artistic process Archives – Celebrating Color

How to Make Yellow Dark?

November 25, 2018 By Carol McIntyre

Do you remember that first yellow flower you tried to paint? Perhaps it was a sunflower or a rose or a day lily. Most likely it was difficult to do and you found yourself scratching your head trying to figure out how to paint a lovely yellow flower.

I certainly did. My first attempt was not successful and I was baffled. I didn’t know how to create the shadow sides of the petals to create dimension and depth in the flower without creating a muddy mess.

After continuing to learn more about painting and values, I discovered that yellow can NOT become a dark color. In other words, it doesn’t maintain its hue integrity much beyond a value 3 (using a value scale of 0 – 10, with 0 being white and 10 being black). The commercial value scale above is more elaborate using 0 – 13 steps, yet it demonstrates what I am referring to.

Take a moment and compare yellow with the other major hues. Notice how quickly its yummy hue starts turning brown. Also notice the orange is next in having a short value range.

Being the Chart Queen that I am, I would like you to encourage you to create a color value scale. It’s an excellent exercise in learning about how to paint evenly stepped values as well as a way to more fully understand what your hues do as they become darker or lighter. I recommend you create yours using a 5 or 7-step value scale.

In this example, I painted chips of color, cut them out and created my chart. I have painted these value scales in watercolor, acrylic and oil as well.

Back to the original question about yellow.

How Do You Make Yellow Dark?

Given the information above, the answer is that you can’t. However, you can convey the essence of a darker yellow. There are three choices: mixing an orange, a brown or a green. In my painting “Glorious Day,” I used greens and oranges. Since orange is a warmer color than green, I chose to use various oranges in the front three petals and green for the darker areas in the back three petals. Warmer colors come forward on a two-dimensional surface.

And in “Aspen Dance,” I mixed various greens for the aspen leaves that are in shadow. To learn more about how the paint sunshine with yellow, visit my recent blog post, How to Paint Sunshine.

Your decision to use orange, brown or green to ‘darken’ your yellows, is dependent on your subject matter and the message you want to convey with your work. My examples show you what I did with flowers and tree leaves, whereas for a yellow house/structure you may choose various rich browns.

Experiment and let me know in the comment box below. I hope this tip has been helpful.

If you found this information of interest to other painters, please share it.

Have You Experienced Post Creation Depression?

November 4, 2018 By Carol McIntyre

The title of this blog asks, Have ever experienced post creation depression? It is also called post publication depression or post creation blues or post writing blues or post project depression, and variations thereof. I had never heard of this condition until recently, have you?

Last week my final book files were sent off to the printer in China. YIPPEE!I have been working on I Just Want to Paint: Mixing the Colors You Want! obsessively for over a year. I’m supposed to be doing an Irish jig and jumping for joy?! Shouldn’t I feel exhilarated or have a great sense of accomplishment? Instead, lethargy ruled the day. I was greeted with a big surprise. I had hit an emotional and physical brick wall.

I could barely smile because all I could feel was total exhaustion and depression. To make things worse, I couldn’t figure out why. What is this? Sure, a little let-down made sense, but this was much more debilitating and my body literally hurt. People around me the past few months had heard me complain of being tired and brain dead, but nothing like this.

On the second day of depression, as I was leaving the house (I knew I had to keep moving) for an errand, I said to my husband Bob, “Maybe this is like post-partum blues? Could you look up the symptoms?” When I returned home, he had discovered that there is something called “post creation depression,” and had sent me several links for articles on the subject. [Read more…]

How to Paint Sunshine? What is the Key?

October 8, 2018 By Carol McIntyre

The sun is beaming and you see a tree all lit up. Question: “How to paint sunshine?”

Most painters are drawn to the light, whether it is created by Mother Nature or interior light. It’s ethereal and a challenge to capture in paint. The problem we have to solve is trying to create this sensation while using human-made products. And, in essence, we are trying to paint air with solid materials.

