Transparent and Opaque, Colour Field Painting and Mark Rothko

On checking out the effects of opaque and transparent paints it is fascinating to see the  range of effects possible and how they can be used to advantage in painting. For transparent surfaces much depends on the underlying colour.  For example, if layers of thin transparent paint are painted over white the finish has great depth and  the colours appear very vibrant. Transparent paint on a dark surface is dull and indistinct. Mixing white with a colour makes that colour not just lighter but more opaque.  The surface appears dull, flat and advancing.
Here is a link to what I found to be a very helpful video about how the principle works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCiMwwxSMZg


Optical mixing - on reading through this illuminating article I can get a real idea of some of the techniques that Mark Rothko was most fond of employing :

https://www.currys.com/template.htm?PAGE=ARTISTCOMMLIB&ECINFO=TT-OPTICALMIX

In 1958 Mark Rothko accepted a commission to paint a series of murals for the new restaurant in Manhattan's Seagram Building.  By this time colour field painting was an important part of his work. His motif changed to rectangular forms on large colour field within a frame or 2 columns. He would apply numerous thin layers of colour  allowing parts of them to show through the top coat, hence the appearance of light emanating from the surface. Studying the series online,  I get a strong sense of being pulled in and pushed out within the frame or the columns. They seem to be almost pulsating or breathing. He was obviously very interested in optical mixes. The effect must be very powerful and almost overwhelming for many  when viewing such huge canvases at close range.  According to experts Rothko said that he would prefer viewers to be positioned directly infront, about 18 inches away so the viewer could experience an intimacy with the painting. For this reason he also wanted the paintings to be hung in a room with subdued lighting to help the viewer to feel 'enveloped' within the painting. A similar feeling is what he must have got from the vestibule of Michelangelo's library on a trip to Florence where he was further inspired by the feeling he got of  being in a room with the doors and  windows  walled-in shut. Eventually he refused to allow them to be displayed there.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rothko-red-on-maroon-t01165

The Seagram Murals  give some sense of their scale and intensity in spite of the mostly sombre colours:
Black on Maroon
Black and Maroon 1959 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rothko-black-on-maroon-t01163

This is a definition of of optical mixtures from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/20/guide-to-painting-optical-colour-mixing - When two hues are placed side by side or on top of each other, your vision produces the illusion of a third colour - this is called optical mixing.Optical mixtures emit an inner glow that you cannot get with physical mixtures - the colours retain their intensity and brightness.


Helen Frankenthaler, amongst others, was strongly influenced by Rothko's techniques and developed her own style of colour field painting called the 'soak stain' technique, where she would pour washes diluted with turpentine onto the canvas. A flat yet luminous effect would result from the layers of merged paint and turps soaking into the surface. There is a detailed description of the inspiration behind her landmark work 'mountains and sea', together with a couple of wonderful images, also how colour field painting later developed is contained in her obituary:  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/dec/28/helen-frankenthaler

Here is a link to seagram murals  - revealing an individual's interpretation of them on a tour through the murals, displayed in sequence.

Exhibition: Still Lifes? Catherine Hammond Gallery, Glengarriff, Co. Cork

 - August 2012. Upon arrival at the gallery, straightaway I honed in on several mixed media works by Regine Bartsch. It did help that one or two were displayed along a wall facing out to the street through a large plate glass window, about 15 feet inside. It was of particular interest to me at the time because shortly before that I’d been experimenting with paint and pastels in combination during the first project of part 1.
What's also pretty evident are the striking colours used. Apart from their immediate attraction at a distance, viewing them close up was also fascinating because of the variation in texture resulting from the range of finishes from the smooth paint to the grainy matt finish of the pastel. I could also detect traces of graphite pencil. There are passages of both transparent and opaque paint here and taking a guess at the possible media used, I would say watercolour or ink, acrylic in an opaque and possibly transparent way, which I think was applied under the dry media: possibly chalk, oil pastel or similar.  These paintings combine both organic and geometric forms and there is a lot of foreshortening caused by the high viewpoint, giving them an added dimension, along with the intentional distortions and exaggerations of forms.

Click on this link to view more images in the exhibition:

http://hammondgallery.com/wordpress/still-lifes
On researching the artist a little more I found a couple of paintings of interiors in acrylic. These weren't in this exhibition but I decided to give them a mention here as they are quite unlike the still life paintings in that the colours used are mostly muted and the whole composition appears smooth and flowing with an underlying mistiness which gives a look of depth, as well as the use of linear perspective and ,as far as I can tell, an absence of atmospheric perspective.

They’re mostly devoid of organic forms, rather geometric forms seem to dominate – as would usually be the case in the interior of a building. They have a semi-abstract, even abstract appearance.

For a bigger selection of the artist's work visit:
http://bartsch.ie/regine/artist.php

Suzy O’Mullane’s oil paintings appear simplified and even childlike. The way that the perspective is distorted seems to give the compositions a flat appearance but I do like the bold use of paint and colour.

