I've been wanting to post this for a while and even though we already did the collage, I feel like it is still relevant. In the above painting, Matisse used an array of unrealistic colors to depict the woman wearing a hat. While the color palette seems to be random and playful, Matisse is actually exercising tonal elements. When the color image is shown in black and white the values in the painting still remain crisp and clear. This painting is an example of how color reflects and absorbs light which is important to understand when drawing in a gray value scale. Although the "color" of an object may be black it won't necessarily embody the "shade" black and Matisse points out that this is an important factor that artists need to be aware of. In doing our collages and translating color to shade the realization needed to be made that something bright red would appear darker than a deep or dull green. Even when drawing and shading from life, color is translated into value/tone by examining the way light plays off of a surface.
I think that this is very helpful to show how the composition of an image can be enhanced by the colors in the piece. The greens and peach tones used in the background allow the viewer to move around the piece and it creates focal points within the portrait, other than the face. The piece is much more complex when it is done in color, rather than the black and white composition which makes the face the only focal point. Because these colors are also relatively the same intensity, when it is translated into a black and white image the majority of it ends up being mid tones.
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