Last week the wife and I enjoyed a water color class sponsored by the Farwell Gallery in McFarland. Rather than getting each other Christmas gifts the wife thought we should do experiences together. Experiences and adventures are seemingly terms, in my mind, popularized by millennials. We had some experiences or adventures but we referred to them as trips. Our trip to Italy, a trip to Disney World, a camping trip. Today the lingo for the same thing is something else.
I am about as far from an artist as one can be. Luckily for us they had a faint outline of the object on our heavy paper. Our canvas, so to speak, was about 5.5" wide by about 8" in length. We did water color of a cardinal. I was pleasantly surprised how well mine turned out in that my hand is not near as steady as Land Girl's. Although, when it comes to painting walls next to trim or the ceiling I often am somewhat successful.
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| My Cardinal |
What I did find is that water color painting can be forgiving, the instructor showed another student in the class how she can almost lighten all the way to the paper by using a brush and clean water, over and over again. The use of water is key to water coloring. The more water used the lighter the color. We began by painting water on our cardinal bird before adding the red color. To desire less red more water, to desire more red use less water. You move lighter to darker. You can also layer colors as I did using a mix of grey and blue to form a dark, near black. That color can be made less dark by adding water, and you can easily transition by use of water and brush between colors.
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| Spouse's Exquisitely Crafted Cardinal |
Use and mix of colors is an interesting part of painting. The book I am currently reading is about Michelangelo's frescoing of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He was more a sculptor than a frescoist, but he has produced one of the greatest works of art in the world, as an inexperienced artist in that medium. Raphael, a younger artist was also doing frescoes in the museums of the Vatican at the same time. Raphael's signature work is known as the "School of Athens" also located at the Vatican. The School of Athens is described as Raphael's masterpiece, and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel the peak of Renaissance art.
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| School of Athens, by Raphael |
When doing the fresco, Michelangelo was very selective in his sourcing of his color choices. Most of his colors he obtained from an abbey in Florence. It was a trying, dangerous and difficult task for the monks to produce some of the colors from varied earth elements and materials. His colors, combined with his brushstrokes and the images he created are beyond compare in the world of art. The finger of God reaching out to Adam's limp hand, the penultimate point of Adam becoming fully human may be the premier work of western art in the world. I suggest you watch the segment of Sister Wendy discussing Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, which starts just after the 23 minute mark at this link.
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| The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo Sistine Chapel Ceiling |
When my wife and I took our honeymoon trip, I mean adventure, to Italy in 1990, we visited, I mean experienced, the Sistine Chapel. At that point it was in the midst of a multi-year restoration. The boo birds were out, including our guide, with most complaints centering on the brightness of the colors. Centuries of candle wax and soot, used for lighting and liturgical functions, had darkened the colors and people did not think it appropriate for such bold colors. The common complaint was that the artist would not have used such bright colors. The book I am reading, Ross King's (2003) Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling discusses and traces the use of color and it turns out the bright colors were actually used. King relied on his and other's use of documents of purchase and requisition by the artist to come to his conclusions. It turns out the Vatican restorationists did it right. Drab, dark, foreboding colors were not to be the main aspect. After all, it makes sense that vibrant colors would be used since the renaissance is a rebirth.
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| Garden of Eden, Michealangelo Sistine Chapel Ceiling |
Frescoing is a difficult and time sensitive technique as the painting has to be accomplished before the plaster dries, but the plaster cannot be too wet. If interested, I encourage you to read the book to find out how cartoons were drawn, transferred, and the method of the execution of the frescoes. Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo did not lay on his back. King shows this to be a misinterpretation of the original language. He stood, on a scaffold of his own design, and leaned back. Maybe it would have been easier to lie on your back. But, they needed the head room for much of the preparatory work, including the layer of plaster, to doing the actual painting. How would you mix the plaster and other ingredients while in a short height space meant to only lay down and paint a ceiling? Adding to the difficulty is the ceiling itself with its curves and spandrels. Proportion is crucial, given the height of sixty-eight feet above floor. That is about the same distance one has to be away to best appreciate my cardinal water color. Water color painting is more forgiving than that of doing a fresco.
In doing his fresco Michelangelo at times broke out and rebuilt scenes of parts of scenes. With my water color, while I could mesh and massage the color, if I got out the line, I was well, done with, unless I wanted to try and use water and more water to get rid of my mistake, which I thought would just blot it around more on the white paper. The bird tail would have looked hideous if I extended its width to catch my off area water color mark.
Creation of Adam and Garden of Eden snips from: https://m.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani-mobile/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/tour-virtuale.html
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