Recently, I spent a week in the Colorado Rockies basking in the sun and in awe of its magic while gazing upon the changing aspen leaves. It’s truly glorious to hike, sit or stand while marveling the yellow light created when the sun bounces off of those golden aspen leaves. It’s captivating especially when there is a light breeze. Notice in the white on the leaves in the photo on the right.

During this same week, I happened upon a week long plein air event that included over 30 artists painting in the area. This culminated in a show at the Steamboat Museum of Art in Steamboat Springs, CO. This was my first time attending such an event and it was exciting and fascinating to peruse over 100 paintings.

Much to my dismay, I was surprised to see that few paintings adequately, in my humble opinion, and effectively displayed how to paint sunshine.

What is the Key to “How to Paint Sunshine?”

[Read more…]

Mixing Landscape Colors with Six Primaries

July 14, 2018 By Carol McIntyre

I am often asked, “Do you REALLY only use six primaries on your working palette?” Yes, that is correct. If I am working in oils or acrylics, then I do add white.

Which six primaries are they? The choice is personal for every painter. The important decision is making sure you have strategically chosen two yellows, two blues and two reds. I call this a Balanced Palette, because it truly is well balanced much like the four tires on your car. This color mixing concept is the core message of my forthcoming book I Just Want to Paint: Mixing the Colors You Want!

Many painters use only six primaries when they paint, but they refer to them as the ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ of each primary. I find these terms — warm and cool — confusing and not relevant to mixing color. I prefer to call them: orange-yellow, green-yellow, green-blue, violet-blue, violet-red and orange-red. With these adjectives added as descriptors, isn’t it much easier to see the color leanings of each primary?

Recently, I painted a 12″x12″ landscape with the intent of using a yellow and purple color scheme. The below photo shows you how I laid out my six primary colors before starting on this painting. Starting in the lower left, I squirted out my green-yellow. Then going around clockwise, you see my orange -yellow, orange-red, violet-red, violet-blue and green-blue. There is NO magic in the way I squirt out my paints out, and there is not right or wrong way to do it. Do what is comfortable for you. [Read more…]

Guess Who I Spent Last Week With?

June 19, 2018 By Carol McIntyre

Last week I attended the Munsell Centennial Symposium with over 180 people from 27 countries representing color disciplines across science, industry and art. We gathered in Boston under the umbrella of the ISCC (Inter-Society Color Council) and AIC (International Colour Association) organizations with the intent of bridging our passions, knowledge and experiences in the field of color. It was an inspiring week of lectures, workshops and conversations, all the while meeting delightful and dedicated people.

I never knew so many professions existed solely for the purpose of better understanding and using color! I found myself feeling a bit like a kid in a candy store.

The centennial celebration was in recognition of Albert Munsell’s (1858-1918) significant contributions to our world of color. Though he was not alone in the pursuit of creating order out of the chaos of color back in the early 1900’s, he developed a color system that is widely used today. He is responsible for the Munsell Color Tree that visually displays, hue, value and chroma. This is refernced in my recent blog, What are the Three Characteristics of Every Color?

I met color consultants, authors, color scientists and researchers, historians, professors, artists, librarians and a visual neurologist who are committed to spreading the word about color. We were housed in the Massachusetts School of Art & Design. It was fascinating to learn that my suite mate is a color technician working for PPG (Pittsburgh Paints Group), whose sole focus is on the color mixtures in the paints and coatings for anything on wheels. Two of her top customers are Polaris and Harley Davidson. Could I use any of her shiny motorcycle paints in my paintings?

Why did I attend? I wanted to see where my forthcoming book I Just Want to Paint! fit in the larger scheme of things. Did it have a place? What information might I learn to add or delete from it? I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my content does not need to be altered for my readers, and that it will continue to hold its unique niche in the color mixing arena. This validation is comforting and motivating.

