Color - Transparency

Literal transparency is a physical phenomenon where light can pass through a material. Understanding transparency is important to architects because it is embedded in the materials that they use, and it deeply impact that quality and perception of space.  

Artist Joseph Albers is well known for his studies on color. Transparency is one component of his color explorations. In the illustration below you can see a series of planes. The image below shows one of his studies. The top yellow rectangle appears to be behind the orange rectangle. The bottom yellow rectangle appears to be in front of the orange rectangle. The placement of the middle rectangle is unclear. What causes this visual effect?

For this exercise you will be adding transparent planes (glass) to your paraline drawing. You must show at least 5 planes. You must have a plane along each of the three axes. In the image below one horizontal plane is shown. Three planes are parallel to the north-south axis. One plane is parallel to the east-west axis. You may use more than 5 planes if you wish. 

Choose a hue to represent the glass (green, blue, yellow, red, purple, etc.), but choose one with a light value. Value, you may recall, is the amount of white or black in a hue. A color with white added has a light value. 

The solid planes of your model will be represented by white, light gray and medium grade. Below is an illustration of how the final drawing might look. Notice how the tones of the gray areas behind the transparent planes are visible.

Prismacolor pencils will be provided. Do not substitute with other brands of colored pencil unless you have discussed this with the instructor.

You do not need to color the entire drawing at this time, but you do need to locate the outlines of the planes on your paraline drawing and you must provide a sample of the the various conditions. Those conditions would include the transparent surface over medium gray planes, light gray planes and white (no color). The sample must illustrate the level of quality that you will apply to the final drawing. It is highly recommended that you practice your technique by generating overlapping planes as shown below.  

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Scan your draft work and upload it to the Google Drive.

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