Just as this exhibition contains mixed media, I also have mixed feelings about some of the artwork on display. There was a time when my view of this kind of style  would have been to dismiss it as having little merit, but now I realize just how elusive a skill it is, as an adult to be able to approach a subject almost from  a child’s point of view  to depict something in this way successfully. To have the confidence and conviction to push ahead with it is a real accomplishment. At the same time I think it is probably the case that an artist needs to already be established in order to pull it off…that might sound like I’m contradicting what I've just written - enough said for now.

http://www.katherineboucherbeug.com/biog.html

http://www.hamiltongallery.ie/artist/Jane+O'Malley

Exercise 6: Opaque colour mixing

The intention of this exercise: the effects of mixing white with colours to obtain graded tones. Success at last!
This was much easier to do than the previous exercise. The main reason being - that I stumbled across a video on utube, demonstrating how to do a graded wash with opaque paint. Hey presto! The transition is much smoother - without dark bands. Through following these techniques  I was also able to obtain far better results with both transparent and opaque washes on the very first attempt. It did make me wonder how I could have got it so wrong previously despite numerous attempts. The successful technique was: dampen paper, apply full strength paint at the top, working rapidly down the surface using light pressure on brush and working from side to side (the paint strength becomes weaker) to just below the middle. Then work in an upwards direction from the base with a clean damp brush towards the colour and blend in gradually. I used two different brushes. What seemed to make the most difference were: working rapidly down and up the surface and not being afraid to go back over it a little. Also, making sure the paper is adequately damp beforehand. Previously I was working more slowly and painting parallel horizontal lines, perhaps being too careful.

I know these three are still far from perfect but far better when compared to 
most of my earlier efforts in exercise 5

How could both transparent and opaque methods be used together? 
Opaque over transparent enriches the wash.

Transparent over opaque can be used in a composition using glazes to build great depth. An opaque and textured ground used under transparent glaze or glazes increases luminosity and three dimensional effect. Also for modifying colours below, such as the complementaries of blue and orange.
Transparency is useful in a landscape to give the effect of distance. Moving forwards the paint could gradually become more opaque towards the middle and foreground. 
Transparent - to depict water or glass, opaque for solidity ie, trees, walls.

Project 2: Overlaying Washes, Exercise 5

orange/red and red/orange

On these I painted orange over some previous  washes; orange over red and visa versa. Despite trying all sorts of variations: taking care to add equal amounts of water for each successive dilution on pre-dampened paper and working as fast as possible, obvious stripes appeared yet again. I tried the support board flat, at a slight angle, mixing paint with a gel medium, adding more water, adding less and using a sponge, different pressures on different brushes, starting at the  lightest end first then the darkest end first,  but nothing really seemed to work out to my liking, apart from the lower right hand side, which was the best of a bad bunch. I certainly wouldn't say there is any improvement here as yet....

Next I experimented with emerald green, cobalt blue on both damp

crimson on ultramarine

and dry paper. Generally I found that the paint applied to damp paper appeared to have the smoothest transitions. Cobalt blue seems to settle in the grain of the paper although I don't think it has an adverse effect on it's ability to blend smoothly.
I did two more - ultramarine on crimson and crimson on ultramarine. I think I also added some pthallo blue to the ultramarine. The outcome of these were nothing too remarkable either. At this stage I was almost resigned to the idea that there was no hope for me with these, but things were about to change..........

ultramarine on crimson

At last - new improved washes after trying yet another technique - didn't need a different wash powder though.

I tried the above with emerald green and cobalt blue and discovered the process was much easier than ever before. See the following exercise..

Project 2: Transparent and Opaque, Exercise 4 Tonally Graded Wash

 Transparent Tonally Graded Wash
 It took ages to get through this exercise - mainly because of  numerous frustrating  attempts I made to obtain the desired results.

Oils part 1

The instructions were to mix strong but fluid paint with the aim of achieving a smooth transition of paint between each further dilution, but this did not happen. The paint was fluid and strong and not dry, yet I instead ended up with obvious bands between each gradation.
.
I started with oils using ultramarine for .......no washes and one in cadmium red.,
I wrote copious notes about techniques and brushes used, consistencies and quantities of paint. All kinds of methods were used from painting on dry paper to painting on pre wetted paper, beginning with the darkest richest concentrations at the top to beginning with the weakest dilutions at the bottom. I tried out different brushes ranging from size 10 round hog bristle to a 2" goat hair hake and various brushes in between, on oil and watercolour paper.

Acrylic red part 1

As I'd had no success using oil paint I changed to acrylics but without much (if any) improvement.
It was also taking too long for the oils to dry when I wanted to move onto the second stage.
With hindsight I could have reduced the time if I had used Cobalt or Prussian Blue rather than Ultramarine.

Acrylic pt 2 -
light end first

Acrylic orange part 2

Wet-in-wet - acrylic orange only and red and orange, part 3 

In the final part of this exercise I found the instructions slightly confusing  - to paint a graded wash wet-in-wet on a sheet containing the first colour. By then all sheets with the first colour were dry so I had to start again. Here the intense tone of the second colour was applied to the pale end of the first colour while still damp, diluting gradually again to about halfway down the paper to meet the first colour. The resulting effect was meant to be reminiscent of a sunset or sunrise. In this case I would say only the two to the right come close.

