Drawing Before Color?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.พ. 2025
- It has often been said a student of painting must master drawing before anything else iw attempted. Using his own development as an example Paul suggests an alternative way of thinking may be necessary for the more comprehensive approach that produced the 19th Century evolution of the form.
In response to Timothy
Your channel is the best thing I found this year
Color exists in itself, possessing its own beauty. Henri Matisse. Thanks for this great talk.
I think freedom of drawing and painting let you explore your own creativity what comes from your mind, the more I draw and paint the more I explore myself and I really enjoy it, very nice lecture Paul, thanks a lot
From the first video of yours I watched, I was deeply impressed by your knowledge, experience, and expertise. Having come from the fill-in-the-blanks school of painting, I felt intimidated by the method of putting down spots of color, etc. But I've been doing - without a lot of success at the moment - and it's been exhilarating! For the first time I'm really appreciating how important it is to see an arrangement of colors devoid of their attachment to the object. I'm appreciating color in a way I never have before! And appreciating the attempt at making an aesthetic object. I'll admit the drawing - and I'm not an inexperienced or a poor draftsman - has been a challenge. I'm particularly concerned about losing the sense of the large or dynamic gesture, but I don't see that that is a problem in your paintings. So, I'll push through and hopefully that will come around, too. Anyway, thank you, Paul, for opening my eyes, and for your sage advice.
I'm also struggling to see the gesture and drawing while focusing on doing colour spotting first. Have you had any insights since your comment?
This has nailed a conflict that I have been struggling with for a long time. In the sixth grade we had a teacher that turned us loose with oil paint and never mentioned that we had to draw first. We didn’t have time for that . We only had an hour or so to get after it. I struggled too long trying to free myself to get the paint on and figure the values out. I needed help mixing colors, and finally found someone that did. Color has its own exercise. You have to exercise color to see what it does. The more you exercise , the seeking, the mixing, the different brushes or knives or wiping, the more you understand your colored paint.
So true, Kathleen.
Thank you for all of the effort you and Mr. Producer put into getting these videos out Paul. Loved listening 🔥🔥
I am grateful for this video, this channel and this humble Master. So glad to see this message reaching a larger audience.
Thank you for this video, I really enjoyed it. I suspect that the concept of requiring drawing before working with color was a financial principle rather than a training theory. Artists used to have to make their own paints and they had no long term storage mechanism. Many of the pigments were also very expensive. With some of the pigments, for a commission, the patron would have to either pay for the pigments in advance or provide them. That is the original reason that it was traditional and assumed that no art student had any business touching paints, working with color, until they mastered drawing.
Charcoal and even silverpoint were cheap by comparison. The young art student would first be required to learn to draw and usually also doubled as an apprentice in an artist's studio. As an apprentice, the new student had to grind the pigment and actually mix the paint. By the time he mastered drawing, he also had great familiarity with the colors. It did make for a pretty efficient learning model as well as a fiscal one.
We no longer have those economic and time constraints because paints are much cheaper and pre-mixed. Whether or not to learn academic drawing is probably more a matter of personal preference. Many artists simply learn to draw with the brush. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Art students should probably experiment with both and make their decisions based upon their progress. If you're not making progress and your work is not improving, try to zero in on what is preventing that progress and try something else.
"It takes 25 years to learn to draw, one hour to learn to paint" - Ingres
A superb dialogue that came at a critical time in this artist’s journey. Many many thanks. You are saving lives! 🥰
Excellent lecture. A difficult topic since each element, values, form and colour are vital to good painting.
Glad you think so!
I want to thank you for your teachings Mr. Ingbretson. I've been studying this subject for years ever since first reading the books by Harold Speed, but I don't feel like I've fully understood this until recently after listening to you. I really appreciate it, thank you.
You are very welcome
Very interesting video. There's a letter written by Mary Cassatt where she expresses a dislike for the academic paintings of her time. This letter was written while she was rather young and she went to Europe looking for a painting instructor. Her complaint was that academic paintings lacked color and looked too gray.
Great stuff. Thank you.
