Years ago, a few of us amateur musicians had a jam session on a neighbor's back porch. One person was playing a vintage Martin guitar--out of tune. The guitar itself was the envy of us all, but a Martin out of tune is like a Bentley with a flat tire. A painting out of tune produces the same feeling (fingernails on chalkboard)....
...like this:
A simple tuning of guitar strings can bring its chords into harmony. Likewise, a simple tuning of our palettes while painting can keep our art work in tune...
...like this:
Color harmony means light harmony and that decodes into everything in a painting appearing under the same color of light. We call it color temperature. Every hue or local color translates to your retina according to the color of its illumination. The same green under a cool florescent light will look different under a warm incandescent lamp.
TIP: To insure all the colors in your painting appear as being in the same illumination, they should all have one hue in common. In some cases, lower intensity colors will do the trick because a lower intensity hue contains its complement. That's your decode. Here's an analysis to show how it works.
The local colors are green, red violet and yellow orange. Hues present are--green=yellow + blue
red violet=red + blue
yellow orange=yellow + red
In their highest intensity, these three colors will not create color harmony because they all do not have a single color in common.
BUT
lowering the intensity of the yellow orange with blue violet (giving yellow orange the blue we need for harmony) will do the trick. And it will look plenty bright because the yellow is surrounded by its complement, violet.
Color temperature is the focus of this week's video lesson, Reading and Translating Temperature. The lesson demonstrates how the color of illumination changes the colors we observe. This study takes a slightly different approach from previous lessons. Here we see how we can translate a scene under a warm light, then change it to a cool light. The objective is to become aware of light's color temperature in order to keep our paintings in tune.
Happy painting,
Dianne
NEWS & UPDATES
___ We are grateful for the overwhelming response to our video Series, Reading and Mixing Color. Each lesson takes one of the components of color-value, hue, intensity, temperature--and explores scientifically how to see and mix it in depth.
___ Next week,on May 29, we will introduce the FIFTH FRIDAY FEATURE. This is a two-hour demonstration lesson combining the principles taught in Series One through Four. Whereas the regular lessons use studies and vignettes, this one takes the painting very close to the finish line.
___ Are you following our YouTube Quick Tips? If you'd like me to do a video Quick Tip on anything related to painting or composing, email your request HERE . This week's Quick Tip is about how to re-tune a painting. Next week's will be how to photograph your paintings for accuracy.___At our eStore, we keep a collection of free things for you to download. Scroll down to the Video Supplements section and take a look. You will notice that now you can watch the Notan video lesson on the site or on the YouTube channel. You no longer have to download it.___ WooHoo Facebook Forum! We now have 1000 members! Join us, if you haven't already done so. One word to Forum users--To keep up with what's going on daily, click on the forum title--Composing and Drawing Tips--in your Groups list on the left of your Facebook page.
