Painting the still life

Color III: Materials & Light

After the spheres and tomatoes, we found ourselves whit our next challenge: The still-life. As I've mentioned
before, a still-life is often aside or down as an uncreative/boring subject.
However, it's the best way to study our art principles

Putting our lessons into perspective

Let's tackle the principles of color we've learned so far by adding a new set of layers: Materials, Color, and
how they reach according to physics and its surroundings. This lesson will go over some exciting materials:
the well-known fruit, Glass, and metal.

As a quick overview:
Materials are the physical consistency of "color." As we previously discussed, said elements contain a core
color, but they also hold fundamental properties that affect how we perceive and represent color.

Painting deconstruction: The still life study.

Overall let's approach the previous subjects with our photo at hand. I took the liberty of omitting the orange
for starters: It's an opaque material that will be somewhat highly exposed for the nature of its color and
properties. But let's take this step to go further into the Rule of simplification.

Our human brains are obsessed with detail and planning, whether unconscious or conscious; the brain is
always trying to make sense of patterns, guides, and details we can't help it.
 The simplification rule says: By grouping and minimizing details, we trick the brain into doing
an auto-completion. This is to say: We don't need every tiny single element to know this is our
subject. The brain reads groups and silhouettes and associates them with things we know:

Notice the books: sure, they're lowlily detailed, but they keep the same value, tone, and color, so our brain
"accepts" it as the books by direct association with the photo. It's a complicated subject to master as artists, but
it makes for an incredible tool.
 Does it work all the time?
Depending on the level you want, yes, if you're going for hyper-realism, you'll still need to understand
grouping and value, but if you're going to keep the feel of the object, simplification is a great tool. Like
previously established, it's tricky to master, but it has many benefits.

The simplification rule

As a quick overview, in this cause we can find this Rule in the following three cases:
-By eliminating "distractions," elements, or minor details: it's the previous bran explanation, we're trained to
over process, but here we just need to keep the focus on the critical element.

-Keep your tone and value limited; remember how we worked with three different light values in the past
according to lighting? It's the exact same thing here. Overall the elements are being affected by the same light
pattern, so simplify that as well. Notice how there are only three tones of grey in the example, which is the
"Key lighting" of the whole painting, don't go into each little detail of every element; painting it's a unity.
 -Color grouping: Just as the values notice that all of the elements share the exact same colors and tones,
except for the oranges as it is our accent element. Color grouping it's beneficial. You can identify your core
tones and don't feel overwhelmed by deciding which color to use. They also move in the scale of highlights,
medium lights, and low lights.
 Using the simplification technique: Metals
Metals are highly reflective surfaces that are affected by both: the light source and its physical surroundings.
Metal is tricky because we're used to thinking of it as an object with high detailing, but the core key to metal is
the simplification of its surroundings. Notice how it changes according to its properties. Paragraph. Haz clic
aquí para editar.
In this case, our little metal trinket it's a highly reflective element, so the colorwork will depend entirely on
its surroundings, as it will be directly affected by it. Let's start our process by applying simplification:

-Eliminating distractions:
Let's start by analyzing the metal trinket. In the original photo, there is a cluster of details and markings. Let's
group them by identifying the key elements of the pot:

-Notice the pot it's reflecting the bottle, orange, books, and table. Let's make our first division following the
lines.
-No need to add extra details, tones, colors, or elements. Keep it simple.
-Notice how each part of the pot follows the fundamental values and colors of the elements it's reflecting.
This is because metals will "replicate" it's surroundings.
"The key to materials is: to paint them as a succession of physical laws that react according to light, and
its surroundings, think of them as an object with "color properties."
This has become one of the most fundamental rules: Color theory will tell you which color match, how to mix
them and why it works. But it is futile unless you understand how the physical reality works! This is why
materials are tricky because we tend to think of them as a conjunction of "colors" rather than the "physical
object" in itself.

YOU'RE NOT PAINTING "METAL" YOU'RE PAINTING THE PHYSICAL SURROUNDINGS AS

REFLECTED BY THE METAL.

-Values and tones:

Now, let's check the tone and value of the pot: Let's make sure we're working with the exact same tones as the
rest of the elements and the key lighting of the photo:
-Notice how the pot seems "busy" and full of detail in color, but once we take it out and let the light field, it's
actually easier to identify the medium, dark, and highlights. In all honestly, maintaining these aspects, it's a
fundamental step for color to feel right.
-Remember to keep three primary values; the mid-tones come as a result of mixing.
-If anything, let's add a second value to the orange and table, nothing too detailed, just a quick fix-up.

