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COLOR
Part I - Color Perception

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Contents

On the palette versus in the painting

Hue

Value, temperature, and chroma

Recommended texts

Color theory

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On The Palette

Color on the palette usually looks different once it is put in a painting. Context is everything.

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The color of the palette itself affects our perception of the colors on it, just as the environment of the painting influences our understanding of each color in it. Regular testing of colors is therefore often required. A simple method is to stroke a small daub of mixed color onto the picture for evaluation. If the hue is unsatisfactory, the mixture is modified and tested again. (Watercolor painters test on a scrap of watercolor paper.)

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In The Tube

One of the keys to skillful color mixing is intimate knowledge of ones pigments. Specific pigments are detailed later. For now, we will look at characteristics that are inherent in all artists colors.

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All colors have a hue, such as blue, green, or red-orange. When added to another color, a hue makes that other color more like itself. Red, for example, when combined with yellow paint, makes the yellow appear redder.

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A color is either warmer or cooler than other colors. In general, yellow, orange, and red are considered to be warm. Green, blue, and violet are thought of as cool colors. Violet or blue-violet is said to be the coldest of colors, and the nearer to violet a color is located on the color wheel, the cooler it is. With yellow as the warmest color, hues closer to yellow on the color wheel are warmer than those at a distance from yellow. It is also possible to have warmer and cooler versions of a color. Fire-engine cadmium red seems warm next to alizarin crimson (a violet-red), or cool when adjacent to the somewhat orange-ish tone of cadmium scarlet. Whether we think of a particular color as being warm or cool depends on what other colors are nearby.

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Black and white are special cases. Black is the coldest of all colors, and most white paints are cool (slightly bluish).

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This typical color wheel illustrates the fact that yellows are considered to be the warmest and palest colors, while violets are the darkest and coldest. The arrowsindicate that the nearer to yellow a color is on the color wheel, the warmer and paler it is, and the nearer to violet a color is, the cooler and darker it is. Exceptions are white and black (bands at top and bottom of the diagram). White is paler than yellow, but is cool in tone. Black is the darkest and coldest of all colors.

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Colors possess chroma. A high-chroma color is one that is brilliant and pure, such as cadmium yellow. Low chroma colors are dull and neutral. Yellow ochre is lower in chroma than cadmium yellow. Colors of very low chroma are grayish, and can be easily made by mixing together two complementary colors (colors opposite one another on the color wheel). Mixing colors together can never make them brighter, only duller.

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Value refers to how dark or pale a color is. (See note below for value ratings of some common artists' colors.) Every color has a value and, like temperature, value is relative. A color is dark or pale as compared to some other color. Adding a darker color to a mixture darkens the mixture, and a pale color lightens it. (In watercolor, paleness is almost always achieved by adding more water to the paint and putting it down in a thinner layer. Heaping up yellow paint on the paper in hopes of making it appear brighter or more like light than a thin wash only ends up making it appear dense and somewhat dark.)

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Oil paints are either opaque, fully transparent, or somewhere between. Acrylic paints are all translucent to some degree, although some are less so than others. When applied in typically thin washes, watercolors are always transparent.

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A highly opaque oil or acrylic pigment is less influenced by the color it is painted on top of than a pigment that is not opaque. Thus, when mixing color, the degree of opacity or transparency of pigments used must be taken into account. With watercolor, the transparency of the paint must always be considered.

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NOTE: Relative Values of Selected Artists' Colors
Colors are rated from 1 (palest) to 10 (darkest) and exclude black and white pigments
2 - Cadmium yellow light or pale
3 - Cadmium yellow medium, cadmium yellow deep
5 - Cadmium orange, Raw sienna
6 - Cadmium red light or pale, Cadmium red medium
7 - Cerulean blue, Cobalt blue
8 - Cadmium red deep, Alizarin crimson, French ultramarine blue, Cobalt green, Burnt sienna
9 - Quinacridone violet, Sap green, Raw umber
10 - Prussian blue, Phthalocyanine (Thalo) blue, Viridian, Burnt umber

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In The Books

A partner to effective color mixing is familiarity with color theory. To mix the right color, we need to know what the right color is and the effect it will have upon the picture. In order to do that, we need to know how one color will look in the company of others.

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Color theory is an involved topic, and is discussed only briefly here. For an in-depth treatment, refer to a good text such as one of these:

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• The Enjoyment and Use of Color, Walter Sargent, Dover Publications

• Interaction of Color, Josef Albers, Yale University Press

• Color Choices: making sense out of color theory, Stephen Quiller, Watson-Guptill

• Color Theory, Jose M. Parramon, Watson-Guptill

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Theory of Opposites

The most brilliant colors are those that come directly from the tube, but even a tube color can be made to look more brilliant through a change in context. A dull color placed next to a bright one makes the bright color look more brilliant yet. The reverse is also true: vibrant hues near dull colors make the dull ones seem still duller. In the illustration are shown burnt sienna encased in a very dull raw umber on the left, and boxed by a brilliant cadmium red on the right. Note that the umber makes sienna look quite fiery and intense, while the cadmium red causes it to appear restrained and somewhat dull. To increase the clarity of brilliant hues like cadmium red, place duller colors such as burnt sienna or a grayish mixture nearby.

