MC_02_SeeingColor.pdf

Richard Robinson's

Mastering Color

[Chapter 2]

Seeing Color

A s much as I would like to have you get your paints out and start playing with colors right now, which

is a great way to learn, I'd like to give you some more knowledge before we do that in the following

sessions.

When you look at amateur paintings and you will see the colors are very simplistic - a tree is green, a sky

is blue, a cloud is white - there is very little color subtlety - much like a child's painting. Look at a

master's painting and you'll immediately see the difference in color usage - there is a much wider range

within a single color and they all work together in a harmonious way.

I remember thinking when I was a child that if I wanted to do a painting of something like a red tractor,

all I would need was the same color paint as what the actual tractor was painted with - as amateurs we

just don't SEE all the color there is to see, and that is the very first problem we all encounter when first

attempting to mix a color from nature. The problem is not what colors we are using or not using, it's

just being able to see the correct color in the first place. This is a problem which we all face - no one is

born with the ability to do this well - it's a learned technique and one that gets easier and more

accurate with practice.

In actual fact, we are all born with something that makes analysing color extremely difficult if not

impossible without some device to help us. This one thing we all have to our disadvantage is called

'color constancy', which is our brain's tendency to interpret an object's color to be the same under

different lighting conditions.

The brain, like a good digital camera, will auto-adjust for all lighting conditions so that we have a

constant reference to understand our environment. For example, have a look at this bowel of fruit. What

color would you say that banana is? I would say it's a greenish yellow color. Here's the same photo with

the colors warmed up a bit. Now lets take the banana from the first photo and see what it looks like if

we put it in the second photo. What color is the banana now? It looks much more green now because

it's surroundings have changed.

Richard Robinson's

Seeing Color

Mastering Color

[Chapter 2]

Let me give you another example. You will notice when walking outside at night how all interior house

lighting looks very yellow, yet when you enter your own house everything appears in normal colors -

your brain has adjusted and is telling you that the white ceramic basin is still white - not that dull yellow

color that your eyes are actually seeing.

Now have a look at this image. It may come as a surprise, but the colors behind A and B are EXACTLY

the same. Impossible you think? Well, let's take a piece of the dark side here and compare it… Crazy

isn't it? It's hard to believe anything you see in a movie these days, but I'm honestly not tricking you

here - it's your own eyes that are tricking you.

This third example is one of the most powerful demonstrations you will find. This is Adelson's checker

shadow illusion which was published by Edward H. Adelson, Professor of Vision Science at MIT in 1995.

Have a good hard look at A and B in this illustration. I'm going to tell you that A and B are the same

Richard Robinson's

Seeing Color

Mastering Color

[Chapter 2]

color and you're going to think - you've GOT to be kidding! No sorry, not kidding. Now you can see

some of what we are up against when we try to mix colors from nature!

Web Links

http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/illusions.aspx

http://www.colorcube.com/illusions/illusion.htm

http://www.lookmind.com/illusions.php?cat=2

What does this teach us? It's teaching us that color is not constant. The color of a thing will change it's

appearance when the colors surrounding it changes. Also, a color will change it's appearance when the

light shining upon it changes, despite how much our brains would like us to think otherwise.

It gets even worse though! Our eyes and brain hinder us in other ways which are even more subtle and

just as confusing. We build our own ideas about which colors work well with others, we attach

emotions to colors and we have color preferences and color 'symbols' in our head which all stop us

from seeing and using color accurately. For instance you may have a symbol in your head of a white

cloud that you use whenever you paint clouds. This will prevent you to some degree at looking closely

enough, past your symbol, to see the large range of color that is present in every cloud.

With all that mounted against us it's a miracle we can paint at all but you only have to look at some of

the great painter's works to realise that it is actually possible to overcome our hurdles and gain a good

working knowledge of color. They weren't born with it either, but gained it through study and

perseverance. The good news is that through their efforts we now have a much easier path to follow to

understanding and using color.

This course will give you the tools and knowledge you need to accurately measure color, understand it's

relationship to other colors, to mix that same color on your palette and how to adjust color to suit your

creative endeavours.

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