Colour - Resources for Artists

Making A Mark - Colour and Color

An online project for learning about colour

Making a Mark: Colour and Color - an online project

An introduction to the project and what it covers.

Making a Mark: Learning about Colour - Art Book Reviews for Artists #1

This week, I'm producing a very brief synopsis of each book that I own. This which will cover:
* what the book is about (list rather than evaluation)
* what sort of audience it's aimed at
* whether it is a favourite of mine and whether I recommend it

Today we're focusing on Learning about Colour - and books which are primarily devoted to explaining about colour and/or provide an overview.

Making a Mark: Using Colour - Art Book Reviews for Artists #2

Following on from yesterday's post about books which promote Learning about Colour, today's post is going to highlight some books which help to understand how to use colour.

Making a Mark: What is Colour?

I've come up with seven different ways of looking at and responding to the question "What is colour?"
* A scientific perspective - how we experience colour
* A materials perspective - pigments and dyes
* A classification perspective - naming chemical and paints
* A systems perspective - models for thinking about colour
* A behavioural perspective - mixing colours
* A cultural and symbolic perspective - in art history
* An experiential perspective - from representation to emotions

Making a Mark: Colour - a materials perspective #1 - pigments and dyes

This post provides a materials perspective on colour for artists and a basic overview of pigments and dyes. Pigments and dyes are a prime component of the colour used by artists - but
* Where do they come from?
* Which are 'old' colours and which are new?
* What or who creates them?

Making a Mark: Colour - pigments and related colours

I want a table which tells me all about different colours - and relates pigment to colour names to chemical names and then explains what all that means. But can I find one on the internet? Well I've looked and no I can't! I can find lots of freely available material and some excellent and very informative links - but its all in chunks and I can't find a table which can be looked at offline.

So I'm going to try and produce one. My table will set out the following:

1. Pigment Groups - natural organic, synthetic organic, and inorganic -
2. Colour / pigment name (allocated to type of pigment group) - and then for each of these
3. Chemical Name
4. Comments abut its use in art
5. Links to relevant information - which can be opened when viewed online.

Making a Mark: Colour - naming dyes, pigments and paints

This post is about naming pigments, dyes and paints. I've often heard it said that commercial considerations protect the secrets of how art media is made. I absolutely disagree - this is a fallacy and part of marketing hype. I'd like to highlight a different perspective - one which is very much consumer oriented and very much connected to the whole process of classifying and naming - and selling - pigments, colours and paints.

Making a Mark: Complementary Colours and mixing neutral colours

About complementary colours - how to identify them, what they are in different systems, principles for their use and what happens when you mix them.

Making a Mark: Analogous Colours

Analogous colours often don't get adequate coverage in many art instruction books or, as I've discovered, in websites generated by a browser enquiry. The information made available is often basic in the extreme. This post is an attempt to redress the balance - but it also recommends other sources of even better advice and information! I'm going to
* start by looking at the basics about analogous colours
* move on to some aspects which get referenced less often
* then point you in the direction of more information.

Making a Mark: Local Colour and Realism

Before I move on to discuss strategies for colour schemes in producing artwork, it struck me that I needed to explain about 'Local Colour' and its role in art.

Making a Mark: Colour Schemes: Split Complementaries, Triads and Tetrads

Colour schemes are not just for interior designers, they also help visual artists to achieve unity, harmony as well as contrast and impact in the design and composition of paintings. I've already highlighted the characteristics of complementary colours and analogous colours and in this post I'll be highlighting three other colour schemes which are often used by professional artists:

* Split Complementary - a colour plus the two colours either side of its complementary colour (the isosceles triangle shape on the Color Wheel above
* Triad - any three colours which are equidistant on the colour wheel
* Tetrad - any four colours which are equidistant on the colour wheel

Making a Mark: Symbolic Colour

Colour has meaning. Colour is symbolic. Colours remind us of things. Local colour is the colour which we see, while symbolic colour is the colour we need to interpret. This post provides an overview of some of the meanings of different colours - and the origins of some of those meanings.

Making a Mark: Winsor & Newton - Notes on the composition and permanence of Artists' Colours

Winsor and Newton publish a slim booklet titled Notes on the composition and permanence of Artists' Colours. It's only 24 pages long and cost me £1.33. However it is an absolute treasure trove of relevant information for all artists using their art media.

James Gurney's Colour Project

a series of posts on his blog "Gurney Journey"

Gurney Journey: The Color Wheel, Part 1 - Wrapping the Spectrum

How we name and separate the colors on the color wheel is a subject with roots in physical science, visual perception, and artistic tradition. That's what I'd like to explore over the next seven posts. The color wheel is our mental map of the color universe.

Gurney Journey: The Color Wheel, Part 2 - Primaries and Secondaries

Artists generally regard red, yellow, and blue as the most basic, or primary, colors. If you ask most artists to select three tubes of paint to match their mental image of the primary colors, they will most likely pick something like cadmium red, cadmium yellow, and ultramarine blue.

Gurney Journey: The Color Wheel, Part 3 - Complements, Afterimages, and Chroma

Complements: A color that holds a position directly across the wheel from another is known as a complement.
Chroma: Many color wheels include the dimension of grayness versus intensity, known as chroma, also commonly called saturation.

Gurney Journey: The Color Wheel, Part 4 - Problems with the Traditional Wheel

There are a few problems with the traditional artist's color wheel, and its concept of primary, secondary and tertiary colors.

Gurney Journey: The Color Wheel, Part 5 - he Munsell System

Many contemporary realist painters use the system that Albert Munsell developed about a century ago.......Munsell's system divides the spectral hues into ten even steps.

Gurney Journey: The Color Wheel, Part 6 - Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow

Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow: In the world of printing and photography, the three colors that mix the widest range, or gamut, of colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. These "printer's primaries," together with black (K), are known by the shorthand CMYK.

