Tempera Architecture

Observational Tempera Architecture

Students will build upon their photo translation drawing skills, remembering the grid and segmenting space when thinking about spatial relationships. Students will free-hand draw a cropped architectural space and abstract some components to accentuate the painterly approach.

Students will practice using both graphic and painterly approaches to painting.

Students will practice mixing colors using tempera paint, an opaque painting medium.

Exercise One: Color Mixing

REDS CHART

ORANGES CHART

YELLOWS CHART

GREENS CHART

BLUES CHART

PURPLES CHART

NEUTRALS CHART

Exercise Two:
Limited Color Scheme

• Select one page from a magazine

• Choose five colors from that page to use as your limited color palette

• Mix the colors by first using the color charts as a starting recipe, then adjusting the color towards the color on the page

• Remember wet paint and dry paint are not the same color

• Write down the recipe as you add color to the cup, so that you could make the same color again later

Final Project: Outline Drawing & Abstracting from Representation

• Select an architectural space to draw - cropping into a smaller space will make it easier

• Draw the objects as they are first, then go back in and mess up parts to abstract them.

Final Project: Abstract Architectural Tempera Painting

Use your limited color palette to paint the drawn composition, using graphic and painterly styles.

• Graphic areas have even coloration throughout

• Painterly areas leave two colors partially mixed, so both original colors are visible as well as the new mixed color

Layering Paint