Project 1: Exercise 3: Painting with Pastels

1

Up until doing this exercise I underestimated pastels capabilities as a painting medium. Having done experiments with pastel on their own in the drawing course I decided to try out pastels in combination with paint .
Most interesting effects were:
1. right hand side top -
Oil and soft pastel used in a linear way, sometimes blended with wet oil and acrylic paint.
Soft pastel  still retains the lines when blended into wet paint but results in a smoky ethereal look around the edges.

2

2. Water spread over soft pastel. When dry, watery acrylic painted over. Dry oil pastel lines on top layer - build up of depth with contrasting surface textures.
Watery acrylic over dry oil pastel which resists the paint giving a grainy texture.
Pastels used in these ways with paint can easily add variety and intensity to a painting.

3

3. Completely abstract experiment with (mostly) soft pastels used underneath, blended with and on top of wet and dry acrylics. This kind of thing to me is great fun as almost anything can happen...

oil pastel

Below:and right: three earlier experiments from my drawing course and a more recent but insipid looking attempt at using soft pastel as paint with pva on top.

oil pastel

soft pastel and pva

soft pastel

 Another (cactus) image on the way....

Project 1 Exercise 2: Applying paint without brushes

After a few days of enforced disruption I put out the oil paints again and instead of brushes, a collection of toothbrushes, plastic cards, palette knives, sponges, tissue paper, rags, cardboard and surgical gloves.

Toothbrushes: good for tough scrtchy marks, dry brush effect when dragged as in the textured arch with an interesting build up of yellow ochre paint over the dark blue. Thick broken textured area built up with lemon yellow, cadnium red, ultramarine and crimson on upper portion with dense paint.
Cards and palette knives: with their smooth edge it was easy tobuild up ridges. I began on one edge and dragging the knife, moving it back and foth like a windscreeen wiper - gives the appearance of motion. Wher e the paint dries out towards the end of stroke it has the same effect, especially with angles or curves.
COLOUR EFFECTS:  When one colour is used over another in still wet paint they do not blend together much. This is more difficult to avoid if doing the same with a brush. Interesting two tone, even multi tonal effects materialise when two or more colours are used at once on a knife of card.

Side edge of card or palette knife produces accurate straight lines  when dragged or dabbed over one another.
Stencil brush: ideal for rough circles. I can see the potential for water ie. waves, ripples and weather effectss ie. wind and rain. Also pebbles and bumpay surfaces.

Although I'm more used to using brushes - albeit marginally - I would like to make use of these tools much more for oil painting or indeed acrylics. They seem to be more fun and certainly easier to clean than brushes used for oil paint, which is fantastic news! I'm now seriously thinking of reserving most of my brushes for acrylics, or water mixable oils, when I build up my collection further that is..we'll see..

 Next was the turn of the sponges - literally, as they were rollers. Used thin and medium paint I twisted the rollers in circles and layer the paint with one band rolled over another while the under layer was still wet. Less blending again here than would be the case with brushes.

Kitchen sponges: their versatility surprised me. Stamping the scourer side, quickly dabbing, twisting and lifting, gave a textured grainy look. Using concave wedges in the same way I obtained a solid circle surrounded by an open circle.When dragged along - sleek and smooth parallel lines or a wave like effect. Easily makes fascinating finely textured spiraled circles. When it was pulled through a wet under layer in the opposite direction gave the look of a moving image ie. camera blur.
I'ms sure it would be as easy to obtain some effect with a brush, but it was certainly easier for me to make spirals and circles than with brushes. I can see how with sponges, layers depth could quickly be built up.
Cardboard - corrugated card edge dragged -  simultaneously produce multiple parallel lines either dabbed or dragged.
The ripped edge of a piece of mountboard produced interesting irregular lines. These would be very appropriate for expressive landscapes.
Fingers/rags: Using just the finger or wearing surgical glove - dabs of red with fingertips - I can detect faces in them and also reminiscent of roses. Also dragged blue and purple medium, then thin paint horizontally and flicked upwards - like grass or surf. In centre - with rag - thick to dry paint, blended lines into one solid mass of red blended with yellow towards edge to form orange in middle. Burnt Umber added on left, thick linear ridges of yellow over, Circles of Cerulean Blue thick to thin. Scrunched rag - thined paint, dabbed on ceruleum, crimson puched and blended a bit into the blue then u/marine. Wiped thinned u/marine over area to upper right over streacks of red and blue - which were dry.  Was pleased with effect of vivid blue background. Also worth bearing in mind that this modifies the red - handy if desired. Think it was a fortunate accident . If had used earth colour, whit or black the same effect would have occured...................
Using finger without glove, circles smoother and more controllable ie. pounced on and twirly twists. Painting with fingers, or even wearing thin glove, felt calming and quite therapeutic.
Paper: scrunched tissue paper dabbed on and dragged dry - on left. finger of yellow paint dabbed over. Thick paint in red, blue and yellow spread with paper and finger. Yellow dabbed in concentric circles - lower left.