Following a Dream...

                          Color Temperature

As mentioned earlier, a color or hue can be warm or cool in temperature.  The colors red, orange, yellow, and yellow orange are considered warm colors expressing heat or warmth.  Blues, blue-greens, green, and yellow green are thought of as cool colors, colors associated with water, ice, snow, foliage, or the sky.  Skies, however, could be both warm and/or cool.  Another story for another day.

Color temperature, however, is relative.  As in all aspects of art, relationships are key.  A cool color, such as Cerulean Blue, could also be considered a warm blue, depending on which color blue is next to it, as in the case of Ultramarine Blue, a very dark cold blue. A red, such as Perylene Red, a true red, could be considered cool, when placed next to Cadmium Red Light, or it could be a warm red compared to Alizarin Crimson, a dark red leaning toward violet.  See the chart that is below for examples of warm/cool relationships.  

Warm colors help to bring objects or land masses forward and cool colors make objects recede.  Adding white to any color automatically cools a color, so be careful when trying to lighten a color.  Before grabbing a white, ask yourself what other color that is lighter than my present color could I add to make this color lighter?  Again, using the tomato as an example, to make one tomato lighter than say, one set deep into a shadowed area of a painting,  adding white would make the tomato look chalky, but by adding say, a yellow, or an orange, it would make the tomato look warmer and brighter, thus bringing it forward.

Cool colors help to create distance by making objects recede.  Cool colors are used to create aerial perspective.  Aerial perspective is the atmospheric effect of light that is observed when one looks into the distance and sees the blues of hills or mountains or the haze over the distant hills. The cool colors in the distance are both lighter in value, cooler in temperature, and lower in intensity.  

Next time we will discuss the intensity or saturation of a color…

                                                                                      Properties of Color

Most people are aware of the color wheel.  Also, most people can tell you that the primary colors are:  red, yellow, and blue.  But there is a lot more about color that one only discovers by studying color theory. 

Color is made up of attributes that help to describe its qualities.  Color, or hue can be warm or cool in temperature, saturated, or highly chromatic in intensity, and a color can be light or dark in value. 

Let’s take a closer look at the value of color.  Value is the range of lightness to darkness of a color.  On a scale of one to ten, with one being white and ten being the color straight from the tube.  In the case of a red, with red straight from the tube being a number ten on the value scale, a very pale pink might be a number one on the value scale.  A color can be lightened with white to become a tint or it can be darkened with black or its complement, the color opposite it on the color wheel to become a shade. 

 Being able to discern the value of a hue or color is keenly important for the artist.  Value helps to create form making an object look three dimensional on a two dimensional surface. To make an object look three dimensional, there are six tonal or value changes to consider. 

1. The Body Tone which is the actual or local color of the object in light.
2. The Half-tone (value) occurs as part of the object starts to turn away from the light source.  Adding a bit of a color’s complement can help to turn the object.
3. The Body Shadow occurs when the surface of the object is in shadow cut off from the light source. Again, the complementary color can help to create the shadow color.
4. 4.     The Cast Shadow is the dark tone or value that occurs on the surface where the object is placed.  The color of a cast shadow will be the complementary color of the surface’s color.
5. The Highlight is the lightest value or tone.  The highlight is usually a cool color and it can be made by adding a lot of white to the complementary color of the object that is being painted.  In the case of painting a tomato, the highlight would be white with the slightest bit of green added.
6. Core of the Shadow is the darkest tone or value.  It is the dark line under an object that helps to seat it on the table or surface on which your objects rests.

Next time, we’ll take a look at the temperature of a color…