Tag: color luminosity

Color Relationships 1, Spring 2016 week 5

The fifth and final session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, May 4. The class shared the results of their last assignment, heard from guest artist Valérie about her color explorations, and watched a video that demonstrated how color, pattern, and viewing distance are all important considerations when creating a work of art. See the full post for class materials, photos, and final assignments.

The fifth and final session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, May 4. The class shared the results of their last assignment, heard from guest artist Valérie about her color explorations, and watched a video that demonstrated how color, pattern, and viewing distance are all important considerations when creating a work of art. See the full post for class materials, photos, and final assignments.

Critique – Vanishing Boundaries assignment

The final assignment for this color group was to create a color study which demonstrated the application of VANISHING BOUNDARIES. Dick gave students a few options for the format of this assignment: one was to simply lose a shape against its background colors; another was to take a section of a previous art piece and redo it to incorporate vanishing boundaries; and the last was to take another artist’s work and redo it with the same goal. The only criteria that Dick stressed was that he did not want students to concentrate on shape, only on color.

Here are the results of that effort:

Gabby brought in an acrylic painting that she altered in a bid to incorporate equal value and halations. It was more challenging than she anticipated, but this is the first step in exploring how to integrate this color knowledge into her work.

Anyes also brought in an original painting that she used to experiment with equal values. She incorporated vanishing boundaries on the right side of the painting, mainly in the shadows of the mountain. The left side is untouched, and showed her original color choices.

Susan shared both physical and digital work, bringing in a small pastel piece along with the original paintings that she used to create matrices from. Her pastel landscape incorporated arrays, halations, and vanishing boundaries, while her digital studies were done to find equal value possibilities for future alteration.

Janet shared pages from her sketchbook, drawings she made with mixed media. Many of the designs showed experimentation with equal values, vanishing boundaries, and array colors.

Christina shared her experiments in acrylic and oil, as she explores the ways she will use this color knowledge in her chosen media. She also brought in a small painting she had done in the last week, where she had restricted herself to only cyan, magenta, and yellow paint to see what was possible.

Linden used Color-Aid paper and gray scale sheets to create an innovative design which provides accurate readings on equal values. The result is an immediate recognition of when colors are matching in value, and when they are not: the colors that do not match jump off the page, while the colors that share equal value disappear at a distance.

Jane submitted several digital examples of her explorations with equal values, vanishing boundaries, creating matrices, and furthering her knowledge of the Adobe Illustrator program. She commented that using this program has helped her immensely in the understanding of color interaction.

Jim brought in a pastel piece that he reworked to incorporate vanishing boundaries. He also shared a small study of equal values in opposing hues, which gives us the contrary effect of vibrating boundaries.

Cynthia experimented with an original image in Adobe Illustrator, trying new color combinations. In one version, she used only one array (two parents) and in another version, she used a matrix (four parents) to choose her colors. There were strong halations, yet only a few areas of vanishing boundaries, due to the different values of the parents.

Leonard worked on a couple watercolors where he experimented with only using the 3 primaries, and worked on equal values and vanishing boundaries. He choose the sugar mill as his subject, which proved to be more challenging than he originally thought!

Elizabeth Ann brought in an original watercolor that she reworked to achieve color harmony and vanishing boundaries. She showed us examples of the before image, adding that she thought the original color scheme had been a bit “garish”; then revealed the final result, which she had toned considerably. She also added her formal color studies as a counterpoint to the flowing lines of her original composition.

View the digital vanishing boundaries studies.

Class recap – some key ideas

The importance of stepping stones

We reviewed more on the theme of vanishing boundaries, and Dick shared a worksheet he designed on Adobe Illustrator that could help students improve their value comparisons. By creating a matrix with equal value parents, one could pick color combinations to try and make the inner shape disappear, either a lot or just a little. See the worksheet below, in the ‘Class materials’ section, which is available for download as well.

Dick also wondered if the color information had affected anyone, and asked the class: “Personally, what, if any, behavioral change have you gone through?”

Most everyone agreed that the information was ‘eye-opening’ and powerful. One student said, “I see my own work so differently now. I used to take it for granted that I knew what I was looking at; well, I thought I knew what I was looking at.” Another student described it as: “I feel I have the eyes of a dragonfly … I can see the world of colors – not as one, all at once – but all of them, individually; I can see them now.”

