The demo at Daniel Smith is called "Pet Portrait Painting", but I will as much time talking about how to start from zero and build a composition, and how color interactions create the pulse of the painting, and make it alive. I will use color squares to demonstrate how colors move forward and backwards in a painting and create an illusion of movement and depth, simply by their interaction with each other. Here are the sample color squares I created and will use. Can you see how in each image, the color squares on the left create the illusion of each color moving backwards in the painting, like looking down a funnel, and each color square on the right side moves forward, like a pyramid building upwards?
This color theory is not my invention, it belongs to Joseph Albers. I was lucky enough to be studio mates at my first studio in Seattle in Fremont with Charles Emerson, who was a student of Albers. Charles kindly shared this knowledge with all of us occupying the Red Door Tavern upstairs studios before the building was moved to make room for Pete's Coffee.
