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Hi there ! First of all, I’m very exited in that new program of free critiques in videos and on the forum, and very pleased to propose here 3 pieces of mine to be discussed.
I am working very hard to become a professionnal relief printmaker, and my main medium is linocut. I work extensively on several aspects in order to improve the quality of my designs : stylistic approach, figure drawing (and if possible from imagination), composition, perspective, and more recently, the use of colour in a picture. I have always worked in B&W, and it is very hard for me to understand the way colour work to lead the eye to one place or another, and the balance between them. I am very impressed by the way other printmakers have successed in so many ways to use colour for their pieces (such as japanese woodcuts, or Ugo da Carpi chiaroscuro woodcuts for instance)…
I feel my main goal recently has been to focus on colour usage and composition, and I would very much appreciate comments on these specific aspects.
The first one is a monochromatic finished piece. The second and third ones are works in progress : they are drawn on the plates and are subject to modification before I actually carve them to make then actual prints.
The 2nd one is pretty close to be finished, and the 3rd one is clearly going to be moving alot before settling to the final state, specially the “cat character” in the centre, not well defined, and the position and treatment of the leaves/masses in the tree.
Hi there,
Wow these are great! I like them all, but I’m especially captivated by second one – it draws me in most for it’s sense of monumentality, grandeur and other worldlyness, plus some mythological vibes. And I like the overall visual style in that one best. I like the teal, it is aesthetically pleasing but not sure if it necessarily fits in with the message the image portrays, at least to me. Though it makes me feel the ram figure is statuesque because of my connections with a statue monument at my previous university that had a similiar kind of hue. Of course it depends on if you’re wanting to make more clear connection between the image message and colour. Depends on what your view of colour and it’s use is, broadly speaking. Some like using colour for enhancing visual message, others for the aesthetic pleasure. The bottom figure doesn’t feel like it fits in so much with the image. Perhaps you could look to incorporate it’s colour in other areas of the image to help draw the viewers eye from the small figure to the ram and back.
Colour is a tricky thing to work with, to get it to read well and right and to use it a visual tool for communication in the way you want to use it. getting a very solid theoretical and practical understanding of colour theory is essential. hue, saturation, colour temperature and colour harmonies. Understand them all, their applications and how to use them.
With colour use I ask myself, as with any piece of art: What is my intent? What do I want to communicate with this image? to help inform my colour choices.
Colour is wonderful for setting the overall mood and emotion of the piece. How this is achieve is of course subjective, so I think as an artist you also need to get a real good sense of the ways you personally connect with colour and what certain colours and colour schemes speak to you. By developing this sense it will help you better connect with your audience, as those who connect with your work will very likely connect with the colours that speak to you. Doing plenty of colour studies of artists you like (Hokusai here would be a great one) will help you to develop your personal sense, as there are reasons beyond the tangible as to why we are draw to particular artists. Analyse and understand how they used colour to evoke feelings, communicate, direct the viewers eye etc both broadly as an entire image’s colour scheme and specifically for certain elements.
Making connections with the combinations and interplays of value matrices – majoy and minor keys- and with colour could also be useful. E.g. A Low majoy key with a high minor key creates a sense of drama, like a Caravaggio, so using hues and colour plays that support this eg. more evident and stronger use of colour compliments, colours that speak drama to you. It could be good to set up a large matrix of all the key combinations and make some notes for each as to potential colour applications that you think would generally suit it.
Subject matter is important to take into account too. Certain colours have certain historical meaning and significance e.g. purple as mystical, royality.
I’m still pretty new to colour so I find it difficult to give specific feedback, but I hope some of this helps. Please share with us all more of your work – it’s great!
Thank’s alot for your time and advices ! I must admit the colours I use here are constrained by the colours of my posca pens. The actual choice of colour happens later in the printing process, and I have to say I was not quite sure about that teal ! I think the colours I use in preparatory drawing define quite alot what I tend to draw, but still there is a lot to happen later when I actually carve and print them. I was thinking a kind of wallnut brown or crimson dark red at first, maybe a gradient from red to yellow, or a blue, for its spiritual and mystical implication. This way of working implies that my colour will mainly define the midtone then white for lights and black for darks, so its basically a one tone approach. This follows alot the way the first wood engravers were using colour, using one colour for the lines and one for the tone.But I’m trying to get bolder on the last one, with two colours being of the same tone … We will see if I cant make them fit together ! (Same here, the colours used here are not specially meant to be the ones on the print, I might use purple versus orange yellow …). I often struggle with which colours fit with which one.
I really love the mood that you set with all three of these pieces. They all give off a strong feeling of mysterious night time, a feeling of humans aren’t there or aren’t looking, and if you do look you may only catch a glimpse of something magical. Your works contain that glimpse and it’s such a lovely feeling. All three of these pieces are really nice.
In the second and the third, there is a strange thing happening where it feels like 2 compositions, the bottom half doesn’t connect seamlessly with the top half. The third one – the bottom half seems disconnected from the lion on the branch. It’s just a break under, disconnecting it from the world below.
The second one almost does the same thing, where the guy under the trees is disconnected from the massive figure above because the trees cut all the way across the composition.
They are very, very cool though. The ram head is amazing, giving off an almost cosmic feel.
I am very pleased that you link the pieces together, as they are a part of a serie I want to call “Chronicles of the catastrophe”, which are talking about the way I feel about the epoch we live in. They talk about the absence of our species, and I feel something warm in the fact that there is beauty and life without us. I feel these times as hard, times of truth, and as such, full of poetry. I will have a look to what you say, I think it is clear on the 2nd plate, and I know why. It was at first only a figure drawing, then I was bored of it and changed the human head for a ram head, then decided to redraw the legs, and as I had erased the legs, I decided to go for something entirely diferent. It is often like this when I work on my linocuts for so long, I change them bit by bit and in the end I’m always surprise of what comes out !
I will try to change that “two parts” aspects on the third one, I had seen this already and I want the eye to move freely from top to bottom.
Thank you for the review ! 🙂
You’re welcome and thanks for sharing your process. Do share how your series comes along 🙂
Hi there ! I think most people come here for figure drawing critiques, so I add also some of my works in live model sessions and one I did on the video series provided by NMA. Most of this work is done on wood plates using conté sticks, for I then gouge the plates in order to print them such as shown.
Image 1 : Plates after 10 minutes drawing in a live model session
Image 2 : Prints obtenaied after splitting the colours between 2 plates and printing separately then together (black over orange)
Image 3 : Blue, sanguine and white on black paper, live model (25 mins approximately)
Image 4 : “Live session” on the computer using one of NMA provided sessions, 5 minute pose but I couldnt help stopping the timer so this is more of a 45 minutes drawing using black, white and sanguine on a wood block.
Any advices on the subjects :
– In a live session, I always feel in struggle with timing, as I really need to use techniques that allow me to play with masses easily and I struggle with line drawing which allows much faster rendering of what you see… I am most at ease with conté sticks, charcoal and pure chinese ink.
– How do I improve the “back-and-forth” process between realistic rendering and stylization of the figure. I like the way one can understand the complex shapes they face and represent them in a simple design…
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