Colour properties when painting

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COLOUR

When the sun shines and it's raining we see a rainbow, the basic colours of which are - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet (natures' palette). Traditionally, for convenience, these colours are arranged in a circle of six colours (Indigo is not used), to form a colour circle or 'Colour Wheel'.

Leaving aside the physical attributes of the paint, we need to look at its Colour Properties, in order to help us sort out colour for our painting.

When we talk of colour for our paintings we usually use the following terms - warm or cool, light or dark, bright or dull, strong or weak, contrasting or complementary. This in itself tells us something - in painting we are often looking for, 'an opposite, compared to another,' be it temperature, tone, strength, etc., this equals contrast. Contrast in some form, is usually what make a painting 'speak'.

Let's start by looking at some of the properties concerned with colour. The paint colour has a name to identify it, often referred to, as its Hue or Colour, i.e. red, yellow, blue. Red, Yellow and Blue are referred to as the Primary colour. These cannot be mixed from other colours.

Colours can be warm (red, orange, yellow) the overall feeling of the picture is warm		or cool ( green, blue, violet) the overall feeling of the picture is cool
*this is referred to as its Temperature. This of course is also relative to the colour, you are judging it against in your work.*


Each colour has a Complementary colour - that it's opposite colour on the colour wheel, e.g. - yellow (warm) is opposite violet (cool), red (warm) is opposite green (cool) and blue (cool) is opposite orange (warm). When two complementary colours are placed side by side they Contrast with each other.

Two complementary colours when mixed together form a greyed or Neutral colour.

It also has a Value or Tone, which is its apparent lightness or darkness in relation to another colour. Purple is darker than white and is said to have a lower value. Yellow is lighter than black and is said to have a higher value.

Chroma, Intensity or Saturation are words, that are often used, to indicate the brightness or dullness of the colour, you can have a bright or dull colour with the same intensity.

This can all seem very confusing, but these properties apply to colour whatever the media used. If you are having trouble with these properties, it could be a good idea to start with the Hue, Temperature and the Complementary properties first, then move on to Contrast, Value and Chroma. It's much easier to take it stage by stage, than to try it all in one go.

Traditionally the six colours have been divided into the three 'primary' colours - Red, Yellow, and Blue, and three 'secondary' colours - Orange, Green, and Violet. 'Secondary' because by mixing two primary's together they made another colour, classed as second in order. Mixing a 'primary' and a 'secondary' colour together makes yet another colour, a 'tertiary' colour, third in order, and so on.

This only works if you use a paint colour that 'leans' towards the colour being made, i.e., to make violet you would need to use a red that is 'inclined' towards violet, and a blue that is 'inclined' towards violet. Using a red or blue with a different 'leaning' will not result in a clear, clean violet. Therefore to mix the three secondary colours you would need six tubes of paint; two yellows, two reds and two blues.
The names of the colours you could use from the Daler-Rowney range:

Cadmium Red as the orange red;
Permanent Geranium as the violet red;
Cerulean as the green blue;
French Ultramarine as the violet blue;
Lemon Yellow as the green yellow and
Cadmium Yellow Deep as the orange yellow.

These are only suggested colours, try others to find what suits you.
Colour mixing using the Lefranc range.

As artists, it is perhaps better to work with the six main colours as having equal importance as far as colour mixing is concerned. Understanding the principals and properties of colour, helps us to decide what colour is to be used to express our feelings for the subject we are painting.

Suggestion - take two primary colours, yellow and blue for example and make yourself a chart. By mixing the colours together yourself you will learn far more than by reading about colour mixing.