Dick cautioned that it is important to keep this wave of euphoria going, and to dedicate oneself to practicing and experimenting with this color knowledge, or it will all too easily be lost. He used the metaphor of footprints in the sand: “… when you walk on wet sand, you leave behind footprints, and the next wave that comes up, it washes them away a little, but you can still see the outline. And then the next wave comes, and then another, and eventually the footprints are completely gone, there’s no way to tell anyone ever walked this way before. Well, these assignments are like those footprints, and if you don’t continue to practice, you’ll forget them. The waves of distractions can wash them away, but stepping stones will leave footprints [for us to follow].”

Valérie’s watercolors

And to show us proof of how important stepping stones are for an artist, Dick had invited guest artist Valérie to join us for this class, and towards the end of the coffee break we were treated to the results of Valérie’s commitment to studying color. She has been practicing with watercolors, and as a transparent media, they can be very useful in creating color harmony. Dick talked about how one of the obstacles artists usually face is the desire to create something “perfect”, or how easy it is to lose perspective and feel too attached to our work: “So often when we get engaged with subject matter, we don’t see what is happening with color and shape … Valérie was at a point where she needed to stop making ‘precious stones’ and start making ‘stepping stones’ to expand her vocabulary in color, and then go back to what she was doing.”

Valérie spoke a little about her process, and shared some of the revelations she has had that are changing the way she thinks about and approaches her work. “If you want to learn about colors, you have to drop completely painting ‘something’, and just work with the colors. And it takes time, just putting in the hours, day after day. And little by little, you start to see it – before, I thought I had to work at finding the values; but as you do it, as you paint, it comes to your eyes. So every time you will learn a little something. But you have to put in the time.”

Valérie has been working on these stripes for about one year now, and she is beginning to incorporate shape and form back into her color studies. The tricky part is to not do it all at once: she cautions to only try one aspect at a time until it becomes familiar and easier to handle. Trying to do it all right away can lead to frustration and discouragement, so sometimes it is best to pull back and make things simple for awhile. Valérie’s work certainly proves that patience and commitment will take you far!

Post-class work

Dick also encourages students to share their stepping stones, and any work they do in the future that incorporates these lessons! It is always a pleasure to see how artists use this knowledge, and as an example, look at the work Dick received a few days after class had finished:

trnsp510

Jane,

The class may not be meeting, but all should see and share such breakthroughs in color such as this matrix and how far you have taken these two lessons. I truly believe you have reached a level in color. I will forward this to Karen and Holly to be sure others can see your achievement and encourage others to share alike.

Take a well deserved bow!!
Dick

Class photos

Class materials

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Color-Final-2016.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/VB-Matrix.pdf”]
This is an editable PDF – after downloading, you should be able to edit it in Adobe Illustrator to experiment with vanishing boundaries.

Videos

Dick shared a short clip of the well-known artist Chuck Close working on a painting (view his website here). What is intriguing about the clip is that it demonstrates the powerful effect that that viewing distance can have on a work of art. This is an important consideration for any type of visual artwork, and should be a consideration when working with color as well.

The clip that Dick shared with the class starts somewhere around the 12:30 mark of the video.

Same class, different year

View the corresponding class post from 2015.

Color Relationships 1, Spring 2016 week 3

The third session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, April 20. We shared the results from the previous two homework assignments, discussed and critiqued the many examples in Josef Albers’ book Interaction of Color, and introduced the new assignment, Transposing Colors of Equal Value. This is by far the most difficult exercise in the course, and usually involves many hours of trial and error. See the full post for class materials, photos, and videos to supplement our class time.

The third session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, April 20. We shared the results from the previous two homework assignments, discussed and critiqued the many examples in Josef Albers’ book Interaction of Color, and introduced the new assignment: Transposing Colors of Equal Value. This is by far the most difficult exercise in the course, and usually involves many hours of trial and error. See the full post for class materials, photos, and videos to supplement our class time.

Homework assignment

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/TransposeColorREV2.pdf”]

The basic format for the homework is as follows:
EqualValueFormat-03

Class recap – some key ideas

Transposing color

The new assignment is the most difficult one in this course. It is an exercise designed to develop the students’ value discrimination, which is a tricky skill to learn, by matching values between a range of warm and cool hues. Dick praised Albers for the ingenuity of this exercise and the cleverness of the format, by which you can gauge different color values in one piece. “You have four colors on the outside, and four colors on the inside. And Albers uses the term ‘transformation’: that you transform one set of colors into another set of colors, but the transformation is that they are only changed in hue, not in value.”

Dick has adopted his own term for the assignment: “Does anyone know what the term ‘to transpose’ means? If I have three notes and I transpose them, it means the melody is still recognizable, but the key has changed. What you’re doing with color is like changing the key, but the melody has stayed the same. The only thing that’s changed is going from warm to cool colors.”

