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WORKING WITH A PHI RECTANGLE USING MY GOLDEN DIVIDER CALIPERS 

 

 

This digital image was captured late afternoon on a winter day off of Richlandtown Road, Bucks County,Pennsylvania. I felt that the image might work best on a PHI rectangle so in the program Photoshop Elements I cropped the image and made some adjustments to the perspective. The image below was the reference image for the initial drawing. 

 

 

I find it helpful to convert my digital image to black and white on my computer screen to study the values and determine adjustments needed to achieve a stronger sense of distance and atmosphere.

 

 

Theses calipers available from www.thegoldendivider.ch

 

Next I drew the image using my golden division calipers to help with the composition. The drawing was not full size at this point, 

This is the PHI  rectangle with the spiral developed within the rectangle. This armature is the structure that I used to develop the initial drawing.

 

 

The drawing was then enlarged and further developed until I had a simple placement drawing for transferring to the canvas. 

 

 

After transferring the composition to the canvas I chose a palette of colors. I usually try to keep my choice of colors to as few as possible.

 

For this painting I used Blue/Green and Violet as the overall tone of the piece with Orange as my accent color. There are four additional colors I used to enhance the mixtures made from the three main colors. These were a Red, Yellow/Orange, Yellow Green and Cobalt Blue. White and black were also on my palette. I used Ivory Black as well as Chromatic Black (Gamblin Paints). Chromatic black is a mixture of blue green and violet and is very transparent. My white was a mixture of Lead and Titanium. Vasari Paint is my favorite brand of paint buy I do use Gamblin and Doak for special colors. I use linseed oil as a medium but very sparingly.

 

 

 

The first color layer is kept simple and broadly applied striving for value control more than for the exact colors I will finish with. I believe that value is much more important than color at this stage. I usually like the painting to dry between sessions.

 

 

I am working on linen canvas tacked to a board. If the painting turns out I will later mount it to a wood panel. I find that this makes storing the painting much easier as I can just stack the canvas between sheets of  glassine paper until I am ready to mount and frame it.

 

During the second application of color I work towards developing the overall tone of the painting and finding the balance of color that will give the work the feel that I want. The painting needs to feel cold but the setting sun definitely effects the blues and purples in the landscape.  

 

 

At this point I check the composition against the original design.  On the computer screen I can superimpose the PHI spiral over the photographed painting to see what needs adjusting. The PHI grid can also be imposed over the painting. Minor adjustments to placement of objects and the movement of the land can be made at this point.

 

 

On my computer screen I view the original digital image next to the painting. The grid superimposed over the work enables further development of the composition as I paint. I can see details that I need from the original image and place them where they will further the design according to the PHI composition.

 

 

 

The golden divider calipers were used throughout the painting for fine tuning of the composition. 

The final painting has the sweep of the spiral across the painting giving the landscape movement and increasing the sense of depth.

 

 

 

CORN ROWS IN SNOW                                                     14” x 23”  Oil on linen panel