Dominik Modlinski’s painting pants
Retired school principal and one of the lead organizers for the Juneau Plein Rein group, Cristine Crooks sent out an email announcement that world-traveler plein air painter, Dominik Modlinski was coming to Juneau to teach a 3-day class in mid-July. Intrigued, I checked out his website and very much liked his painting style. I weighed how much work I already had on my plate with the cost of the class and I decided that no matter what, I had this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I jumped in! Wow! I learned more in three days with this young man than I did in an entire year of painting class at a college!
The night before the class began, Dominik gave a presentation on his work
Born and raised in Warsaw, Poland in 1970, Dominik started painting at 6 years old. He said he always knew he wanted to be a painter. In Poland’s education system, whatever a child shows is his strongest interest, that is the avenue in which his parents and teachers guide him. Dominik has painted in the wilderness of South America, Africa, Japan, Quebec, British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon. He lives in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and during the summers he spends his time in Yukon with a cabin in Atlin. Check out Dominik’s website at: http://www.paintingjourneys.com/
Dominik presents the color wheel and color charts
Day One: We worked indoors at the Juneau Arts & Cultural Center (JACC) learning how to mix our paints and make color charts. Fascinating! I have made color charts in high school and again in college courses and I found them totally boring, however, I have NEVER learned how to mix the colors to make these charts the way Dominik taught us; we mixed all day without a drop of boredom!
Dominik suggests using this type of disposable pallete paper
We learned Complementary Contrast #1:
Two colors are complementary if their pigments mixed together produce a neutral gray-black. Physically, light of two complementary colors, mixed together, will yield white. Two such colors are a strange pair. They are opposite, they require each other. They incite each other to maximum vividness when adjacent; and they annihilate each other, to gray-black, when mixed – like fire and water. There is always but one color complementary to a given color. In the color circle, complementary colors are diametrically opposite each other.
Examples of complementary pairs are: yellow-violet, blue-orange, red-green
In analyzing these pairs of complimentaries, all three primaries – yellow, red, blue – are always present:
yellow – violet = yellow, red + blue
blue – orange = blue, yellow + red
red – green = red, yellow + blue
Dominik demonstrates how to mix a beautiful grey using equal amounts of yellow, blue and red
Complimentary Contrast #2:
Each complimentary pair has its own peculiarities:
Yellow – Violet, represents not only complimentary contrast but also extreme dark-light contrast.
Red – Orange – Blue-green is a complementary pair, and at the same time the extreme of cold-warm contrast.
Red – Green are complimentary, and the two saturated colours have the same brilliance.
Many paintings based on complimentary contrast exhibit not only contrasting complementaries themselves but also their graduated mixtures as intermediates and compensating tones. Being related to the pure colours they unite the two into one family. In fact, these mixed tones often occupy more space the pure colours.
Notice the focused intent of Dominik’s students!
Simultaneous Contrast #1:
Simultaneous contrast results from teh fact that for any given color, the eye simultaneously requires the complementary color, and generatesit spontaneously if it is not already present.
The simultaneously generated complementary occurs as a sensation int eh eye of beholder, and it is not objectively present.
the simultaneously appearing colour, not being objectively present but genereated in the eye, induces feeling of excitement and lively vibration of ever-changing intensity.
Each of six pure color squares contains a small neutral gray square, matching the background color in brilliance. Each gray square seems to be tinged with the complementary of the background. The simultaneous effect becomes more intense, the longer the principal color of a square is viewed.
Three small gray squares, surrounded by orange:
Three grays barely distinct from each other have been used. The first gray is bluish, and intensifies the simultaneous effect; the second gray is neutral, and suffers simultaneous modification; the third gray contains an admixture of orange, and therefore fails to be modified.
Dominik demonstrates how he begins most of his paintings starting from the top working down
Simultaneous Contrast #2:
The simultaneous effect occurs not only between a gray and a strong chormatic colour, but also between any two colours that are not precisely complementary. Each of teh two will tend to shift the other towards its own complement, and generally both will loose some of their intrinsic character and become tinged with new effects.
Under these conditions, colours give an appearance of dynamic activity.
Click here for Part 2, 2nd Day of Plein Rein Painting Class with Dominic Modlinski