Gurney Journey: The Color Wheel, Part 7 - The Yurmby Wheel

Below is a digitally-created color wheel that includes yellow, magenta, and cyan in the 12:00, 4:00, and 8:00 positions. Halfway between those three colors are red, blue, and green.
The "Yurmby" Wheel: Should painters adopt this six-primary color wheel?

Gurney Journey: Peak Saturation Value

The great color theorist Albert Munsell observed that a given color reaches its greatest chroma at one particular value, called the home value or the peak saturation value. That peak value varies from color to color.

Gurney Journey: 3D Gamut Animations

If you've read this blog for a while or dug back in the archives, you may remember seeing how we can chart a color scheme as a shape or gamut that takes up part of a color wheel. Everything outside the gamut is left out of the composition.

Gurney Journey: Charting Pigments

The chart above shows where many familiar pigments would appear. Earth colors, since they're low in chroma, appear close to the center in the red and yellow sectors, and black and white sit together at the center.

Gurney Journey: Vermeer's Pigments

Artists didn't have hundreds of available pigments, as we do today. Paint samples scraped from the edges of Vermeer's artwork show that he commonly used just seven pigments

Gurney Journey: Gamut Masking Tool

Painter and teacher Richard Robinson has created a free interactive tool that lets you experiment with gamut masks.

Gurney Journey: Lightfastness: Part 1 of 6 - Inks

To test how much common art materials fade, last August I made a whole lot of swatches on strips of cotton rag paper. Then I cut the strips in half. I put the left half of the strip in a dark, cool drawer. The other half sat facing the sun in a south window for almost eight months

Gurney Journey: Lightfastness: Markers

Highlighter markers fare very poorly. Fluorescent highlighters use relatively unstable colorants that convert invisible ultraviolet light into light that you can see.

Gurney Journey: Lightfastness and Dyes

Many dyes are susceptible to fading, but it all depends on the particular colorant, and in the older packaging, they don't tell you the colorant.

Gurney Journey: Lightfastness in Pencils, Watercolors, and Oils

Some pigments are stable enough to withstand the ravages of light. The iron oxides and the heavy metals such as cobalt and cadmium are composed of solid particles of material unaffected by UV light.

Gurney Journey: Lightfastness and Alizarin Crimson

Alizarin crimson has been a popular pigment in many art media since it was first synthesized in 1868. But it has received an ASTM rating of III or IV. It will eventually fade out of any painting that is exposed to the light.

Gurney Journey: Lightfastness: Final Thoughts

To wrap up our week with lightfastness, here are a few suggestions to be sure your art will last as long as possible without fading

Gurney Journey: Color Scheme Designer

A free online interactive tool called Color Scheme Designer lets you play with color relationships. You start by selecting the type of color scheme, such as monochromatic, complementary, or triadic (The small circles at top left).

Gurney Journey: Rockwell’s Palette

Here is Norman's Rockwell's palette as of 1946

Gurney Journey: Undertones and Tints

Pigments can be rated according to their transparency or opacity. A good way to test your paints is to spread a thick layer, called a masstone, across a white gessoed surface (far left swatch).

Gurney Journey: Color Harmony Dials

The idea of isolating a part of the color wheel to explore the possibilities of limited color schemes was popular many decades ago. My own method borrows a great deal from Walter Sargent's book "The Enjoyment and Use of Color" in the 1920s.

Test your Colour IQ

Xrite - Test your Colour IQ

Test your color IQ
Drag and drop the colors in each row to arrange them by hue order.
This is a test based on Munsell - and the aim is to get a perfect colour score of zero

Colour - Scientific Perpsective

Making A Mark - The Colour Project

Making a Mark: Colour - a scientific perspective

What is colour? How do we experience colour? This post will focus on the science of colour - in simple terms:

* The defining characteristics of colour
* How colour is made
* How we see and think about colour

How we experience colour - an overview

handprint : colormaking attributes

This page addresses a single issue: how can we describe color experience? Because color occurs in the mind but is a response to light in the world, separate color descriptions are necessary for the external, physical light stimulus and the subjective color perception.

handprint : basic forms of color

This page and the next describe the "new testament" view of color perception in context with other colors and in more natural viewing situations. In modern terms, color is a context judgment of surfaces under light in space.

Visible spectrum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Visible spectrum From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The visible spectrum (or sometimes called the optical spectrum) is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to (can be detected by) the human eye.

Colour - Value / Saturation / Intensity

Munsell Color Space - A&Awiki

This describes colour in terms of 3 factors:

Value - how light or dark a colour is, on a scale from black, to white
Hue - the "colour" - whether it's red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
Chroma - how strong the intensity of the colour is - whether its weakly coloured or very strongly coloured.

Color Saturation and Intensity: Art Studio Chalkboard

Color has value. This is the darkness or lightness of a particular color. We can divide these value changes into SHADES and TINTS.

Shades are the relative darkness of a color and Tints are the relative lightness of a color. These divisions are created by darkening or lightening the PURE HUE. This is the base color at its full INTENSITY.

It is important to note Intensity of a color here because a value of, lets say, red can be the same as a medium TONE of that same color. A Tone can be the same value, but can be grayed in such a way that it is not at the highest degree of Intensity. The Pure Hue has the highest SATURATION of color. This is illustrated in the middle ring of the Color Wheel above. The outer ring of TINTS illustrates what happens to a Pure Hue when white is added. The center section of SHADES shows the effect of black on the Pure Hue.
Click the link to read on plus see the charts

Value (colorimetry) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Value (colorimetry) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Value is a measure of where a particular color lies along the lightness-darkness axis. A color's value is its amplitude. Various color models have an explicit term which places the color on a scale from utter black to pure white. The HSV color model and Munsell color model have an explicit value, while the HSL color model calls this parameter lightness instead.

In the HSV and Munsell color models, a color with a low value is nearly black, while one with a high value is the pure color.

The image shows three "colors" in the Munsell color model. Each color differs in value from top to bottom in equal perception steps. The right column undergoes a dramatic change in perceived color.