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The chroma (brilliance) of a color can be made to appear greater or lesser depending upon context. The center squares are burnt sienna. Surrounded by dull raw umber (left), the sienna takes on more brilliance than when encased in bright cadmium red (right).

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Complementary colors, those opposite one another on the color wheel, increase one another's intensity when placed side by side. Green makes red look redder, and red makes green appear greener, as in the illustration. When mixed together, complementary colors produce dull hues and, at an extreme, grays or blacks. (A list of complementary pairs of some common artists' pigments is provided in the note below.)

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A color, when framed by its complement, looks more intense than in other contexts. In the illustration, the green surrounded by red appears more green than it otherwise would. Embedded in a field of green, the red box looks more red than it would in some other situation.

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A dark color next to a pale color causes the pale color to appear paler, and visa versa. In other words, increasing contrast accentuates the paleness or darkness of a color. Yellow ochre looks dark if surrounded by the paleness of cadmium yellow (on the left in the diagram), but bright and pale if enclosed by the darkness of burnt umber (to the right).

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A color can be made to seem darker when even darker colors are nearby, or paler when in the company of darker colors. At far left, a pale yellow around yellow ochre makes the ochre seem quite dark by comparison. The ochre, when enmeshed in a much darker hue like burnt umber (right), seems very pale.

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Cool and warm colors act upon one another in a similar manner, with cool hues making warm colors nearby seem even warmer, and warm tints increasing the chill of cool colors. Cobalt blue seems warm and greenish in the presence of purplish French ultramarine, but cool and almost violet when next to the slight greenness of cerulean blue.

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Warm colors cause cooler colors to appear colder yet, and cool colors make warmer colors to seem hotter still. On the left, the surrounding French ultramarine blue makes the cobalt blue in the center seem warmer than the cobalt blue in the center square on the right, which appears rather violet as compared to the surrounding cerulean blue.

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NOTE: Pairs of Complementary Colors (colors to the right of > are the complement of the color to the left of >)
Phthalocyanine turquoise > Cadmium red deep, Cadmium red medium
Cerulean blue > Cadmium red light
Alizarin crimson > Viridian, Terre Verte (Earth Green)
Ultramarine violet > Cadmium yellow light or pale, Cadmium yellow medium, Cadmium yellow deep
French ultramarine blue > Cadmium orange, Raw sienna, Burnt sienna
Phthalocyanine blue > Cadmium scarlet (Cadmium vermilion), Pyrrole orange, Burnt umber
Prussian blue > Cadmium scarlet (Cadmium vermilion), Burnt umber
Cobalt blue > Napthol orange
Dioxazine violet > Sap green
Cobalt green > Quinacridone violet

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Theory of Night

Black has its own peculiar effects upon other colors, and is affected by them in unique ways. All colors look more brilliant, more intense, and more saturate in the company of black. Neighborly interactions between black and specific hues are illustrated in the diagram. The arrows at top indicate the effect black has upon the different colors, and the arrows at bottom show how black is influenced by other hues.

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Black has a profound effect upon other colors. As the diagram shows, orange and green appear more yellow-ish in the company of black, while yellow gets brighter. Violet is pushed toward red, as red becomes increasingly violet. Blue is made greener looking by black. Black is also influenced. Most colors cause black to look like the complement of the affecting hue; in other words, orange will make black look bluer. Blue and violet, however, simply make black seem brighter and less muddy.

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Theory of Fog

Gray next to other colors makes them look more brilliant. They, in turn, convert gray into dull versions of their complements. Yellow placed next to gray, for instance, nudges gray toward violet.

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Theory of Not-Quite-Opposite

A split-complementary is right next door to the complement of a color. Violet is opposite yellow on the color wheel and is yellow's complement. Next to violet are red-violet and blue-violet; they are the split-complements of yellow.

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Complementary colors are opposite one another across the color wheel. A split-complement is the next-door neighbor of a complement. Thus, the split-complements of yellow are red-violet and blue-violet. Split-complements produce effects similar to those of complementary pairs, but not so intensely.

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Painted next to one another, a pair of split-complements more nearly resembles their common neighbor. For example, if a patch of red-violet abuts an area of blue-violet, both colors look more violet than they would in some other context.

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Split complements in juxtaposition with the base color on the other side of the color wheel (red-violet and blue-violet next to yellow, the complement of violet) cause the base color (yellow) to look more intense. As with complementary colors, split-complements combined produce dull, grayish mixtures.

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