Drawing with a limited palette of red, black and white chalk on toned papers is a great transition to painting in a limited color palette. Also crosses over to free expression in pastels for color studies. I think it depends on the artist’s style-As you say, “what do you value in a painting?”
If I expected to 'master' drawing,.. I would've never even touched a tube of oil paint in my lifetime ... screw that. 😂
Hi Paul
Fantastic conversation,
It's all together process drawing,colours,tone values etc.
Yes break them up to work on your own weaknesses and when you have got better control put them together again and re evaluate where you are now.
You can have the best under drawing in the world and loose it when you apply the paint, you can have the worst drawing in the world and get perfection when applying the paint( if only ).
It's the journey that matters there are so many possible ways to get to the Finnish,(we never do as we are working on our skills an entire life time).
No right or wrong way to do the journey,and a first step to take in a direction.
As all the skills need to be gained at some point.
Thanks again
Sheila
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I like that. So true
Fantastic
Does the start and the path towards a destination matter, if the mind is curious, eyes attuned to see and the heart willing to share truth and beauty? Are there any limits to growth and capability when one realizes both drawing and color application are desired? Maybe there is no learning order priority… only the debate about it.
A Chronicle of Friendships - Will Hicok Low, 1908.
Vermeer - Philip Leslie Hale, 1937.
Velasquez - R.A.M. Stevenson, 1912.
Charles Auguste Émile Durand (Carolus-Duran) 1837-1917 France (Art Instructor and Painter)
Robert Brackman (1898-1980) USA (Art Instructor and Painter) Broken notes of colour
thnx
I am loving your videos Mr. Ingbretson. I am self taught and still learning. I understand what you are saying about hitting color notes and developing the image with relationships and light, but i am curious about the actual application of a color while painting something that may be complicated (or diverse in color) in one area. If one area varies in tone/color, do you try to find and use a local color before developing it further, or do you meticulously try to hit the notes in the position they are in? I can see it being a challenge to develop form while trying to place the note perfectly.
Thank you
You're welcome
I've definitely seen the opposite problem with students. Students who put so much emphasis on drawing have a really hard time incorporating color in any meaningful way that isn't just colored drawing.
right
That we can discuss beautiful art and its hefty process is a big part of the happy joy of seeing your healthy paintings and the others you generously present. When I think of fresh color, I sometimes think that sweet reds and sad blues and brilliant yellows and the rest are equal in the workability they have when painting, and sometimes I too feel that reds are more difficult, or yellows during other times. I think I feel differently about them because lively compositions change in mood, and a whole new set of baby reds or ancient purples or weary blues present themselves as if they were a delightful puzzle both for the excited eye and the restful hand.
I once had a teacher in Riverdale GA named Ingbretson -related?
Can't be too many of us out there...Spelled that way probably somehow related. First name?
Are you the Noam Chomsky of painting?
In Color, Myth, & Music, Dr. Will South notes:
“This desire-to use color alone to define advancing and receding planes-was the genesis of Synchromism.” p.29
“The genesis of #Synchromism lay in Russell and Macdonald-Wright’s desire to create form using color alone.” p.39
It would be overly simplistic to say that correct placement of correct HSV, in relation to the pictorial intention, is what matters, regardless the tool used (pencil vs brush)? Because if an artist manages to get shapes and HSVs were he (or she from the now on) wants, nobody will care if he used and under drawing, or if he painted directly the big shapes first, or whatever. I guess the key aspect in any case, the underlying common denominator, is sharpening the observation skills and learn to see objectively.
🏃 Promo`SM!!!
These dudes want to make art boring. I hate when people weight themselves down with too much theory.
This is a very subtle and difficult subject to understand. He has taught me an incredible amount. It's very difficult to explain this concept in art fully. Just because you don't understand what he's teaching right now, doesn't mean he doesn't have an extremely important point to make about this. It's just very hard to understand.
@@RobertF- I'm referring to the guys he's criticizing.
@@johnnonamegibbon3580 Ah ok, sorry I misunderstood you.