In subtractive color, i.e. paints, value changes can be achieved by adding black or white to the color.

Grayscale and Planar Values: Art Studio Chalkboard

As light hits a plane it creates a value. This is the relative degree of light or shadow on the form. Value changes as a plane is in less or more direct influence of the light source.

MAKING A MARK: The Denman Ross Value Scale

A value scale is a way of describing how values change between black and white. One of the most well known is the Denman Ross nine step value scale. This was devised in 1907

Colour - A Materials Perspective

Making A Mark - The Colour Project

Making a Mark: Colour - a materials perspective #1 - pigments and dyes

This post provides a materials perspective on colour for artists and a basic overview of pigments and dyes. Pigments and dyes are a prime component of the colour used by artists - but

* Where do they come from?
* Which are 'old' colours and which are new?
* What or who creates them?

Making a Mark: Colour - pigments and related colours

I want a table which tells me all about different colours - and relates pigment to colour names to chemical names and then explains what all that means. But can I find one on the internet? Well I've looked and no I can't! I can find lots of freely available material and some excellent and very informative links - but its all in chunks and I can't find a table which can be looked at offline.

So I'm going to try and produce one......... (in draft - watch this space)

The Color of Art: Pigments - Color Index Names, Pigment Codes and Chemical Composition

The Pigment Reference Database includes the Color Index Codes, names and numbers, chemical Constitution, toxic warnings, oil absorption, light fastness and transparency or opaque information.

Colors of nature - Kremer Pigmente GmbH & Co. KG

These pictures show natural objects together with our pigments. The color comparison allows a better perception of the pigment colors. The photos can also be used to adjust the settings of your computer monitor.

Colour Pigments, Types, History: List of Oil Paint Colours, Lakes, Glazes: Cobalts, Cadmiums, Ochres: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Ultramarine

Colour Pigments, Types: List of Natural/Synthetic Oil Paint Colours, Lakes, Glazes: Pigment History, Cobalts, Cadmiums, Ochres: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Ultramarine: Attributes: Intensity, Permanence, Lightfastness, Toxicity

Colour in Painting, Artist Colours: History/Types of Pigments, Colourants

Colour in Fine Art Painting,What exactly are pigments and what are their main sources

Colour in Painting, Artist Colours: behaviour of paint pigments

Colour in Fine Art Painting - Do All Paint Pigments Behave in the Same Way?

Colour Charts

Color Charts - Pigment Information on Colors and Paints

Information on pigments, color index names and chemical make-up of major brands of artist oil paints, acrylics paint and watercolors.
Technical specs are helpful in deturmining pigments that make-up paint colors.

Colour - comments on pigments, paints, purity and permanence

handprint : watercolor hue purity

hue purity of watercolor paints

This page publishes my calculations of the hue purity of generic watercolor paint pigments, as explained in the section on hue purity and optimal colors.This page includes CIELAB coordinates, averaged across all paint brands, for the pigments discussed

Handprint - Watercolour pigments

Detailed comments on various watercolour pigments including:
pigment CI name, pigment chemical name, paint marketing name, manufacturer and comments on how the paint rates

This information is provided for the following hues:
Magenta, red, orange, earth, yellow, green, blue, purple, and black

Pigments and their Chemical and Artistic Properties

Lists of pigments and analysis by: origina and history: how the pigments if made; what its chemical properties are sundry artistic notes (eg in relation to lightfastness and glasing properties)

Royal Talens - Historic Dyes and Pigments

Many colours have names that have historical origins. For various reasons, such as poor lightfastness, hazards to health and environment, animal mistreatment, bleeding or other undesired properties, the original raw materials are no longer used for producing the pigments for the artists' paint.

Pigments through the Ages - detailed pigment histories, recipes

Pigments in painting. How artists have colored our lives.

Winsor and Newton - Composition & Permanence Tables

Composition and Permanence tables provide all the essential information on the composition, characteristics and permanence of our colour ranges.

This technical information is extremely important for any artist who is committed to producing paintings of the highest quality. For example,
* Permanence ratings will tell you how long your painting will last over the years...
* The Chemical description will tell you exactly what pigments make up your colour and...
* Transparency and Opacity ratings are key indicators to how your colour will perform when layering colour

Pigments and their Chemical and Artistic Properties

A resources created by Julie C Sparks for a project on the Painted Word (Illuminated manuscripts). It provides an excellent overview of numerous pigments and colours. It is also capable of being printed.

Handprint - Guide to watercolour pigments

The colored links at the top of the screen take you to detailed information on modern watercolor pigments, based on evaluations of over 750 commercial watercolor paints - the most comprehensive watercolor paint information available on the Internet.

Pigments For Making Artist's Paint by Tony Johansen

Introduction Pigments for paint making
This page contains the pigment lists where you can find information on
the pigments you may use. There are also guides to the various terms
and classification systems you will find in the pigment lists.

Historic Artist's Pigments by Tony Johansen

Historic pigments Obsolete colors
While a few obsolete pigments get a mention in the main lists because
they were so important or remain famous, there are many others not so
well known but which might be found in accounts of painting techniques.

Society Of Tempera Painters - Pigments

The hazards presented by different types of pigments

Colour experience - Natural Dyes and Pigments

Learn how colour, light and dyes play a vital role in our every day lives. Delve into dye and fashion history or discover the myth and meaning behind your favourite colours.

handprint : earth pigments tour

Earth pigments map
Last revised 08.01.2005
copyright 2005 Bruce MacEvoy

handprint : earth pigments tour

Iron oxide or "earth" paint marketing names - yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber, burnt umber, venetian red, mars violet - do not exactly stand for specific pigments or colors in the way that ultramarine blue or viridian do. They stand for a traditional color concept that each paint manufacturer interprets in their own way, using varieties of iron oxide with loosely defined chemical or color characteristics.