The assignment is to find equal values between the outer and inner squares, and make sure that the shift from one quadrant to the next is matched in both the warm and cool colors. As this is a very difficult assignment, Dick advises students to expect failure: “Give this exercise a try, but recognize that we do not expect any attempts to be right on target until value discrimination develops by hours of trial and correction. At this time, experience with expected failures should be the mindset, so don’t be discouraged with your early results and their direct flight to the trash bucket. This week is truly trial with a high percentage of failure.”

Vanishing and vibrating boundaries

The results of equal value can be seen in two opposing optical illusions: one is vanishing boundaries, and the other is vibrating boundaries. Vanishing boundaries occur between two very similar hues that have matching values (such as light blue and lavender); and vibrating boundaries occur between two very opposed hues with matching values (such as full chroma red and green).

With either illusion, the border between the colors becomes hard to discern, since the eye has trouble separating the hues from their respective values. With colors of similar hues, the boundary appears fuzzy, diffuse, or seems ‘out of focus’; thus, the term vanishing boundaries. With colors in opposing hues, the boundary is hard to pin down because the eye has difficulty in seeing the opposing hues simultaneously, and they might even be irritating to look at. Dick used the example of Christmas posters made by high school students, where the red and green are competing so much that the viewer can’t look at it without feeling that something is wrong with their vision; thus, vibrating boundaries.

Hints for the color transposition / equal value assignment

Here are some additional suggestions for working with this assignment.

  1. Make sure the screen brightness is all the way up (as Gabe recommends for Huedoku)
  2. Try using a gray or black background instead of white, to reduce the competing light level and make it easier to focus on the study
  3. Work for limited periods of time (5, 10, 15; 30 minutes max). When you think you have it, take a break and do something else away from the computer for at least 15 minutes, then take a fresh look.
  4. Use the Albers afterimage trick with a movable swatch.
  5. Squint, or zoom out, or stand some distance from your screen to view the overall effect.
  6. When you think you have it, duplicate the swatch twice and make one a little lighter, one a little darker, and see if either of those is a better value match.

Some of these tips apply only if working in Illustrator, but some should help those working in physical media as well.

Student solutions to last week’s assignments

A single solution for each assignment is shown below, along with the assignment. Follow the links to see all digitally-submitted student solutions.

All solutions to Assignment 2: Make three colors appear as two, or reversed grounds.

All solutions to Assignment 3: Make four colors appear as three.

Class photos

Class materials

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/EqualValue2.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Equal-Value-hints.pdf” height=”400″]

Even though we did not go over these particular images in class, this slide show demonstrates a very helpful way to practice equal value studies.

Dick briefly showed two paintings by Kit Gentry, a former student of his. Kit was already an accomplished artist before he took Dick’s class, but was amazed by the color theory that Dick taught. On his website, Kit shows a painting done after learning about equal value and vanishing boundaries, which he titled “Breakthrough” in reference to the revelation he had in understanding how to apply these theories to his work.

Videos

Color Luminosity

Here are two ways color luminosity can be achieved. This should dispel the notion that the French Impressionists achieved color luminosity by way of full chroma color application. See the truth with your own eyes.

Equal Value

The video tutorial below attempts to show and tell how to use the color transformation homework format to compare values. It seems that some colors and values have changed somewhat between what he was working with onscreen and the final result, but if you can overlook that you should still find value (ha-ha, get it?) in watching and listening to it.

Same session, different year

View the corresponding class post from 2014 and 2015.

Color Relationships 1, Spring 2016 week 2

The second session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, April 13. We shared the insights and challenges produced by the homework, discussed important questions to ask when determining the ‘ingredients’ of a color, and had a thorough critique of the first assignment. See the full post for additional handouts and videos, and the two new homework assignments for this week.

The second session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, April 13. We shared the insights and challenges produced by the homework, discussed important questions to ask when determining the ‘ingredients’ of a color, and had a thorough critique of the first assignment. See the full post for additional handouts and videos, and the two new homework assignments for this week.

