TODAY'S FEATURED POST

Sargent at the Met

Lauren Panepinto

If we were to make up a list of "Muddy Colors's Favorite Artists" I think it would be safe to say John Singer Sargent is in the top 5. He's certainly a frequent article topic and referenced quite a bit on this blog over the years. If you want some background, I did one of my Turning Points articles on him and Robert Hunt did a great one called "So What's So Great About John…

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EVERYDAY ORIGINAL

The Pumpkin King

YESTERDAY’S POST

Image

Short Take: Foreground Darks

Gregory Manchess

August 6, 2025 - Recently in one of my online classes for SmArt School, a few students were having trouble creating visual interest in their compositions. The pieces lacked depth. The culprit wasn’t the design of the main elements, but the distribution of values. Generally, the students think of the background as dark, but they also wanted to put their main subject in dark clothing, and all the darks in the subject were the same darks as in the background. They initially thought the farther away from the foreground subject, the darker the background becomes. But unless they were depicting someone in a subway, or darkened room, the background can be lighter. What was necessary for them to gain depth and enhance the silhouette of the foreground subject was to slightly lighten the background color value and allow most…

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