The sheer diversity of earth paints on the market today makes it hard to understand the basic color concept each type of pigment represents. This page explains the key differences and defining features.

Making a Mark: Winsor & Newton - Notes on the composition and permanence of Artists' Colours

Winsor and Newton publish a slim booklet titled Notes on the composition and permanence of Artists' Colours. It's only 24 pages long and cost me £1.33. However it is an absolute treasure trove of relevant information for all artists using their art media.

Winsor & Newton: The History and Production of Rose Madder and Alizarin pigments

George Field (1777-1854), is credited as one of the most outstanding colourmen of his age. Field spent many years researching the preparation of madder and lake colours.

The Studio News - Archive - Pigments

The earliest pigments were found naturally occurring in the earth's surface and include ochres, siennas, umbers, iron oxides, and terre verte. One of the first pigments, carbon black, is still used today in the form of vine, willow, and compressed charcoals.

The Studio News - Archive - Toxic Shock

Now that we know a little more about the longevity of our artist's pigments, let's discuss the longevity of the artist. Pigment poisoning can occur through inhalation or ingestion. Take a look at this consolidated overview of art materials and their hazards:

Colors of nature » Kremer Pigmente GmbH & Co. KG

Colour - A Classification Perspective

Making A Mark - The Colour Project

Making a Mark: Colour - naming dyes, pigments and paints

This is a perspective on current systems for naming paint/art media.

Colour Glossary, Art Terms, Definition: Colourist Theory, Artist Palette Pigments, Hues, Tones, Oil/Watercolour Painting

Colour Glossary, Art Terms, Definition, Meaning: Colourist Theory, Artist Palette Pigments: Oil/Watercolour/Acrylic/Fresco Painting

Colour - names and codes

international classifications and pigment and colour names and codes

Colour Index International - Fourth Edition Online

The SDC Colour Index. The definitive guide for anyone who needs to know details of which companies manufacture pigments and solvent dyes, or for anyone looking for technical details of these products, for use in the paint, plastics, ink or other industries.

Colour Index International - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Colour Index International is a reference database jointly maintained by the Society of Dyers and Colourists and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists. It was first printed in 1925 but is now published exclusively on the web. The index serves as a common reference database of manufactured color products and is used by manufacturers and consumers, such as artists and decorators.

Colorants (both dyes and pigments) are listed according to Colour Index Generic Names and Colour Index Constitution Numbers. These numbers are prefixed in Brazil and various other countries with C.I. or CI, for example, CI 15510. This abbreviation is sometimes thought to be CL, due to the font used to display the information. A detailed record of products available on the market is presented under each Colour Index reference. For each product name, Colour Index International lists the manufacturer, physical form, and principal uses, with comments supplied by the manufacturer to guide prospective customers.

Artist's Paint

It's not always an industry itself that sees the need for standards development, but often consumers can see a gaping hole in standardization and move to remedy the situation. According to Mark Gottsegen, chairman of ASTM Subcommittee D01.57 on Artist Paints and Related Materials, "It was more an artists' need than an industry need" that drove the formation of that subcommittee in the late 1970s.

The Colour experience - Glossary

The Colour Experince Glossary of words related to colour.

A Primer on Paint Labels - The Business of Being an Artist

Information about paint labels

Reading Paint Labels

Paint labels: pigment name, chemical content, lightfastness and health rating, defined by Nita Leland, author of Exploring Color

The NBS/ISCC Color System

At the heart of the NBS/ISCC system is a standardized set of color terms. The color space is sliced into fifteen hues such as "yellow", "greenish yellow", "yellowish green", and so forth. Within each slice, degrees of saturation and brightness are specified by modifiers such as "vivid", "dark", and "pale".

D01.57 Subcommittee on Artists' Paints and Related Materials

ASTM D01.57, the Subcommittee on Artists' Paints and Related Materials, helps artists and consumers recognize product quality and safety when manufacturers' products conform to its Standards.

Categories of Colour

Links to Wikipedia categorisation

Category:Shades of blue - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of blue

Category:Shades of cyan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of cyan

Category:Shades of green - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of green

Category:Shades of yellow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of yellow

Category:Shades of orange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of orange

Category:Shades of red - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of red

Category:Shades of pink - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of pink

Category:Shades of violet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of violet

Category:Shades of gray - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of gray

Category:Shades of white - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of white

Category:Shades of brown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Shades of brown

Traditional colors of Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The traditional colors of Japan are a collection of colors traditionally used in Japanese Literature, textiles such as kimono, and other Japanese arts and crafts.

Colour - A Systems Perspective

Making A Mark - The Colour Project

Making a Mark: Hues - a systems perspective

I have a simple test for deciding whether to look in any depth at any art book which has a section on the colour wheel. If it talks about colour and starts with a notion that there are three primary colours - red, blue and yellow - plus it has a very simple 3 primary, 3 secondary colour wheel then I generally put it down and reach for the next one.

I honestly believe that very many artists have failed to realise their potential because of a poor understanding of colour generated by weak explanations of colour analysis and the colour wheel in art instruction books.

Having said that, where do I go from here to try and remedy those perceived deficiencies?

Making a Mark: Describing a colour space - there's more than one colour wheel!

Over time, many people have tried to develop ways of thinking about how colours relate to one another in space. I've been trying to learn more about this and also trying to find a way of making it all make sense to me.

My current Matrix of Theories about Colour Space is my third version - and I'm welcoming comments on it!

An overview of colour systems and theories

Colour Order Systems in Art and Science (English, Fran%uFFFDais, German)

Colour order systems in art and science
Virtual colour space
Colour and culture

Color Theory Tutorial by Worqx

Color Worqx - Color Theory Overview
by Janet Lynn Ford

Basic color schemes: Color Theory Introduction

Basic color shemes explained. the color wheel, warm and cool colors, tints shades and tones and more.

