Mastering Color

[Richard Robinson]

Anything to do with the Mastering Color course goes here. Post your images up or ask questions - anything!

[Brandon Nixon]

Thanks Richard, Just trying to figure all the web video stuff out.

I am looking forward to diving into more of your lessons! I am always looking for different perspectives and techniques. Keep up the great work!

BrandonNixon

Richard Robinson said:

Hi Brandon, cool video you made! Very professional. Thinking of featuring it in a blog - will add it to my list.
Cheers,
Richard

[John P Garrett]

Hi Brandon,

Excellent video and I learned a lot from it. That's an interesting idea using a Camcorder set to B&W mode to help understand colors in terms of values. I am just getting to lesson 4 so I will be a happy cube maker soon.

Thanks,
John

Brandon Nixon said:

I made it through the holidays and finally got my color cubes completed. You can check them out at my blog post at www.BrandonNixon.com. Instead of using the paper ones I decided to make wooden ones. I have 5 children and the paper cubes would last...uhmm...about...30 seconds! It was fun and really made me work to match the colors on the lesson cubes. Some were easier than others...Really fought the violets!

Now I am ready to start into the other lessons. I will post some pics of each lesson as I complete them. Thanks for taking the time to create these lessons Richard!

Brandon Nixon

[John P Garrett]

Hi Richard,

I am enjoying going through the Mastering Color course and I am making the Ultimate Painters Tool tonight. Thanks so much for all of your hard work in publishing this course. I really like the way you approach the subject in a practical way without getting way bogged down by the physics like many color courses.

~John

[Richard Robinson]

Thanks John, glad you're enjoying it.

[terry clare]

Hi Richard'
Just so you know I'm not slacking. Have made some blocks and a couple of charts. Tested your theory on colour changing as it goes around a ball on a figure I down loaded. Lost track half way and did my own thing. Have set up a new one. Will report in. Having a great time with your lessons. Haven't had this much information in one go anywhere, Many thanks, Terry Clare

[Richard Robinson]

Good on you Terry! Would love to see what you come up with.
All the best,
Richard

[David Reeves]

For an IT approach to seeing values try this - take a digital photo of your subject or painting, and open it in Photoshop or other graphics program. Change the mode to grayscale which will give you a range of 256 gray values. Then, alter the image to the number of values you want - say the 9 used in the colour studies here, by using the Filter...Artistic...Cutout filter (Available in Photoshop Elements and the full Photoshop products - similar filters exist in other graphics products). This will analyze your digital image into 9 values. I often use only 3 values when first working out a subject to see the overall value shapes - these are called a Notan in Japanese art.

[Richard Robinson]

Thanks for sharing that David - I do that a lot myself. Also just converting to grayscale then pushing up the contrast till you see just black and white will give you the notan too.

[John P Garrett]

I have been doing that for a long time in drawing. I desaturate the photo to get the value ratios, though I had not tried the filter that David mentioned. I think you had mentioned Notan in one of the early Mastering color videos, Richard.

~John

Richard Robinson said:

Thanks for sharing that David - I do that a lot myself. Also just converting to grayscale then pushing up the contrast till you see just black and white will give you the notan too.

[Richard Robinson]

Yes. A while back I did a comparison of desaturating compared to converting to grayscale and found it's not quite the same however. You lose more information when you just desaturate - better to convert to grayscale.

John P Garrett said:

I have been doing that for a long time in drawing. I desaturate the photo to get the value ratios, though I had not tried the filter that David mentioned. I think you had mentioned Notan in one of the early Mastering color videos, Richard.
~John
Richard Robinson said:

Thanks for sharing that David - I do that a lot myself. Also just converting to grayscale then pushing up the contrast till you see just black and white will give you the notan too.

[John P Garrett]

Richard,

Yes I actually started converting to grayscale after you did that comparison. That's very good to know.

~John

Richard Robinson said:

Yes. A while back I did a comparison of desaturating compared to converting to grayscale and found it's not quite the same however. You lose more information when you just desaturate - better to convert to grayscale.

John P Garrett said:

I have been doing that for a long time in drawing. I desaturate the photo to get the value ratios, though I had not tried the filter that David mentioned. I think you had mentioned Notan in one of the early Mastering color videos, Richard.
~John
Richard Robinson said:

Thanks for sharing that David - I do that a lot myself. Also just converting to grayscale then pushing up the contrast till you see just black and white will give you the notan too.

[Jeremy Summey]

Richard,

First off, thank you for sharing what you have learned as an experienced painter. It is my hope from standing on your shoulders that I may be able to reach my dreams.

Here are couple of the exercise I have completed from the Mastering Color Lessons. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated and reverently followed.

My best wishes to you.