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<p>Kandinsky Color Study</p> 08.25.2005

An assignment for a color theory class challenged us to copy Kandinsky's use of color and geometric shapes in his abstract work.

Client

n/a

Description

Commonly considered the founder of abstract art, Wassily Kandinsky also serves as an inspiration to many students desiring to expand their experience with color theory and abstract expressionism.

The inspiration for this particular piece was Kandinsky’s “Yellow, Red, Blue”. However influences from some of his other works can also be found here. Some of the things I found interesting about Kandinsky’s “Yellow, Red, Blue” was the use of complementary colors in close proximity to each other. Using this as an inspiration, I painted the background in low intensity orange and blue.

Another thing that was noticeable in his artwork is the use of the natural texture of the canvas. It appears that in many places in the work, Kandinsky allows the natural texture of the canvas to come through by using paint thinner to make shapes translucent, making the final product look rugged. It almost seems like he used watercolors instead of oil to create these effects, though the summary of the image says otherwise. I tried to simulate this by airbrushing subtly different hues onto the surfaces of each of the shapes, to give them the same rough texture we see in Kandinsky’s work.

Kandinsky’s work also influenced my decision to use transparency in shapes that overlap other shapes. I chose to follow a different path than Kandinsky in this aspect. I’ve noticed that Kandinsky tends to use either low value or high value hues in these instances, but rarely uses medium value colors with intensity. I chose to use medium values with high intensity so that I could experiment with high contrast complementary colors. I used Photoshop’s layer blending tools to determine who one layer would interact with another, which simulates the transparency affects exhibited in Kandinsky’s work. I often was forced to use colors opposite to the end colors I wanted to appear, because the only layer blending option I found that would work was “Difference”, which essentially creates a color opposite to what is on the screen. But I was pleased with the results nonetheless.

Tools Used

• Adobe Photoshop

Samples

Kandinsky Imitation