-Color grouping
-In reality, we had this step done once with the simplification step; however, let's see how it works here:
-Notice how the dark tones of the shadow reflect as well on the pot.
-The mid-tones and "core colors" of the pot match the elements surrounding it: the mid-warm tan, the soft
orange, the highlight brown of the tablecloth.
 -The single highlight (White) of the light source also has a bright yellow inside the metal pot.
Let's keep these three tones at hand: the mid tan, soft yellow, and dark brown shadows.

Our next step is to keep these elements in mind and keep up rendering our pot:
-Identify the mid-tones (contact tones) when we paint.
-Don't get too fixated on getting every single element right. Remember our simplification: Concentrate
elements, keep the three tones, and a limited color palette.
-If needed, take time to reassess the situation by checking if you can over simply something or merge tones,
constantly reassure with the photo, remember: your brain will unite the elements and me it feels "right."
Once we finish our pot the painting will look like this:
 Using the simplification technique: Glass
Glass holds a special place in art for being one of the most tricky elements to paint. Its difficulty lies in the
fact that Glass is inherently translucent but not transparent in all cases.

Translucency and Transparency:

Think about it this way, Glass, whether it holds a core color or not, retains the same characteristics:
-the ability to reflect its physical environment
-if Transparent, light will go through it, impacting the way the material reacts in general.
-if Translucent, Glass will maintain its core color, but the thicker the Glass, the less Transparent and more
Reflective it becomes.
-Think about the difference between the glass bottle in the still life and a wine bottle, the natural green tint and
thickness of the Glass make the bottle Reflective.
-Notice, however, how the dark green "bottle," even though reflective it doesn't capture the silhouette of its
surroundings cause they get a natural distortion result of the glass properties.
Assessing the situation, let's apply both: the glass principles and Simplication principles for our bottle:

Eliminating distractions: Glass

-Color glass or transparent Glass, its main physical property is that Glass will reflect and bounce light and its
surroundings. It can be complicated:
-A highly reflective wine bottle reflecting certain elements but keeping the bounce light inside.
-Colliding glass vases or glassware, each reflecting and interacting with each other.
-Artistic Glass: with curvatures and patterns that distort the light and other elements.
Truly Glass is a tricky subject; however, we'll go over the simplification rules here as well with our simple
milk bottle.
-Even if the milk bottle it's completely transparent, it still has volume, so notice how some of the warmer dark
tones go over the "back."
-Keep the highlights at a minimum, a key focus on Glass's creating volume by accentuating the high areas
where Glass unites (surfaces, borders)

-Values and tones:

Like the pot, let's check up our values. Here the mid-tone of the Glass and the back curtain will match because
the light it's going through it effortlessly.
-With the milk bottle, in particular, let's remember how the value scale changes, notice how the darks and
highlights aren't saturated. They're in key with the rest of the painting.
-Notice how there is a soft border: with metals, it's about keeping the surroundings and the way they react to
the reflective surface. Here we should keep the values and transparency: but still, keep the physical object's
borders.

-Color grouping
-Just as we did with the pot, we'll keep our limited palette: notice as well how the bottle and pot share the
same values and colors.
-Light will naturally bounce inside the bottle, so some highlights will be "inside" the object. Notice how the
colors group on the sides as it's the cylinder's zone with high volume.
Again, let's keep rendering and observing our photo: simplify elements, concentrate the three tones, keep in
mind the bottle will have the exact same colors and properties as the pot, so avoid jumping to secondary
colors that do not form part of the original palette.
 What should I do next?
-Observation & practice: as you've noticed from the previous lessons, it's all down to practice and finding
your own way to paint.
-Color theory is more than a conjunction of painting rules: it involves everything that affects our physical
reality: Physics, Photography. These are two subjects I highly recommend studying to further strengthen your
knowledge!
-There is no one correct way: keep painting and practice, try to use simplification, value studies,
composition everything in your favor to further develop your painting style and technique.
-If you're working with digital media, use your tools: color drop, undo, redo explore!! the more you know
and use these tool to your advantage, the more you will understand your own way of painting
-Apply these rules and keep practicing!