Color literacy was a topic that was often discussed. Hmmm, I had never thought of that as being a challenge. However, I soon learned that it is a problem across disciplines and cultures. I was also introduced to new vocabulary, such as: color space, color notations, perceptual aspects of color ordering, and colorimetry. By the way, do you know what a colorimeter is or a spectrophotometer? And that many industries – textiles, automotive, plastics, paints, decorators, forensic scientists, soil scientists, etc. – rely on the ability to measure color to create their products and services? Wow, my world has been expanded!

Some color gems I learned:

Johannes Itten was the first to promote the three primary system of yellow, blue and red.
The phrase ‘color theory’ first appeared in 1840. It could have been called ‘color doctrine’ or ‘color teaching.’
Today, the phrase ‘color theory’ is not well liked across all disciplines because it is difficult to define and it does not attract people to want to learn more about color.
Joy Turner Luke, a 93-year old artist and teacher, talked about how she was instrumental in persuading paint manufacturers to adhere to safety standards for art materials. This was and is, for the protection of children and adults. In 1988, the ASTM D4236 Federal law was passed and began appearing on art material labels. Her book is “Munsell’s Vision for Teaching Artists,” which explains how she used the Munsell Color System to paint her paintings.
There are 3-primary, 4-primary and 5-primary color wheels.
Color memory can bias or influence color perception.
One professor explained – or rather attempted to explain – the differences between, brightness, lightness, colorfulness, saturation, chroma and brilliance. Supposedly this knowledge can impact one’s painting ability, but I got lost in the weeds of too many words. I would rather paint, lol!

And, there were several lectures that included slides like this one, which were intriguing but I did not fully understand their meaning. Some of color research being conducted today is interesting.

In the two half-day workshops I attended, I was re-introduced to Josef Albers and his teachings of how color – hue, value and chroma – can be manipulated to create illusions. He instructed art students to explore the similarities and differences in color when influenced by a surrounding color. It’s human nature to look for differences. Below is an example I created during the workshop. I had to choose from 200+ paper samples to show how the same color can look quite different on two different backgrounds. I cut out these papers to solve the problem. What are the implications in painting? This phenomenon is called simultaneous contrast.

In the second workshop, two established painters explained and demonstrated their strategy for matching colors using the Munsell Color System. I was thrilled when they stated the uselessness of referring to hues as ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ when mixing color. I have written about this in my forthcoming book “I Just Want to Paint: Mixing the Colors You Want!” in Chapter Three: How to Identify the Color Bias of Primary Colors.

The most compelling talk, “What Art Can Tell Us About the Brain,” was presented by Dr. Margaret Livingstone, a visual neurologist and probably one of the most intelligent people I have ever encountered. Throughout my painting career, I have often heard or read the statement, “Values are more important than color.” Dr. Livingstone proved how we see whites, grays and blacks before we see color. As a result, values are have a greater impact on the viewer than color. I highly recommend watching her YouTube video; this video takes place in a different venue, but the content is the same. She uses paintings, in particular the Mona Lisa, to demonstrate her findings.

The conference ended on a special note for me. At the dorm curb, a fellow attendee spontaneously asked to join me in a taxi to the Boston airport. She is a color research scientist at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). As we rode along, I told her that I was interested in exploring how a collaboration could potentially happen between a scientist and a studio artist. She then preceded to tell me about the research she has done on how humans look at paintings.

RIT have an eye tracking device that maps where novices versus trained professionals look at paintings of 5 different styles. What?!! I am fascinated. She even suggested that they may be able to do this with a few of my paintings. How cool would that be? Then I started to discuss how painters critique each other’s work, yet, I wonder, is that valuable given that novices look at paintings differently?

Needless to say, it was a memorable week. I will continue to process my experiences while looking forward to continuing to foster the relationships that began in Boston. I am very grateful that I was able to attend this special conference, because I see from a different lens.

Please share this blog using the social media buttons below.

Gratefully and colorfully yours,

Carol

PS You may be asking: How did I know about the symposium? I knew about it because the Munsell Foundation had discovered my blog a few years ago and had asked me to write two guest blog posts. I remained on their mailing list. Hence, I received the notification. Despite it being a financial stretch, I knew I had to attend. I am very glad that I did.