Design & Color: A Bibliography of Resources

Color in Art & Design: Color Symbolism & Color Theory

The Dimensions of Colour

The Dimensions of Colour
Basics of Light and Shade
Basics of Colour Vision
Additive Colour Mixing
Subtractive Colour Mixing
Colour Mixing in Paints
Hue
Lightness and Chroma
Brightness and Saturation
Principles of Colour

The Colour Wheel

handprint : an artist's color wheel

This page presents my own color wheels, the result of considerable study. My understanding of the problems involved has changed over the past several years, so I present both the wheel originally published in 1999, and the version I developed in 2006.

Both wheels show the color appearance locations of all major watercolor pigments in use today. Both wheels are based on visual complementary colors. The wheels differ in their chroma scaling of all colors, and in the spacing and visual complements assigned to blue and violet colors.

Art Studio Chalkboard: Color Wheel and Color Complements

lines and colors :: a blog about drawing, painting, illustration, comics, concept art and other visual arts » History of the Color Wheel

It's been the subject of much discussion, some suggesting that it is misleading enough that it should be rethought entirely, but the color wheel remains the most common and convenient method for visually understanding and comparing the relationships of different hues.......

Color Behavior - A&Awiki

THE FACTS BEHIND COLOR BEHAVIOR and HOW TO APPLY SUCH KNOWLEDGE TOWARD BETTER, EASIER, AND FASTER COLOR MIXING By Bill Martin (WFMartin)

Color + Design Blog / History Of The Color Wheel by COLOURlovers

Description of early visual representations of colour theories including Newton's colour wheel

Handprint - Artist's Value Wheel - in colour

Charts the spectrum of different watercolour paints against a value scale

Handprint and the Colour Wheel

handprint : an artist's color wheel

This page presents my own color wheels, the result of considerable study. My understanding of the problems involved has changed over the past several years, so I present both the wheel originally published in 1999, and the version I developed in 2006.

Both wheels show the color appearance locations of all major watercolor pigments in use today. Both wheels are based on visual complementary colors. The wheels differ in their chroma scaling of all colors, and in the spacing and visual complements assigned to blue and violet colors.

handprint : an artist's color wheel

an artist's color wheel
An earlier page described several modern color models, including the latest CIE color difference and color appearance models, and a later page explained how the hue circle from any color model can be used to create an artist's color wheel.

Artist's Colour Wheel (2006)

a printer friendly (Adobe Acrobat PDF) version of the artist's color wheel (330K)
copyright Bruce MacEvoy 2006

Colour analysis

Livelygrey: fun color games

Fun color games This is a collection of 9 interactive color games. Or rather, exercises disguised as games. These exercises aim at providing some fun while at the same time helping you to learn how to classify colors.

Gamblin Artists Colors: Navigating Color Space (NCS)

My Multi-Dimensional Approach to Color Mixing?by Robert Gamblin

Gamblin Artists Colors: Color Temperature by Name

Colours analysed by hue, value, chroma and hue temperature.

Gamblin Artists Colors: Color Temperature by Color

Color temperarture by hue, value, chroma and hue temperature

Gamblin Artists Colors: Color Glossary

Glossary of colour terms - hue, value, chroma and hue temperature

Brightness, saturation and hue (Livelygrey)

Livelygrey - Trying to make sense of color
Brightness vs. Whiteness »Brightness, saturation and hue
Before we proceed into the depths of color, let's first cover some of the basics.
Effective color communication depends on the proper use of language.

The Munsell Color System - Color Models - Technical Guides

March 21, 2001 - The intuitive and influentioal color system developed by A. H. Munsell.

Notebook - Color Systems

[From: Harlan, Calvin. Vision & Invention, An Introduction to Art Fundamentals. Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1986.]

Colour Models - The Primary Colour Scheme (RYB - Red, Yellow, Blue)

handprint : do "primary" colors exist?

For the past 400 years, the drug of choice to combat the headachy symptoms of color complexity and substance uncertainty has been the primary color scheme.

The painter's three primary colors are the foundation of academic "color theory" (which is not really a theory), and some art school graduates develop a rigid attachment to primary colors and the formulaic approach to color mixing that goes with them. So it seems surprising to ask ... do "primary" colors exist? Even more surprising to learn that the answer is - no!

Goethes Triangle Explanation

Color Mixing and Goethe's Triangle
In Goethe's original triangle the three primaries red, yellow, and blue are arranged at the vertices of the triangle. The other subdivisions of the triangle are grouped into secondary and tertiary triangles, where the secondary triangle colors represent the mix of the two primary triangles to either side of it, and the tertiary triangle colors represent the mix of the primary triangle adjacent to it and the secondary triangle directly across from it.

Colour - A Behavioral Perspective

Making a Mark: Complementary Colours and mixing neutral colours

How to identify complementary colours and how to mix them to make neutrals

Making a Mark: Analogous Colours

Analogous colours often don't get adequate coverage in many art instruction books or, as I've discovered, in websites generated by a browser enquiry. The information made available is often basic in the extreme. This post is an attempt to redress the balance - but it also recommends other sources of even better advice and information!

I'm going to
* start by looking at the basics about analogous colours
* move on to some aspects which get referenced less often
* then point you in the direction of more information.

Making a Mark: Local Colour and Realism

Before I move on to discuss strategies for colour schemes in producing artwork, it struck me that I needed to explain about 'Local Colour' and its role in art.

Colour Illusions - After-images: Reversing complementaries

Colour comes to life in our explorations into the wonder, science and technology of colour.

Complementary Colours - the Handprint perspective

handprint : artist's color wheel (CIECAM version)

Download the high quality PDF version of the Artists Colour Wheel
Last revised 08.01.2005 copyright 2005 Bruce MacEvoy

handprint : painting in neutrals

The aim of this section is to get you to recognize grays, mix them reliably with paints, and use them effectively in design.

handprint : an artist's color wheel

We have to choose from among competing approaches when we build a color wheel. The easiest way to review these choices is to compare visual and mixing complements side by side, using the major "cool" pigments as the basis for comparison.

handprint : painting in neutrals

The chart below shows all the mixing complements between warm and cool watercolor pigments (from ultramarine violet BS to chromium oxide green).

