grey scale – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Sunday, 3 September 2017

It’s sort of a quandary. Should I blame myself, the weather, the paper?

First, we have been housebound, not by hurricanes, but by interminably hot and stinking weather, weather so fiercely hot that heat stroke is easy to come by. Temperatures have been soaring to 112 F and 30% humidity – for a desert gal, this is not fun. Dry weather and moderate heat is okay, but living in the darkened house, in a house filled with air conditioned air, and melting outside, is getting old very, very fast. Tempers are short around here, and hopefully the weather will break tomorrow with 85 F and begin to cool. I hate being inside and being inactive. I don’t belong to a gym, but it is too hot to go for a walk or a run, probably even in the middle of the night. So, it pisses me off!

Next, I am impatient and annoyed – a lot because of forced inactivity because of this disgusting weather. This doesn’t help when watercolor paper needs to be used up for practice, but the sizing is so crappy it buckles and creates weird areas that show poor quality – and possibly poor quality control. And the practice itself is hard to do – in part because of my monkey mind and my need for some good aerobics to rid myself of the wiggles so I can focus.

Oh, poor me!

But now that I’ve bitched a bit, maybe I can look back at what I am doing . . . working on my ever-present nemesis: contrast.

Monday, 4 September 2017

Okay, I got over myself. I tell you, though, that a week of unrelenting heat and humidity of 110 F and 35-100% humidity is not fun. Today, humidity has dropped because of rain, the temperature is down to about 85 F. I am in a much better mood.

Yesterday, I walked away from my abominations, knowing full well that contrast was the real issue I have. Like I have said many times, I am drawn to color. Color. COLOR! I don’t like doing the “basics” in knitting (i.e. swatching) and I have never given much credence to monochrome studies, even though it has been stated and re-stated multiple times. Finally, I gave in, and did some grey scales in pencil and watercolor. In watercolor I did some wet-into-wet, and then layered washes.

And finally I did a watercolor. The grey-scale study was invaluable – lesson learned!

There are parts of the preliminary drawing and final grey-scale study which are good, and some which are bad. I followed a video on YouTube by Paul Talbot-Greaves that was very clear. He has a few others I will look at as well. Seeing something done always helps me to learn. A book is good, but watching the steps a painter takes is even better, especially when recorded and you can go back again and again to do the studies.

The steps I took here began with a simple light wash over all parts of the building – very, very light – into a lot of other areas in the picture. Then I did some medium layered dry washes, just to do them. These are on the bushes and foliage behind the two trees on right. the building had wet-into-wet, moving it into the bushes in front of the door. At this point, I had my white and middle value established, so I thought it would be fruitful to do the very darkest areas next. I think it was a good idea as it then allowed me to then return to shades between the whitest and darkest shades. This study was in Payne’s Grey on a student-grade Strathmore paper.

I also found another video, but cannot find the link for it. There was an excellent suggestion of creating a grey scale, and holding it against colors as you paint. What shade is your yellow or red? That will help with the contrast. Right now, let’s see what I can do with a few colors . . . this is gonna take a lot of discipline! But, I am doing it, which is more than I was a few weeks ago. Yay!

Below is an image of a daisy taken awhile ago alongside our house. It’s rather bland. Below is the same image, with post-processing done in Photoscape. You can see that under the top daisy, the flower’s receptacle has become nearly pure black, like a puzzle piece. Even in the original picture, it is a bit dark, and consequently distracting to the eye.

Neither picture above is especially spectacular, but the post-processing certainly messed up the final image. Below are two more results, the first which is sharpened only from the original. The receptacle is a bit more defined, with its ridges a bit more clear, but not darker. The second one uses the “bloom” feature (which I don’t understand – I’m a novice in post-production photography software) in combination with the sharpening. I think the result is a little better. The whiteness of the petals is more apparent. I also used the mole removal feature to get rid of the black spot on the foreground daisy.

One thing I have a very hard time with visually is contrast – adjacent areas and their shades of grey – when I work in color. Whenever possible, I try to take photos of any artwork I am doing to check out the contrast. High contrast has few shades of grey; low contrast has several. The degree of density in each, how dark or light, can determine the “pop” in a picture. In painting, this can cause items to retreat to the background, or move forward. This is what our mind uses to create depth and dimension in a photograph or a painting.

This next photo is the last one above, converted to greyscale. It is a soft photo, not especially dramatic. There are good areas of contrast, but the petals are lost.

Daisies in Greyscale after Sharpening and Blooming in Color

This next photo is the greyscale photo further sharpened, and the contrast increased. The petals are more apparent.

Greyscale Daisies with More Sharpening and Contrast

Finally, here are chorus lines of the photos in a row. It may be worthwhile to look at it, and thus decide which photo is ultimately the best. I set the lines up so they would span the same space, but in doing so, some of the image quality is degraded. What I am looking for is the contrast and clarity in the final image of the petals, the inside yellow part (stamens and pistils? I forget my flower sex!).

Ultimately, I am not sure about any of these photos. I think the viewer needs to determine it. Liking or disliking a photo is a personal thing. I do think, in general, the composition is rather nice, but in retrospect, I should have taken the photo from a more superior perspective, looking into the foremost daisy a bit more, but not by much. Also, to cut down on “busyness,” it would have been a good idea to remove the dropped petal on the most distant daisy, the one up against the wall. If I knew how to remove it with software, I would try it. There is some movement in the photo. The center of the daisy on the left may be a distraction, just as the receptacle on the upper daisy may be too dark.

Good, bad? I need to step back to reconsider! Too close, too much, a bit overwhelming. Later I can make a decision.

One thing which does help is turning one’s work upside down.The same can apply to a photo. Maybe I am more successful than I think, as I really like the movement in this upside down image. And, in reconsidering, I like the one of the colored daisies only sharpened a bit, with the black spot removed, the best.

Tag: grey scale

Frustrations with Contrast

Pushing Up Daisies