ICD2023-2 "Frank J. Reilly and the Controlled Palette" with Tristan Elwell (SVA, New York)

Tristan Elwell (School of Visual Arts, New York): "Frank J. Reilly and the Controlled Palette".
Frank J. Reilly was one of the most influential figurative art teachers in mid-20th century America. In his classes at the Art Students League, and later at his own school, he taught a highly systematic approach to drawing and painting, which generations of students-turned-teachers have carried on to the present day. One of his most important and influential innovations was his controlled palette, which adapted the Munsell system to figure and landscape painting, allowing complete and independent control of hue, value, and chroma. This talk will cover Reilly’s background and influences, the details of his color mixing system, and how it has been preserved, modified, and extended by artists and illustrators today.
Tristan Elwell was born and raised in Manhattan and now lives in the Hudson Valley of New York State. He graduated from New York’s School of Visual Arts in 1990 and has taught drawing, painting, and illustration there since 1994. His paintings combine meticulous technique with a unique conceptual sense and often mordant wit, and have appeared on hundreds of book covers for all of the major publishing houses, including Avon, Bantam, HarperCollins, Penguin, Pocket Books, Scholastic, and Tor, as well as trading card games, magazine covers, and international advertising campaigns. His work has been honoured by the Society of Illustrators, Print, Spectrum: the Best of Contemporary Fantastic Art and Communication Arts magazine, and has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, and at the United Nations. Tristan is represented by Shannon Associates LLC, New York and a selection of his illustration work can be seen on their website at www.shannonassociates.com/tristanelwell
This is the second of two presentations for our International Colour Day 2023 online event, presented by the NSW Division of the CSA in association with the AIC Study Group on Arts and Design (www.aic-color.org/sg-ad). The event continues a series of webinars organized and presented free of charge by the CSA NSW Division over the last few years. The Colour Society of Australia is a 100% volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation and welcomes all to its events and membership. We were very honoured to have Professor Maria Joao Durao from the University of Lisbon introducing the speakers for this event. Maria Joao is the Secretary/Treasurer of the International Colour Association and Chair of the AIC Study Group on Arts and Design, and in addition was the driving force behind the establishment of AIC International Colour Day in 2009.
The first presentation, "Controlling Colour: Historical Background" with Dr David Briggs (National Art School, University of Technology, Sydney), discuses the background to the Munsell system and can be viewed at kzbin.info/www/bejne/bIO4o2uDjLSjm6s

[@watercolornewbies]

This was a fabulously informative lecture. Thanks for organising and posting it.

[@kyliemackayfineart]

Another fabulous presentation! Thank you David, Maria and Tristan for your generosity in sharing the knowledge you have.

[@dv9476]

Thank you, appreciate much. Learnt a lot from this video.

[@mrdog66]

It seems that Frank Reilly took DuMond's palette and simplified it for his needs, which is what was stated. My observation or take away is that Reilly seemed to make take DuMond's concepts on color, then filtered them through Munsell, and developed more of a method more than a concept. Is this a correct way of viewing this? I studied with Frank Mason, who modified DuMond's palette, he added a string of violets, and like Reilly had a 9 value grayscale which are based on a nine values for cadmium yellows and reds plus alizarin crimson. It seems so close to Frank Reilly in a lot of ways. The Maynard palette seems closer than Frank Mason's to Reilly's. It's fascinating to see how all of these ideas about controlled palettes came out of DuMond's class at the ASL in New York. Cad yellow lemon through deep, cad orange, cad red light through deep and alizarin crimson. The middle value of the palette was based on the cad orange value. My understanding of the use of the cadmiums was based on the clean value range that they made. The full Mason landscape palette was made up with strings of blue, violet, and greens, mixed in a similar way that Reilly had for his landscape palette, all based on the gray values. The difference was that DuMond, Mason and Arthur Maynard (a former DuMond student) viewed the palette as a concept and not really a method. Mason added high keyed strings of Phthalo blue and green as well as cad red light and alizarin crimson based on the values 9, 8, and 7. It was a large palette that used values and the idea of atmospheric perspective/color together. You could see values through the movement from blue to violet to green into the yellows as the landscape moved forward. The blue, violet and grays were a way to help control the light effect and how things receded and came forward.

[@bahumdinger8361]

Enjoy your work and excellent presentation Tristan

[@ralphelwell1655]

Tristan thank you, brilliant explanation of the Reilly pallet. Tedious for some but essential and effective route to better prepared painting.

[@lisgomezhernandez6450]

THanks for sharing this information

[@tristan.elwell]

There were some questions we didn’t get a chance to address during the live stream, so I’ll post them here.

[@tristan.elwell]

Rachael asked: You mentioned that Reilly's palette layout doesn't get used in gouache much and that it doesn't suit gouache as much, why is that? There are two main issues, the first is that extensive premixing isn’t practical with water media like gouache. The second is that gouache has a pronounced color shift from wet to dry, so judging color mixing is much more difficult.

[@tristan.elwell]

Kenneth Massey asked: Was Reilly’s system used or adapted to develop 3d rendering algorithms and digital photography empirical correspondence between visual and digitally captured color? I don’t believe it was a direct influence. The Munsell System doesn’t actually translate very well to digital space, because it is specially concerned with surface color, and all digital color is RGB light. So other color models work much more naturally. I found a few workarounds to translate my traditional painting workflow when I first began working digitally, but I use them less and less as I’ve gotten more comfortable with digital tools.

[@tristan.elwell]

Francine asked: What are the main differences between using opposites and using Munsell greys. Are the outcomes very dissimilar or do they end up with similar outcomes. You CAN get exactly similar outcomes, IF you know what you’re doing. Using complements will require more adjustment of hue and value, though. Reducing chroma with grays leads to far less hue and value shift, so it’s a more predictable, controllable method. Also, the visual complement of a color can be very different from the color you would have to use to neutralize it in paint, so determining the effect of colored light is harder. Some people prefer the unpredictable results you get mixing complements, and see those “lively grays” as a feature rather than a bug, but I think they’ve just gotten used to working a particular way and are making a virtue of necessity.

[@querenstewart9944]

Brilliant

[@williambo5989]

he made colors more staurated on purpose because color printing back then wasnt as advanced