Student Gallery - Color Studies

At Studio Incamminati, artists study color by learning to see it in the strongest mode possible and exploring how to heighten the colors represented on canvas. As in the previous phases, artists start simply and progressively move to greater sophistication of form. Using artificial light on bold colors, the artists get a more complete view of the colors and the impact of color relationships. Just as with Charcoal and Grisaille, artists do hundreds of short color studies of simple objects in strong light, eventually moving to natural light.

To accommodate the full palette of colors so important to Nelson Shanks’ approach, it is critical to understand color as a series of relationships.

Completing one color study after another, building on each exercise improves the artist’s ability to see color. Color studies of the human figure are augmented by those of still life. As the two exercises overlap, the differences—and similarities—of color become increasingly apparent: Light affects color and colors affect other colors.