones right, you can use the most surprising or unlikely colour, and it can still look right... it does not necessarily work the other way.

The Fauvist and the Expressionist I think proved that in a lot of their paintings.

So how to see tones in your subject? One good way is to translate your colour subject into a black and white version. How do you do that? You squint, until all you see are areas of very dark, very light and a few tones in between.

To make your painting punchy and dramatic, its a good idea to divide your composition into no more than 5 different tonal values, ie 1 - the equivalent of white, 2 - black, 3 - a lighter tone of grey, 4 - a darker tone of grey and finally 5 - a midtone. Four different tonal values is more dramatic and strong, 3 is even more so, and 2 - well even stronger still, just about a 'tonal dropout'.

For a 4 tone value work, its helpful to do a quick sketch of the simplified shapes in your composition and decide which area will equal black, which will equal white, and then divide the rest of you composition shapes into 2 differing greys.

In the second stage of my painting, I attempt to identify: 

- my darkest darks in the bottom of the glass, the top of the shorter leaf and the small area of the stem just under the flower

- my lightest lights, which is my equivalent of white, is the lit surface of the card that the glass sits on, the highlights on the petal and the highlight area on the top left of the glass and the lower right side of the glass where the light shines through.

- my dark grey tone area I choose the rest of the stem and the dark part of the leaves as well as the darker part of the left wall and the red accents on the petals

- my light or mid tone greys are the right side of the wall, the triangular shape of the table, the foregroung and the rest of the shapes within the glass.

I don't always succeed, but being aware of what decisions I am striving for, certainly helps me in my direction and each brush stroke is an intent as opposed to a hesitation or a series of 'try it and see if it works'

Because I am hopeless at imagining or making things up, and I find it difficult to paint what I don't see, I need to set up fairly accurately and use coloured paper positioned in the background... then I don't have to second guess. Perhaps one day... However once the blocking in of the colours and tones are in, then one can decide to tweak and modulate to the desired effect.

Within that family of 4 or 5 tones which I have decided on and more or less established at the early blocking stage, I can now play around with various cool and warm version of those areas.

I love this stage of the painting, almost there and still strong and fresh...