Day 4: Color Theory - Color Wheel

Color Wheel is a tool for combining colors. It was first created by Sir Issac Newton in 1666. The traditional Color wheel is based on Red, Yellow and Blue colors. There are different variations of color wheel as well.

Day 4: Color Theory - Hue, Tint, Shade, Tone

Hue is the basic element of Color Theory. When we ask "What is color is this?", what we are actually asking is Hue. These hues are dependent on the dominant wave length of light which is emitted or reflected from an object. Hue is pure color - like yellow, red, orange, blue etc.

Tints, Shades & Tones
These are different variations of hue. If pure Hue is made lighter by adding more white, it is called Tint. If black is added to pure Hue to get a darker version, it is called Shade. If gray is added, the result is Tone.

Hue:

Tint:

Shade:

Tone:

Day 3: Task - Create a New Brush in Photoshop

The Task:
Learn to create a new brush in Photoshop. I found a video tutorial to show you how to do the same.

Day 3: Task - Wallpaper Design

The Task:
To create an abstract wallpaper design by using only brush, smudge, dodge, burn, blur, sharpen tools.

Following is what I did, I recreated the following painting at home, took around 25 mins to do it.

Day 2: Principles of Design - Unity

When the design elements in a composition works together harmoniously to give the viewer a feel of relationship, it gives Unity to the design. Unity in a composition is important to good design.

Unity helps you to create a sense of order in the design and gives the individual elements a sense of completeness    that they are related to each other.

Day 2: Principles of Design - Dominance

Dominance relates to emphasis and visual weight in a composition. Eye is led to the most dominant element in the design. We can use different contrast methods to increase an element's dominance.

There are three levels of dominance:

1. Dominant
2. Sub-dominant
3. Subordinate

Day 2: Principles of Design - Contrast

Contrast occurs when two elements of a design are different. The greater the difference, greater the contrast. It is a way to emphasize what element is important in that design or directing users attention to a particular element. Contrast makes a design interesting thereby grabbing the attention of the viewer to the design.

Contrast can be achieved by using variety of:

• Shape
• Size
• Color Value
• Fonts/Type face
• Texture 

Day 2: Principles of Design - Balance

In the three dimensional space that we live in, we can find balance in almost all the forms we see. If a sculpture is not balanced, it would fall off. This applies to images created on a two-dimensional canvas as well. The artist need to create an illusion of balance in this case, instead of actual physical balance. This is referred to as Visual Balance.

Symmetrical Balance:

Symmetrical Balance is when the weight of the visual elements are distributed equally on both sides of the central axis.

Asymmetrical Balance:

Asymmetrical Balance is when both sides of the central axis are not the same, yet it will appear as the same weight on both sides by use of illusion.

Radial Balance:

In radial balance, all elements radiate outside from a center point in a circular fashion. All elements will lead your eye towards the center.

Day 2: Design & Visual Art

Qualities of Good Design

• Orderliness
• Aesthetic Approach
• User friendliness

Elements of Design

Point
A point is a precise position in space that has no extension. Line or form is a result of multiple points in space.

Line
A line is an element of art used to define shapes, forms and outlines. A line is characterized by its length and direction.

Shape
When a line crosses itself or intersects to create an enclosed space, it creates a shape. Shape is an element that has width and height but no depth.

Form/Space
A form/space is the three dimensionality of a sculpture, i.e. you can look around them from different angles or directions and also enter them which refers to as space of the sculpture.

Light/Dark
Light and dark shades also shows three-dimensionality of an object. Depending on the location of the light the object can give different dramatic looks for the object.

Texture
A Texture is surface quality of an object. It is related to the physical make up of a form. A texture also refers to make a picture surface look smooth or rough.

Color
A color is the response of the eye to different wavelengths of radiations from light. There are different color systems and color theories to look into. We will get to that in another post.

Day 1: Task

Here is the digital painting of Volcano for Day 1, as mentioned in the last post. Took around 20 minutes to complete. Used only Brush tool in Photoshop, by adjusting opacity and ink flow.

Day 1: Visual Design

Phewww!!! Just got back after the first day of the course. It was a bit comfortable to be honest, studying with classmates who are at least 9 years younger than me. I'm sure it was a bit uncomfortable for them as well (They seem scared...). But I think the generation gap will blur away after the first few days (hopefully).

A few minutes of the initial time was spend on Visual Design and the important of observation in daily life as a designer. If you are already an artist you are most probably doing it already, if you are not then start to observe different advertisement in the magazines, in the TV and look around your natural environments, even the simplest things like a rain drop and try to analyze what makes it beautiful and why it grabs your attention.

Rest of the day was spend to get familiar with Photoshop. It was boring as I already know Photoshop. But the first task to work for was interesting. May be you can try it yourself as well.

The task:
Paint a Volcano eruption at night by using only brush tool. i.e. no eraser, no layers. You can use different colors, brush's opacity, fill and brush sizes and brush hardness option in Photoshop.

The file I worked on is at the institute which I cannot copy outside. I will try to recreate that at home and will post it. Meanwhile you can also grab a volcano eruption at night photo from Internet and try to draw that using brush tool only. AGAIN, NO ERASER! You can use undo though.