Colour schemes and basic colour chords

Split complementaries, Triads etc

Web Color Wheel - Split Complementary

Copyright 2006 Mindy McAdams
These are sets of colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. Unlike simple complementary pairs, however, in a split you substitute the two colors on either side of the directly complemenatary partner color. There are 12 such combinations. Above, only four of the 12 are shown.

Color Harmonies: complementary, analogous, triadic color schemes

A short description of the basic color harmonies: complementary, analogous, triadic and tetradic color schemes.

Basic Color Theory, Monochromatic, Analogous, Split Complementary Colors

Basic techniques for combining colors
Below are shown the basic color chords based on the color wheel.

Analogous Colours

Fraphic Design - Lesson 9: Analogous colors

Analogous colors are a palette of compatible color combinations that blend well together. They are neighbors on the color wheel. They tend to live harmoniously because they are relatives to each other.

Color Wheel Pro: Classic Color Schemes

Color Wheel Pro is a software program that allows you to create color schemes and preview them on real-world examples. Click here for Classic Color Schemes.

Colour temperature

handprint : color temperature

Blue mountains are distant from us, and so cool colors seem to recede.
J.W. von Goethe
The concept of color temperature or warm and cool colors is important to artists yet often poorly understood. This page provides an in depth review of the topic.

The History of Colour Palettes

Palettes by Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art

Prehistoric Colour Palette:

Prehistoric Colour Palette: Artist Colours/Pigments/Hues Used by Stone Age Painters: Chauvet, Lascaux Caves, Altamira

Egyptian Colour Palette

Egyptian Colour Palette: Artist Colours/Pigments/Hues Used by Painters in Ancient Egypt

Colour Palette, Classical Antiquity

Classical Antiquity Colour Palette: Artist Colours/Pigments/Hues Used by Greek/Roman Painters

Renaissance Colour Palette

Renaissance Colour Palette: Artist Colours/Pigments/Hues Used by Fresco/Tempera/Oil Painters in Venice, Florence, Rome

Eighteenth Century Colour Palette

Eighteenth Century Colour Palette: Artist Colours/Pigments/Hues Used by 18th Century Rococo, Neo-Classical Painters

Nineteenth Century Colour Palette

Nineteenth Century Colour Palette: Artist Colours/Pigments/Hues Used by 19th Century Painters, Impressionists Expressionists

Tips and techniques for artists working with colour

ArtLex on Color

Color in life and art, defined with images from throughout art history, great quotations, and links to other resources.

Gurney Journey: The Shapes of Color Schemes

Gurney Journey: a daily weblog by James Gurney is for illustrators, comic artists, plein-air painters, sketchers, animators, art students, and writers.

any color scheme can be represented or mapped as a shape on a color wheel

Gurney Journey: Color Wheel Masking, Part 1

Gurney Journey: a daily weblog by James Gurney is for illustrators, comic artists, plein-air painters, sketchers, animators, art students, and writers.

Today I'd like to introduce an approach to color that I've been developing over the last 10 years. I'm very excited about it, and I'd love to know your reactions. I call it "Color Wheel Masking." I'm going to show you a practical method that you can use to accurately describe any color scheme that you see.

Gurney Journey: From Mask to Palette

Gurney Journey: a daily weblog by James Gurney is for illustrators, comic artists, plein-air painters, sketchers, animators, art students, and writers.

This is the third post in a Sunday series about a method called color wheel masking. The first post showed how color masks can help to analyze color schemes, and the second post explored different shapes of masks.

In this post I'll demonstrate how to actually mix the colors you have chosen for a given painting

Color Theories - The Good, the Bad and the Useless

An excerpt from "Gouache For Illustration" by Rob Howard - Watson-Guptill, NY

Colour Mixing Tips For Artists, How to Mix Colours on Artist Palette, Combine Paint Pigments: Colour Wheel, Painting Advice

Colour Mixing Tips For Artists: How to Mix Colours on Artist Palette, How to Combine Paint Pigments in Studio: Colour Wheel Diagram, Primary, Secondary Hues, Painting Advice: Optical Colour Mixing

Gamblin Artists Colors: Navigating Color Space (NCS)

Navigating Color Space (NCS)
My Multi-Dimensional Approach to Color Mixing-by Robert Gamblin

Navigating Color Space is a DVD program I created on color mixing. By using 3D computer animation, I can best show painters how to access the universe of color, I call Color Space. The animated sequences demonstrate how to define a color by its attributes: value, hue and intensity (chroma). During the program, I demonstrate a few of the secrets of the Old Masters so you, too, will know how to mix green and red into blue.

Notebook - Il Libro dell' Arte - by Cennino D' Andrea Cennini

NotebookNotebook, 1993- Il Libro dell' Arte - Cennino D' Andrea Cennini. The Craftsman's Handbook. The Italian "Il Libro dell' Arte." Translated by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1933, by Yale University Press.Notes 1-50 Notes 51-124 Notes 125-162 Notes 163-283Second Sect

lines and colors :: Blue and Green or is it?

All of my studies of color and color theory have led me to the inexorable conclusion that the single most important rule of color is that the human perception of any color is almost entirely dependent on adjacent or surrounding colors.

This image shown here is one of the most striking illustrations of this principle I've seen.

The Pastel Pointers Blog - The Color Temperature of Light

As painters we understand that without light there would be nothing visible. Objects within our painting scenes have mass, a proximity to one another and a reflective quality. All of these elements work in conjunction with the light source to create what we see. There are two major components at work when we see: the eye and the mind. The eye is the camera and the mind the processer.

