Francesca Chessa
Illustrator, Italy
Francesca Chessa lives in Turin, Italy. She trained as an architect before discovering her love of illustration. As an illustrator she has illustrated numerous children's books and worked for UNICEF. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, winning some international prizes and a selection at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. She had a nomination for the Kate Greenaway Medal for the children's book Is it a Mermaid? written by Candy Gourlay, published by Otter-Barry Books last year . Since 1999, she also teach drawing, creative technique and colour theory in courses and workshops.
Francesca Chessa lives in Turin, Italy. She trained as an architect before discovering her love of illustration. As an illustrator she has illustrated numerous children's books and worked for UNICEF. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, winning some international prizes and a selection at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. She had a nomination for the Kate Greenaway Medal for the children's book Is it a Mermaid? written by Candy Gourlay, published by Otter-Barry Books last year . Since 1999, she also teach drawing, creative technique and colour theory in courses and workshops.
The art of Colour
The colour is like a good music as a background of an image, which is essential to convey the emotion. I have always been inspired by Itten's colour theory lets me free to use any colour combination I would like to use as the same time giving me a deeper knowledge on the use of colour.
The colour is like a good music as a background of an image, which is essential to convey the emotion. I have always been inspired by Itten's colour theory lets me free to use any colour combination I would like to use as the same time giving me a deeper knowledge on the use of colour.
Testo extra
"To use colour effectively, you need to know that it cheats most of the time."
Josef Albers
According to the interaction with the background, the colour can vary either in the direction of light, then be perceived brighter or darker, or in the direction of the intensity, so be perceived warmer or colder.
Just because it is relative and difficult to trap and to judge, I always found interesting the colour theory of Joahannes Itten, who tried to make less relevant the colour, less subjective and more objective. According to some people the colour cannot be outlined, it is like a good music as a background of an image, which is essential to convey the emotion. But even music has its rules.
Itten's theory, as I have always seen using it in my illustrations, lets us free to use any colour combination we would like to use as the same time giving us a deeper knowledge on the use of colour.
"To use colour effectively, you need to know that it cheats most of the time."
Josef Albers
According to the interaction with the background, the colour can vary either in the direction of light, then be perceived brighter or darker, or in the direction of the intensity, so be perceived warmer or colder.
Just because it is relative and difficult to trap and to judge, I always found interesting the colour theory of Joahannes Itten, who tried to make less relevant the colour, less subjective and more objective. According to some people the colour cannot be outlined, it is like a good music as a background of an image, which is essential to convey the emotion. But even music has its rules.
Itten's theory, as I have always seen using it in my illustrations, lets us free to use any colour combination we would like to use as the same time giving us a deeper knowledge on the use of colour.