Weekly Influence #7- Frank Frazetta!!!!!
Posted By Phil! on Aug 5, 2007 - 11:04 pm

Hey everyone, welcome back the the Weekly Influence. It's been a long time since the last entry but we're back on course now. I've got the next few planned so we shouldn't have any more delays.

While Frank Frazetta worked in several mediums and industries, I'm going to focus solely on his work as a painter. I know that it ignores his contributions to comics but perhaps he will come back at a later date in another entry with a different direction.

In the last entry, we focused on N.C. Wyeth, an amazing painter of high adventure. This week, we go from Wyeth's high adventure to Frank Frazetta's science fiction and fantasy. While Wyeth's and Frazetta's works are rather different, I think the spirit is similar.
We can also learn many of the same lessons on painting from both.

I'd like to focus on two aspects of Frazetta's work; One is his use of contrast, the other is his use of transparent shadows.

I had a teacher, Matt Faulkner, in college who said (I'm completely paraphrasing) that we should treat our picture plane like a black and white checkerboard. The white squares butt up against the black squares and vise versa. We have areas of black surrounded by white and areas of white surrounded by black. The contrast between the two help us distinguish both. Think about that as we look at some images by Frank Frazetta.

In the image below, look at Frazetta's use of contrast. The darker areas of the man stand out against the pearly white of the background structure. The whiter skin of the woman's head is surrounded by the darkness of the sky. Even the animals body, when turning into nothing but a silhouette is played against the lighter blues of the background foliage. This use of contrast helps to guide the eye around the focal points but it also allows the viewer to register forms quickly with distinctive silhouettes.

On another image he once again plays the value of the man's skin against a contrasting background tone. This time, making the man lighter than the background but at the same time including even darker tones within the man himself, forcing the lighter areas of his arms and face to really pop out. The female also breaks through because her skin is surrounded by such dark values. To a lesser extent he also plays with value with in the creatures. In the four armed beast closest to the man, Frazetta casts his arms into shadow, surrounding his torso and head with relatively darker tones, making them easier to discern.

These are two extreme examples of ways in which playing with value can increase the clarity and composition of an image.

On to the second point, I'd like to mention. Frank Frazetta would build up his paintings in a very traditional manner. He clearly began with a ground color and slowly built up the image using more and more opaque color as he went. Using this technique, the shadows of within the image are achieved by using rather transparent layers. The areas of light are built up with thicker, or opaquely, applied strokes creating contrast between both value and tactility. The lighter areas "feel" different than the shadow areas. At the same time, the more "complicated" areas of light draw our attention more that the simpler, unmodeled, areas of shadow.

In the example below, we see both the full image and a close-up detail. In the close up, notice the tell-tale differences between the lights and shadows. The shadows are simply applied layers of transparent color. The delineation of the pectoral muscle of the central character is one simple brush stroke. The lights on his head are several built-up layers of color that fall back to the transparent base color as they fall towards shadow. You can see the orange-ish base color in the shadows of the hair surrounding his head. With the more complicated figure on his left (our right!), it's the same principle. Greenish opaque layers are built upon the bark umber color of his shadows.

There is no doubt that Frazetta's an unbelievable painter and all around image maker. There are several lessons we can learn from this amazing artist if we only take the time to study his work.

I'm going to post several more examples of both of these discussion points on our message boards. Be sure to stop by and discuss why you think I'm incorrect in my statements!

For more about Frank Frazetta's life and works, visit these websites:
Frank Frazetta Art Gallery
Lambiek Page on Frank Frazetta
Frazetta Books on Amazon