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A few paintings



My first comic

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Some Photography Stuff

Types of Lenses:

Prime Lens - A lens with no “zoom.” While this might limit composition choices, it also usually means the lens is “faster” (meaning can achieve larger apertures, usually 2.8 and larger (2.0, 1.8, 1.4, 1.0, etc). The wider the aperture, the more light gets in and therefore the faster the shutter can be which is why primes are considered faster.

Zoom Lens - Any lens that can span a range of focal lengths. For example: 18mm-55mm. There are zooms in every category (normal, telephoto, wide, and macro).

Telephoto Lens - A lens that makes objects in the photo appear larger than they were to the naked eye. This is akin to being “zoomed in.” These lenses are comparable to physically moving closer to the subject. Some distortion can occur in the form of “compressing” the distance between objects.

Normal Lens - A lens where objects in the photo appear to be the same size as when seen by the naked eye. This lenses do not change your perceived distance from the subject.

Wide Angle Lens - A lens that shows a wider field of view than the naked eye. This is comparable to being further from the subject. Some distortion can occur (with a fisheye being an extreme example). Foreground objects appear disproportionately larger than background objects.

Macro Lens - A specialty lens that allows focusing on objects MUCH closer than with other lenses. Favored for all closeups (insects, flowers, etc).


Other Terms:

DOF - DOF stands for Depth-of-Field or Depth-of-focus. This describes how much of the shot is in focus (a plain perpendicular to the lens).

Focal Length - The size of a lens. Controls how “zoomed in” or “zoomed out” the picture is. On a 35mm camera a 50mm lens is pretty ‘normal’ and an 85mm lens is a short ‘telephoto’ and a 20mm lens is ‘wide.’ On a lower-end SLR a 50mm is a little bit telephoto.

Crop Factor - The ratio of size of the field of view between various cameras and compared against a 35mm film camera as the baseline. A typical digital SLR has a crop factor of 1.6 (meaning the field of view of the digital chip is smaller than a 35mm film frame). This affects the field of view offered by lenses. For example, a 50mm lens on a typical Digital SLR (DSLR) would be the equivalent of an 80mm lens on a 35mm film camera. A 200mm lens on a typical DSLR would be the same as a 320mm lens on a typical 35mm film camera.

Aperture - The aperture is the size of the opening of the shutter when it fires. It is measured as a fraction (so that 4.0 really means 1/4.0 and 16 means 1/16 and 1.8 means 1/1.8). The smaller the number, the wider the aperture. The wider the aperture, the smaller the DOF and the more light that gets in so the faster the shutter needs to be set.

Shutter Speed - How fast the shutter fires. Conventional wisdom dictates that a camera can be handheld at a shutter speed equal to 1/x where x is the focal length of the lens. For example, if shooting with a 100mm lens, you can handhold the camera up to 1/100 sec. Anything slower (1/50 sec, etc) would need to be balanced on a tripod or monopod or other stabilizer.

ISO - How sensitive the chip is to light. The higher the ISO, the faster the shutter can be set at. ISOs over 200 can start to introduce digital noise (comparable to film grain) with more noise coming from higher ISOs.


Exposure:

There are 3 major factors that affect proper exposure: ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture. Adjusting any of these factors affects exposure unless compensated for by either of the other settings.

For example, take the “sunny 16 rule.” The sunny 16 rule is a generalized rule of thumb for achieving proper exposure in sunny conditions. It states that you set the shutter speed to 1/ISO (ie - if using ISO 200 then set the shutter to 1/200 sec), then set the aperture to 1/16 (f-16 or f/16). So a proper exposure would be ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F/16.

Now if you wanted to change the shutter speed because you are using a 300mm lens and don’t have a tripod you could set the shutter to 1/400 sec. This would unbalance the above equation, so you could then compensate by raising the ISO to 400. Now you have ISO 400, 1/400 sec, F/16. Both this setting and the one above give the same exposure.


