Project # 4-Color Palettes-Grids and Scales

note: the word Palette is used here in two ways. The palette is a surface that you paint on, but a group of colors used for a design or painting can be called a Palette, or Color Scheme.

Project Description

Color Mixing project to develop understanding of color attributes and palettes, terminology, Paint and colored pencil application techniques, and sensitivity to Color Contrasts and Progressions (gradation) in creative designs.

Project Overview

Problem: Create grid based compositions demonstrating an understanding of the range of saturation (pure, muted, desaturated) and chromatic value (light, midtones, dark) using progressions and atmospheric perspective.

Materials: Sketchbook, pencils, Bristol Board 9×12″, colored pencils, acrylic paints, brushes, palette, rags, water container, scissors, exacto knife, ruler/t-square, glue/adhesive.

Concepts: Hue, Saturation, Pure/Prismatic Color, Muted Color, Desaturated/Chromatic Gray, Achromatic Gray, Luminosity, Primary Colors, Secondary Colors, Complementary Colors, Warm, Cool, CMY, RGB, RYB color models/systems.

Technical Skills: painting techniques, colored pencil blending and layering, draughtsmanship with ruler/t-square, exacto knife and collage, digital imaging.

Outcomes:

• Ability to recognize and define major color properties: hue, value and saturation (chroma)
• Ability to see individual hue in terms of it’s value and saturation, in relation to other hues.
• Recognition of Temperature in color palettes. Use Nature, memory and Light as inspiration to guide you.
• Ability to determine and utilize color palettes: monochrome, analogous, warm/cool, complimentary, triads (primary, secondary)  etc. using CMYK and RGB systems
• Comfortable with paint mixing, paint application, formatting page, using rulers and tape for edges.
• Use digital tools to transform photographic color into pixelated grid

Design Process:

1. Discover: Research color theory, Visual Library Posts,
2. Define: Colored Pencil Blending and Memory orTemperature Grids
3. Develop: Paint mixing: Saturation Scales
4. Deliver: Post and Comment

Discover:

See MILANOTE board for more Resources

Color Background. Color Wheels

RGB lights combine to make white    CMYK inks combine to create black 

Color wheel Adobe link below

  Digital color wheel for exploring palettes and terminology  

Color and Light: Colored Pencil Blending grids

• Create two to three 3″x3″ grids with 1/2″ increments
• Grid 1:
  • Use only 3 primary pencils, cyan, magenta and yellow
  • Blend as many unique colors focusing on hue, value and intensity
    • Primary hues, Secondary Hues, Tertiary Hues and Neutrals (low intensity hues)
• Grid 2: Color Memory
  • Write out 3 concepts from memories of color and light
    • Experiences that were important where light and color effected the memory.
      • write any lists, words, full memories that come to mind. You may use photographs to help AFTERWARDS.
      • write the color experience with specific use of color, value or intensity/saturation.
      • You will add your color memory description to your grid page
    • Create your Memory color grid design with the hues and composition that will express this memory
  • The Ditigal Exploration below can coincide with this Color Memory Grid if that would be useful.

• Digital Exploration
• Open Photoshop to explore your Color Memory imagery through Pixelated Filter.
  • Choose images that relate to your color memory , from your own photos if you have, or others or through research.
  • Open new document for each image. Copy layer (LAYER DUPLICATE) and experiment with Filter-Pixelate- Mosaic; 200 pixel
  • Crop and Save 3-4 compositions that express the quality of light and atmosphere you are looking for.
  • Challenge: Build your own small digital color grids using gradations and hues found from your pixelated photos:
    • Study additive CMYK and RGB numbers to correlate to your subtractive pencil mixtures.

Saturation Scales

Painting Saturation Scales:   This will be done during the Landscape Sequence.

• Saturation scales+ tints, Can be made in paint or digitally.
• The pairs of Complementary hues are blended with each other, red into green, green into red to make the scale from high intensity to low intensity hues.

• Red/Green,
• Orange/Blue,
• Yellow/Violet.
• Create a 2″x5″ analog or digital Saturation scale for the pair that you choose for final piece
  • The first row in the scale has high saturation hues on each end, and mixtures to create neutral hues towards the center
  • The second row has tints of each of the hues on the first row

Critique

• Bring all parts of this project to (remote) class: Part one and part two. Grids, Sketches, finals.
• Be prepared to present, discuss and analyze your finished work in terms of concept, craft, what you learned, and the design process.
• State the following: your name, what you are presenting (title and design problem), which parts are successful and why, which parts are unsuccessful and why.
• Your peers and the professor will provide feedback. You will have an opportunity to revise your work based on the feedback to improve your work and your grade.

Documentation and Feedback

Submitting in your work

Follow the Submitting Your Work guidelines and include the project-specific details below:

• Post Titles: Grids and Scales, Research, Final
• Images: Organize your post to include all content from the 2 parts of the Design Process for this project.
• Create headings for each phase and include images or a gallery, where appropriate:
  • Grids and Scales-Color Theory-
  • Colored Pencil Drawings
  • Final Presentation, include post and reflection

• Written Project Reflection: In your post, document your thoughts about this project. Think about what you learned, what you could have done better (planning, material use, craft), and how you will apply what you learned to your next project. Consider and respond to the comments made in class during the critique.
• Category:
  • Category =  Project #4,
  • Color Palettes Project #4

Providing Feedback

Part of your Project grade is leaving well-written comments for at least one of your peers. Follow the Providing Feedback for specific guidelines for leaving constructive feedback.

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE

This site is curated and maintained by Prof. Jenna Spevack.

Except where otherwise noted, content on site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

You are free to share and adapt the content on this site if you provide appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE

This page has content curated by Prof. Jenna Spevack.

Except where otherwise noted, content on site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

You are free to share and adapt the content on this site if you provide appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

© 2020 GRAPHIC DESIGN PRINCIPLES 1