Seattle Atelier Color System (intro)

Once students have begun to master tonal divisionism or correctly related tone groups or families (referred to by Camille Pissarro as “the greatest innovation of Impressionism”) they begin working in color.

Our system uses three hues (warm, straight, cool) for all primaries and secondaries, so it’s an 18 hue color-wheel.

Students mix ten complete color wheels on top of a set of ten gray-scale value cards, matching the value of each. 

Meldrum: The Scientific Artist

Hayward Veal walks the full length of his narrow studio because this is the only way to paint. 

It is Max Meldrum’s way. 

Examine the subject from a distance. 

You are objective. 

Detached both from the subject and yourself. 

The artist, Meldrum says, is a scientist of appearances.

Meldrum’s views were political as well. He saw most contemporary artists as the economic dependents of the “business men”. A system wherein the private buyer chooses, recognizes and elevates the artist. Meldrum saw himself as a painter who was indifferent to this system.

He was a pacifist during World War I, a supporter of the anti-fascist movement in the 1930s and of disarmament during the Cold War.