Depth of Field:

Depth of field is affected by two details: aperture and distance between the camera and the subject. Of these, aperture is the factor that gets manipulated most often when trying to change depth of field. The wider the aperture, the smaller the depth of field. When a lens is “wide open” (using the widest possible aperture, the smallest number) is has the smallest DOF. This is useful for blurring backgrounds and drawing focus where you want it. On the other hand, the smallest possible aperture (anywhere from F/16 on most lenses to F/22 or even F/45 on some lenses) gives the longest DOF. This is most useful in landscape photography where the ideal is to have ALL of the scene in focus.

Distance between camera and subject becomes an issue when shooting Macro photography specifically. When the lens is w/in mere inches from the subject then even a “normal” aperture like F/5.6 can yield a small DOF (a scant couple millimeters). To get all of a macro subject in focus it is usually necessary to shoot a F/8 or F/11 or smaller. This results in slow shutter speeds (see above) unless additional light is brought in (ie - from a flash). Slow shutter speeds increases the chance for motion blur (especially on a breezy day or when the subject is animate, ie a butterfly).

Spoiler:

Studying from the masters.

Assignment:
50 3-value compositional master studies
50 color studies
3 full-color finished master studies

Resources:
http://artrenewal.org/
http://www.googleartproject.com/
http://thegoldenagesite.blogspot.com/
http://www.wikipaintings.org/
http://19thcenturyrealism.com/

Noah's Suggested artists:
Albert Bierstadt - John Singer Sargent - Thomas Moran - Frederic Church - George Inness - bouguereau - Howard Pyle - NC Wyeth - Frank E Schoonover - Harvey Dunn - Mead Schaeffer

Spoiler:

Week 2 Demo & Assignment:

Get creative.
Last week we were 100% focused on looking at the work of artists we admire. Now we're going to start working on our own stuff. It might seem a bit early or a bit out of place to be doing work from imagination, but only by continually working from imagination and pushing our creative abilities can we test ourselves and see what we've _really_ learned from all of these studies. So this week, in addition to doing more master studies, we're going to flex our creativity.

I encourage you to do imaginative work in whatever genre, style, medium, or subject you prefer. Do the work you want to do. It might not be great and you probably won't be happy with, but that's ok. We're doing these so that we know what we need to study. We're doing them so we can take the theoretical knowledge we're learning and start to apply it.

Assignment:
- 1 full-color finished master study
- 25 color studies from the masters
- 25 imagined full-color sketches

Spoiler:

Odds are you're surrounded by countless objects you've never _really_ looked at. Only by drawing and painting them can we fully understand and appreciate their visual characteristics. So this week we're doing still life studies.

Pick a few objects from around you, arrange them, and do a painting. Simple as that.

While doing your imagined sketches this week, try to use some of the shapes, textures, and colors from your still life paintings in them. Take the things you're learning and apply them to the work you want to do.

Assignment:
20 still life color studies. Not demoed, but set up a still life and do a quick, simple painting of just blocking in the basic colors and two values per object. Try to train your eye by observing the right colors.
8 full-color still life paintings. Fully finished paintings.
8 imaginative sketches.

Spoiler:

It's vanity week.
This week we're looking at ourselves. Self portraits are one of my favorite exercises and probably the easiest way to improve your figurative and portraiture skills.

The trouble with drawing portraits is that it's hard to find models. The beautiful and wonderful thing about self portraits is, of course, that your model is always around and willing to help out.

So we're going to spend a lot of time this week drawing and redrawing our face. So get used to looking in the mirror, y'all.

Assignment:
20 quick block-ins. Take 15-20 minutes and do a block in of the whole face. This can be done in black & white or in color--your choice. The focus is mainly on getting correct proportions and structure in the beginning. Also begin to establish the light and dark shapes on the face. Don't worry about rendering these. Just block in the shapes.8 full-color still life paintings. Fully finished paintings.
4 full-color, finished self-portraits
10 color studies from the masters. Pick figurative or portrait pieces. Even just focus in on a section of a painting to try and observe the colors in skin tones.
5 imagined sketches. Let's see some portraits of characters/creatures!
Get to work!

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