This course focuses on color. There are two concurrent streams of work that take place. In class we work from life with a model. Outside of class students work with color theory. By the end of the class students can manipulated hue, value mans saturation and have begin to form their own personal sense of color. In class students are challenged to see and mix color through a series of very difficult setups with figures, strange lighting, and a range or colored objects. We start with colored light on white objects. Eventually the setups mix muted and brightly colored objects, colored light, natural light and the figure. The paintings tend to look somewhat cacophonous, but students really learn to mix colors well. They learn to create light in complex environments. The most important issue dealt with is "local color" vs. "color". "Local color" is the color of an object or element independent of its context (the light source or the color next to it). Paintings made with local color look disjointed and have no light. Objects look like decals, rather than elements in an environment. In contrast, "color" is a color in context. Students learn that local color is really a fiction of the mind and that no color can be seen outside of its context. This knowledge enables them to make paintings with the illusion of light - no matter what the color of an individual element in the image. Through homework assignments, students learn about complimentary colors, transparency, the distinct value of a color, and color spaces. They start by mixing the color of after images. This accomplishes two things. One, it trains the eye to be sensitive to the color it sees. Two, it teaches the best definition of a compliment. The color of the after image is the compliment of the first color. After a while it becomes easy to see the compliment of any color, not just those that can be pointed to on a color wheel. Students continue to enhance the sensitivity of their eyes by creating numerous illusions of transparency and color/value scales. By the end of the class students are aware of the three dimensions of color (hue, value, and saturation) and how to manipulate each characteristic.