Coloring Crash Course (Магаева – Интенсив по цвету – Russian, Eng sub)

Color is one of the most attractive components of visual art. Brightness, warmth or coolness, and color harmonies all make the drawing appealing and give it a certain mood. However, working with color is one of the most challenging tasks in drawing. How to choose colors and create a harmonious color scheme? How to place colors in a composition? How to make colors realistic or, conversely, decorative? These topics and more will be discussed in our two-day online color intensive.

You will be able to familiarize yourself with the artistic, physical, and symbolic properties of color, learn how to create color combinations for different tasks, and master basic approaches to working with color in both traditional and digital mediums. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to practice with the instructor and create color sketches based on nature and references, progressing towards a finished full-color image on a topic of your choice.

Color is essential in many areas of visual art and professions related to drawing, such as book illustration, game design, animation, and comics. Artist and illustrator Alena Magai will share techniques and processes of working with color from sketch to finished artwork, and provide insights into drawing with different materials such as watercolor, markers, and digital graphics. She will also provide information on methods for digitizing color images and their printing peculiarities.

What you will learn:

• The theory of color harmony
• How to work with color in extreme conditions
• Why everyone sees color differently
• How to draw from life
• How to develop a sense of color
• Color schemes
• The role of color in composition
• Working with color on the computer, with paint, and markers.

Course program:

Basic concepts of color:

• What is color and how it works
• Color systems and color properties

Interaction of colors

• Theory of harmonious combinations and the golden rule of harmony
• Perception of color: physical basis of color
• Color associations and symbolism

The role of color in composition

• Color balance and distribution of color masses

How not to get lost in the information field

• Working with different sources
• Working from life, from photos, and from imagination
• Collecting references and observing other artists

Analyzing and selecting information

• Using sketches as raw material for narrative illustration

Technology of working with color and tools

• Mobile and affordable materials for working with color
• Paper as a working surface
• How to navigate color palettes

Characteristics of materials

• Storing paints and brushes
• Features of markers and liners
• Colored pencils and their quirks

Challenges of working outside the studio

• Working with color in extreme conditions
• Digital aspects of working with color:

Digitizing and preparing for printing

• Some features of working with color on the computer
• Printed products: expectations versus reality