Understanding COLOR Theory V
presentation by
Pam Coulter
Review
Color lightening and darkening.
Local color is the basic color of an area excluding
the effects of light and shadow. Light will tend to
wash out the color and shadow darkens and dulls
it. If you can establish the basic “local” color of an
object and then lighten and darken, using
analogous or complementary colors rather than
white or black, your painting will be richer than if
you just “paint what you see” or what your
reference photo shows.
Review: “Home” colors/modeling
• Using analogous and complementary colors,
lighten and darken the home color. Some
example exercises below:
Review: light—using color to model
“When the light is cool, the shadows are warm; when the light is warm, the
shadows are cool.”
How does this seem to you? We’ll discuss more later.
corotitaliangirl
elgreco-Portrait-of-JorgeManuel-Theotocopoulos
Review: Warm and Cool
Examples
corot-bridge
ingres-marcottedargenteuil-1810
Review: warm and cool shadows
practice warm and cool shadows if you finish
previous exercise.
“When the light is cool, the shadows are warm;
when the light is warm, the shadows are cool.”
This is easy to see in landscapes on a sunny day. Lets do a sunny
landscape – either that shown here or one of your own.
Pause for exercise
• Students do painting of landscape, observing
how, on a sunny day, the places where the sun
hits are warm and the places in shadow are cool.
• (Note: the shadow places are also dark.)
• Advanced exercise: if you have a picture of a face
with light and dark sides, try this on the face. If
the light hitting the face is cool, the shadow will
be warm. If the light is warm, the shadows will be
cool.
Example of face
In face to left,
the light is
cool, so the
shadow is
warm
In the face to
right, the light
hitting the face is
warm, so the
shadow is cool
Assignment
Each student should bring some pictures or
photos of landscapes and/or faces to the next
class.
There are two aspects of color that we will be
examining next:
1. Atmospheric (or aerial) perspective
2. Warm colors approach; cool colors recede
What’s next?
Color proximity: colors affect colors they are near. (lemon exercise)
Color proximity: using a colored ground. (Exercise: doing a primarily green landscape over a sienna
ground)
Color opacity and transparency, how it affects your painting in acrylics, oils. How to combat problems.
Give examples. Have students demonstrate. Exercise: do a chart of opacity/transparency.
color and composition:
hard and soft edges (exercise with still life)
broken color and why it is used (exercise with impressionist landscape example and mabe student’s
own picture.
why the “old masters” used dark backgrounds in their pictures (examples)
Mood and color (“psychological” aspect of color.) Maybe use Picasso’s blue guitarist and changethe color.
Have students mock up own examples.
High and low key; high and low contrast