Art Fundamentals No 1: Color Theory

I fully admit I have no formal training in art. I certainly appreciate that this is not some declaration of any innate talent; but, more that it is an acknowledgement that I have a great deficit in knowledge that impairs my ability to improve my skills. Ask any artist and you are likely to get a variety of responses to “the fundamentals” albeit they tend to center around shape, form, values, anatomy, and color theory. And its this latter one, color theory, that I want to spend a bit of time sharing what I’ve learned thus far, along with provide a bunch of resources (mostly online) that I think are worthy of further exploration.

Dragon Die

I have been working with another artist on a cover for a dice box. My contribution is to provide the top box art, which he will then use a laser etcher to add to the precision-cut wood boxes. At present, we’ve landed on a 10″ by 2″ box (5:1 aspect ratio). The current piece is just me going a bit silly on the rendering since ultimately the final piece, minus either of us doing post etch work, will come out black and white. If I was serious about it, I would clean up my lines and coloring. Nevertheless, I thought it a pretty cool design worth sharing.

norwescon 41, day 2

Art Show

Well, I got a lovely surprise this morning when I woke up – someone dropped out of the art show at Norwescon. Well, okay, that’s not lovely news, now is it? Bad Ward! But it did mean that as I was on the waitlist, the show coordinator reached out and asked if I’d like to participate. Huh? Of course I would!

norwescon 41, day 1

Well, we arrived a little later than we had originally planned. But that is okay. We arrived in time to quickly register, and then move over to setup a table at Art in Action from 5 to 6p today. While it was a bit quiet, we stilled had a few people stop by. Given it was the first day of the Con, that is not too surprising.

art in action @ norwescon

For those attending Norwescon 41, I will be participating in Art in Action. I will be showing my digital art process and tools for anyone interested. Note, I am not a professional, but an avid hobbyist; so my motivation is more purely to meet folks, and since I wanted to some time to just sit and sketch, what better way than to make myself feel exceedingly awkward by doing so in public space where anyone and everyone can come up and say hello.

Thursday, 4 – 6p @ Table B
Saturday, 4 – 6p @ Table E

Please do not hesitate to stop by and say hi!