Week 4 was dedicated to colour theory and it’s purpose. I wasn’t in this week so I was unable to complete the on sight exercises, however I watched through the blackboard content to ensure I had a firm grasp on what I missed during class time.

Going through fine art A-Level colour theory had always confused me. I knew how to use colour to invoke a mood or emotional tie to the image you were seeing, however I tried to only ever add darks and lights to symbolize depth, which in truth isn’t always the case. For example I never considered the technique of atmospheric background depth (see Perspective – 10 minutes to better painting), where instead of adding darker values to symbolize objects behind using a cooler cyan (de-saturated colour) to show the difference that it can make by considering colour and stretching the difference. I try to now take complimentary colour palettes into account when creating a illustration and finding new ways to implement colour that gives the feeling life rather than shading to only fit realism. Animation is an illustration of life, and although realistic colour palettes can be used it’s a medium that bends reality to fit a purpose, and that’s also what colour can achieve.

Blackboard presentation slides as reference (come back to):

Blackboard homework exercises:

Exercise 1 was to use one of our thumbnails from our previous weeks and use one of the four colour schemes (monochromatic, analogous, complementary and triadic.) I wanted to try 3 different approaches to colour and my thumbnails to see what effects I could create. I used a mixture of gradient maps and layer overlays to achieve these effects and I’m really happy with the results.

Analogous:

Monochromic with desaturation. Done using gradient map:

Monochromic, done using colour burn layer overlay:

For our second homework task we were to take a lined environment and carefully consider colour for atmosphere. I liked the method of using gradient maps + layering over with colour so I attempted to do the same for this exercise. I first added tonal values to the images and changed the contrast between the two when adding the colour for different effects.

I was inspired by the examples that was used in the powerpoint and wanted to use these as a based. I thought to attempt to make mine look like an overheated area using colours and contrasting shadows to depict a vibrant landscape in the sun. The feeling I wanted to invoke was exhaustion due to the bright highlights and colour used, as if the sun was consuming the area.

The second attempt was a mysterious landscape, taking inspiration from the thumbnail shown in the PowerPoint. I wanted to closely replicate it’s effect using this time the moon to illuminate light.