Architectural Sketching & Rendering Techniques: Mastering Color & Media

1. BAC Architectural Sketching/Rendering Techniques

2. The Nature of COLOR • Color is a visual reaction to a light source. An illusion of the senses. • The “True color” of an object can only be seen accurately by sunlight or its equivalent, since sunlight contains all colors of the spectrum. • Black is not a color, it’s the absence of color.

3. …color • Primary Colors -Subtractive mix (pigments) - The color wheel can be constructed our of three basic colors or hues: Red, Blue, and Yellow. The sum of primaries= black • Primary Colors -Additive mix- The color wheel can be constructed out of three basic colors: Cyan, Magenta, and light yellow. The sum of primaries= White

4. …color • Secondary colors: the result of the addition of two primary colors • Complementary color: The opposite color in the color wheel has the property of balancing the first • Hue: The definition of the color. Example: blue, red, orange. • Value: The scale of darkness • Chroma or tint: The saturation of the color

5. Value Grayscale Value has visual “weight”

6. Value Grayscale Value has visual “weight”

7. Art Elements = • Line –do not define lines • Space –Empty space countsas visual weight • Color –limit palette • Volume –equal weight Background Mid-ground Empty space Isolation creates focus of Attention =visual weight Angled chair in foreground creates depth

8. Depth Foreground Mid-ground Background

9. Composition • All images are essentially arrangement of lights and darks, or linear arrangements • You cannot avoid making your subject a tonal statement or a linear statement • Or both • Line is contour • Tone is form, space and the third dimension

10. Formal Composition

11. Informal Composition

12. Informal Composition Applied

13. A Rendering Put to the test

14. Watercolor Techniques • Wet on wet – essential for skies- wet paper, wet brush • Dry brush – Do not pre-wet paper, only dip color in brush

15. Image reference –wet on wet

16. Image Reference -Dry Brush Dry brush

17. Combined Wet and Dry

18. Skies and trees • Use a sponge with dissolved pigment to wet a sky, lift some areas with a tissue for clouds effect • Suggest bark of the tree, do now draw it, the least definition and more suggestion, the best. • Apply green strokes to suggest trees by pressuring and lifting bamboo brush off he paper. • Always combine different hues of green and yellow for leaves

19. Acrylic Paint With Artist Knife Use of spatula and acrylic paint

20. Charcoal

21. Ink Rendering

22. 3 Renderings One Theme pen & ink charcoal pen & ink with watercolor

23. Freehand Photoshop Image Rendering

24. To remember • A bad sketch can be improved with color • An excellent sketch can be DESTROYED with color • Do not “finish” your work • Limit your palette • Use the white of the paper • Cast shadows are darker than object shadows • Do not use black, use ultramarine blue • Start with the lighter color and work your way to darker hues • Work from background to foreground • Mountains are always blue (its an atmosphere effect)

25. The 12 rules of watercolor rendering • Select point of interest • Select mood (warm or cool) depending on time of the day • Choose a limited palette (no more than 6 colors, ideally 4 or 5) • Find your light source (where is the light coming from?) • Background mid-ground and foreground in that order • Apply a base color, the lightest chroma of your main hue (leave white highlights unpainted) • Apply darker chroma to designated spaces (do not abuse it, keep it transparent) • Do details effects (suggest a little, do not paint an entire brick wall, suggest a few bricks only) • Balance it out with trees and people. Scale creates perspective & dimensional reference • A watercolor should take minutes to complete, (it dries fast), work at 45 degree angle for fluid control • It’s a reference, not a masterpiece, its documentative, not anatomical. • Capture the gist of the scene! PRACTICE

26. Materials for watercolors (essentials) • 140lb Hot or cold press watercolor paper (cold press is more grainy –more textured) • Bamboo brushes (they can produce any width of line by applying pressure on paper) • Small • Large • Very fine (for details) • Square brush for sky or wide areas • Use animal hair brushes, they hold more liquid. • Never leave a brush inside water (it widens the brush like a fan) • Spray bottle (to work wet-on-wet) • Salt for sand effect • Napkins tissue • Natural sponge (for clouds) • Masking tape • Tooth brush (to spatter on trees and/or create sand effect or rocks, also can be used to suggest brick, or other grainy materials

27. Charcoal Work • Charcoal is a media that captures the quality of light • Types or charcoal: Vine stick or compressed: • vine for gesture drawing soft • compressed for volume studies • Apply a layer of tone and work your way to light • Apply darker tone in deep shadowed areas

28. Artist Knife and Acrylic Paint Work • Use a small spatula for detail • A large spatula for larger areas • Be sure to have enough paint in the edge • Use the edge for lines

29. Ink Work • Crosshatching Technique • Technical pen • Bamboo Brush Technique • Brush, ink stick and grinder • Scribbling technique • Technical pen or fine brush

30. Book references • The Watercolourists Guide to Painting Buildings -Richard Taylor (This book is the best of its kind, architecture illustrations with an “unfinished” touch that emphasizes suggesting rather than detailing) • Architectural Drawing Course –Mo Zell (This book is a good reference for different rendering techniques both free-hand and computer based)