Tools for working with colour

Colour Confidence > Small Greyscale and Colour Separation Guide

Colour Confidence, Colour Management Shop, ICC Profiling

Small Greyscale and Colour Separation Guide ? quality and accuracy in image reproduction
The Small Greyscale and Colour Separation Guide is a Q13 equivalent quality control device for photographers, printers and other colour professionals. The twenty-step Greyscale offers an accurate, easy way to compare tonal values in an original image with its reproduction, while the set of eighteen colour patches (two saturations of nine colours) allows users to compare the colour of their subject with known printing colours.

Colour Confidence > Checker charts – colour references and white and grey balancing for photographers

Colour Confidence, Colour Management Shop, ICC Profiling

Poynter.org: Color Contrast & Dimension in News Design

© Copyright 2001
The Poynter Institute
801 Third
Street South | St. Petersburg, FL 33701 | Phone (888) 769-6837
 

Color Palette Generator

Generate A Color Palette For Any Image

The Gamut Mask - FREE Interactive color harmony tool for painters

What is it?
The Gamut Mask is a great way to created harmonic color schemes. It simplifies your color choices and saves you lots of time and paint in achieving unified color palettes quickly and easily.

Who made it?: This Gamut Mask Tool was developed by me (Richard Robinson) and is provided to you free to use.

Color Field Painting

Wikipedia - Color Field

Color Field painting is an abstract style that emerged in the 1950s after Abstract Expressionism and is largely characterized by abstract canvases painted primarily with large areas of solid color. An alternate but less frequently encountered term for this style is chromatic abstraction.

Color Field painting sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Zox, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. Certain artists quoted references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself.

Mark Rothko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mark Rothko born Marcus Rothkowitz (Latvian: Marks Rotko); September 25, 1903-February 25, 1970) was a Latvian-born Jewish American painter and printmaker who is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he rejected not only the label but even being called an abstract painter.

Tate | Glossary | Colour Field Painting

Term originally used to describe the work from about 1950 of the Abstract Expressionist painters Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still, which was characterised by large areas of a more or less flat single colour. 'The Colour Field Painters' was the title of the chapter dealing with these artists in the American scholar Irvine Sandler's ground-breaking history, Abstract Expressionism, published in 1970. Around 1960 a more purely abstract form of Colour Field painting emerged in the work of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and others. It differed from Abstract Expressionism in that these artists eliminated both the emotional, mythic or religious content of the earlier movement, and the highly personal and painterly or gestural application associated with it. In 1964 an exhibition of thirty-one artists associated with this development was organised by the critic Clement Greenberg at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He titled it Post-Painterly Abstraction, a term often also used to describe the work of the 1960 generation and their successors. In Britain there was a major development of Colour Field painting in the 1960s in the work of Robyn Denny, John Hoyland, Richard Smith and others.
(From Tate Glossary)

see website for examples of paintings and links to individual painters

ArtLex on Color Field Painting

Color Field Painting, an art movement / style, defined with images of examples from art history, great quotations, and links to other resources.

Paintings with solid areas of color covering the entire canvas, as exemplified in the work of Mark Rothko (American, 1903-1970), Kenneth Noland (American, 1924-), and Jules Olitski (American, 1922-). A type of Abstract Expressionism, these artists were interested in the lyrical or atmospheric effects of vast expanses of color, filling the canvas, and by suggestion, beyond it to infinity. Most color-field paintings are large - meant to be seen up close so that the viewer is immersed in a color environment.

'Color Field' Artists Found a Different Way : NPR

Starting in the 1950s, a group of artists found new ways to create colorful, abstract works known as "color field" painting. They rarely used paint brushes and one of them couldn't even draw. A new exhibit celebrates their tradition-breaking techniques.
(About the exhibition at the Smithsonian)

Art Review | 'Color as Field'

New York Times - Art Review | 'Color as Field'
Weightless Color, Floating Free
By ROBERTA SMITH
Published: March 7, 2008

MFA Boston: Exhibition - Color Field Painting

This exhibition celebrates the considerable collection of color-field painting in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Used to describe works that were created in the United States between the mid-1950s and the 1970s, the term color-field painting evokes a large canvas seen as a field of color, often the result of thinned paint poured onto unprimed canvas. Works in the exhibition by representative color-field artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski are striking for their luminosity, where the canvas is emphasized as a textured, depthless color-field with geometric motifs highlighting its color intensity.

Colour as Symbol, Colour as Meaning

Color symbolism and psychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In art and anthropology, color symbolism refers to the use of color as a symbol throughout culture. Color psychology refers to investigating the effect of color on human behavior and feeling.

What artists had to say about colour

artists' quotations

Quotes from Artists on Colour

Quotes From Artists On Colour
What famous artists have had to say about colour, how they see it and how they use it.

Artists particularly associated with colour

Josef Albers

JOSEF ALBERS
Barbara Krakow Gallery
FEBRUARY 7, 2004 - MARCH 24, 2004

Art/Museums: Color Chart: Reinventing Color 1950 to Today at the Museum of Modern Art

Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
March 2 - May 12, 2008

Jan van Eyck, Flemish Artist, Oil Painter, Portraitist of Northern Renaissance: Biography, Paintings, Ghent Altarpiece, Arnolfini Marriage, Man in a Red Turban

Biography of Jan van Eyck: Northern Renaissance Portraitist, Oil Painter: Religious Paintings, Ghent Altarpiece, Annunciation: Portraits, Arnolfini and Wife, Man in a Red Turban

Seurat's Science: Incorporation of Color Theory Into Studies

Incorporation of Color Theory Into Studies
Seurat began to employ his knowledge of color theory before attempting to do so in La Grande Jatte, but this collection of studies and masterpiece most clearly exhibits the

Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat, French Neo-Impressionist Artist, Founder of Pointillism Colour Theory: Biography, Legacy, Paintings, Bathers at Asnieres, Sunday On La Grande Jatte

Claude Monet

Claude Monet (1840-1926): French Impressionist Painter, Founder of Impressionism, Landscape Artist: Biography, Plein-Air Painting, Pupil of Eugene Boudin, Waterlilies, Haystacks, Le Bassin aux Nympheas

Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard, French Post-Impressionist Painter, Colourist, Printmaker: Biography, Oil Paintings: Les Nabis Symbolist Artists, Colourism, Intimism, Edouard Vuillard

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse: Post-Impressionist Artist, Founder of Fauvism Art Movement: Biography, Paintings, (Luxe, Calme Et Volupte), (The Dessert: Harmony in Red)

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko (1903-70): Latvian-American Abstract Expressionist Painter, Co-Founder of Colour Field Painting: Biography, Paintings: Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell

Scottish Colourist Painters

::Welcome to the Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery::

The Hunterian's important collection of Scottish Colourists consists of some hundred works. Highlights include Les Eus, one of Fergusson's most ambitious canvas showing six sculptural nudes dancing against a stylised background; Still-Life and Rosechatel, a magnificent example of the series of bold interiors Cadell painted at Ainslie Place, Edinburgh, between 1920 and 1927; some of Hunter's earliest known drawings, giving a fascinating insight into his otherwise little known Californian years; prints by Hunter and Fergusson, not represented in any other public collections; a group of ten Iona landscapes by Peploe and Cadell; and Peploe's New Abbey, Dumfriesshire (Summer), capturing a beautiful symphony of green, white and light blue.

The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow - "Colourists"

Art Collections - 118 records in the art collections match "colourist"
These are mainly Scottish Colourists.

Scottish Colourists - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scottish Colourists - a short item

National Galleries of Scotland - Paintings by FCB Cadell in the Collection

FCB Cadell's work

National Galleries of Scotland - Paintings by Samuel J Peploe in the Collection

Paintings by Samuel J Peploe

Richard Green Gallery - Artist Detail - Samuel John Peploe

Background to and images of Peploe's work

Tate | Glossary | Scottish Colourists

Glossary item plus examples of work

Fauvism

Fauvism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

an article on Fauvism

Henri Matisse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

article about Henri Matisse - one of the Fauves

André Derain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

article about André Derain - one of the Fauves

Famous Artists Gallery: Andre Derain

A painting by Andre Derain: The Turning Road, Lestraque - 1906

Famous Artists Gallery: Henri Matisse

A painting by Henri Matisse: Still Life with Green Sideboard - 1928

National Gallery of Art - Henri Matisse and the Fauves

Feature website focused on the Fauves - with slideshow of works

Henri Matisse and the Fauves

Maurice de Vlaminck, Tugboat on the Seine, Chatou, 1906, National
Gallery of Art, Washington,

Henri Matisse and the Fauves

Fauve painters were influenced by several postimpressionist artists, especially Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. These painters had turned away from the impressionists' aim of capturing primarily visual effects of light and atmosphere.

Lesson Plans about Colour for Teachers

Impressionist Color (Education at the Getty)

Students learn about Impressionists' use of color, experiment with complimentary colors, and make their own landscape.

Organisations studying colour

The Colour Group (Great Britain) - Bibliography

Bibliography about colour - split between science and art

Colour Imaging Group

The Colour Imaging Group focuses on postgraduate education and research in colour imaging. The Group is based in the School of Printing and Publishing at London College of Communication.

Welcome to the Colour Society of Australia Inc.

Explore new concepts with The Colour Society of Australia. Discover the importance of colour and its application from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives.

The SDC Colour Museum, Bradford

Colour comes to life in our explorations into the wonder, science and technology of colour. Learn how colour, light and dyes play a vital role in our every day lives. Delve into dye and fashion history or discover the myth and meaning behind your favourite colours.

AATCC Online

AATCC is the world's leading not-for-profit professional association for the textile design, materials, processing, and testing industries.

Society of Dyers and Colourists - About the SDC

Society of Dyers and Colourists: The world's only professional society devoted exclusively to colour

SDC ColourClick: Colour facts at your fingertips

Welcome to the SDC ColourClick, a unique web-based service putting colour facts and information at your fingertips. It is a simple, easy-to-use tool that keeps you up-to-date with all the latest trends and developments and can provide a deeper insight into the fascinating world of colour.

THE COLOUR GROUP (GREAT BRITAIN

Home page of the Colour Group web site

The Color Association - Color Trend Forecasts

315 West 39th Street, Studio 507 New York, NY 10018
Tel: 212 947-7774   
Fax: 212 594-6987

Colour - software for artwork

Artellmedia Inc. - The Fine Art Software Company

Fine art software with the groundbreaking real time(tm) color study tools. This technology is tailor made for artists, art teachers, and visual art students

Artellmedia Products

G-Lab Color Wheel

Computer colour management

Basic Color Theory for the Desktop - Technical Guides

March 21, 2001 - An overview of color theory: the nature of color and the factors that determine how we perceive it.

Color Management Systems - Technical Guides

A Color management system (CMS) helps to reduce or eliminate color-matching problems and makes color portable, reliable, and predictable.

Colour Names supported in html

List of colour (color) names supported in HTML and how to use colour numbers if one of the predefined names is not what you want.

CSS Color Module Level 3

Blogs about Colour

Color + Design Blog by COLOURlovers

Color + Design Blog by COLOURlovers

Gurney Journey: Color

Gurney Journey
an excellent set (and series) of Blog posts about Color - from the daily weblog by James Gurney

This blog is for illustrators, comic artists, plein-air painters, sketchers, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

Livelygrey

Livelygrey - Trying to make sense of color

Rational Color

Rational Color - To have an arena whose purpose is to learn and share as opposed to gripe and fight sounds almost too good to be true.

See.Be.Draw. - Watercolour Resources

These include a lot of sample colour charts and experiments mixing different watercolours

A world of colour in blog form

The official blog of the Society of Dyers and Colourists

Art and Quilts, cogitations thereon: How d'you know what colours to choose?

I'm in the midst of an interesting book on ?Colour in Art? by John Gage. It describes the many different ways artists have used to choose the colours in their work.