Homework assignment

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Lesson2Combined.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Lesson3Combined.pdf”]

Class recap – some key ideas

Questions to ask while assessing color

  1.  How many primaries does the color contain? Practice identifying color in terms of how much cyan, magenta, and yellow it contains. The Tri-hue Demo is a great method for practicing this skill.
  2.  Is the color tinted, shaded, or toned? Does the color contain any white, black, or complementary hues (leading it towards neutral gray)? These are the 3 ways to weaken, or desaturate, a color. Full saturation or full chroma colors are more dominant than colors that have been altered in any of these ways.
  3.  Is it a dominant (strong) color, or a passive (weak) color? In other words, how easily can it be influenced? Karen had this to say from the Color Relationships post from 2014:

  4. Strong colors are more influential. The primary colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow) and black and white are the strongest, and thus the most influential. Identify the hue and value components of a color to determine if it is strong or weak, dominant or wimpy – if it will influence, or be influenced. Colors on the outer rim of the color wheel are “full chroma” – the strongest and most saturated – and are made from only one or two primary colors. Colors in the interior of the color wheel are weaker – more easily influenced – because they’re made from all three primaries. The dominance of each primary is diminished by the presence of the others. Grays and tones can be easily influenced – they give up their identity in the context of their backgrounds.

The importance of arrays

The importance of the array format became apparent during the critique, as we saw a few examples where students had used colors that were not related by ‘family ties’. One student asked if if you could still have color deception take place even if the colors were not part of an array. The answer is yes, you can still make colors look different even if they don’t stem from the same parents, but this is at the root of why certain color combinations are harmonious and others are not. This was a clear illustration of Dick’s constant reminder that, “This course is all about relationships. In life you don’t have anything that is not in relation to something else, and especially when it comes to color, it’s all about relationship.” When all colors in a group are related, a harmonious color combination is created which is pleasing to the eye.

Homework solutions

lesson 1

This study is a very effective solution, with the central figures appearing to be very different from each other in the context of the strong background colors. It addition, notice the luminosity of the array, coming from halation within the swatches.

View all homework submitted digitally.

Class photos

Class materials

Worksheets

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Critique-Guide.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ColorDominance.pdf”]

Huedoku

Huedoku Website
Learn about Huedoku and why it is such a great way to practice color recognition and increase your understanding.

Huedoku
Huedoku: Rearrange the scrambled squares to form a matrix

Huedoku App
Download Huedoku for playing on your iPad or iPhone. The game itself is free, and you can purchase individual color packs to add to your collection of puzzles. Dick strongly recommends Huedoku as an aid to developing an eye for color, its interaction, and RELATIONSHIP! RELATIONSHIP! RELATIONSHIP!

Also check out this link to one of the meetings of the Color 1 group in 2014, when Gabe Mott presented his Huedoku app to the class.

Huedoku simulation
Huedoku simulation

Slide presentation: Making 3 colors appear as 2, or appearing as a reverse ground

Slide presentation: Making 4 colors appear as 3

Videos

Mix Any Color

Mix any color in pigment or light by first recognizing that all colors originate from three primaries plus black or white. The true primaries, understood and used in the printing industry for decades, were unknown to most artists and art schools. This brief video hopes to dispel the misconceptions of mixing color in both pigments and light. Additional proof can be found by examining the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black inks of every computer printer. These are pigment primaries. Light primaries, Red, Green and Blue-Violet are the secondary colors of pigments. Every TV or computer monitor depends on RGB color to generate an entire spectrum.

The Color Matrix

Following the ARRAY concept of color relationships, I have expanded Josef Albers’ two parent relationship to a broader
spectrum of color possibilities. The results are startling and a new tool for those who seek color harmony.

Albers Homage To The Square: An Explanation

A descriptive analysis of the work of Josef Albers by a former student Dick Nelson. This is followed with Dick’s animated collection of his own color studies which incorporate Albers format and his principles of color interaction.

Same session, different year

View the posts from previous years: 2014 (one post for Make 3 colors look like 2, a separate post for Make 4 colors look like 3), and 2015.

Color Relationships 1, Summer 2015 week 3

The third session of the Color Relationships 1 class for Summer 2015 was held on Tuesday, August 11th. We heard from participants about their latest experiences with color, critiqued the last two assignments, and moved on to explore a new facet of color interaction: equal value. This was a favored trick of the Impressionist painters, and when properly utilized can manifest the most beautiful and luminous fields of color. But matching value is much more challenging than it seems! It is truly the mark of a skilled colorist, one who can control their value selection as much as their choice of hues.

The third session of the Color Relationships 1 class for Summer 2015 was held on Tuesday, August 11th. We heard from participants about their latest experiences with color, critiqued the last two assignments, and moved on to explore a new facet of color interaction: equal value. This was a favored trick of the Impressionist painters, and when properly utilized can manifest the most beautiful and luminous fields of color. But matching value is much more challenging than it seems! It is truly the mark of a skilled colorist, one who can control their value selection as much as their choice of hues.

Class overview

Sharing enthusiasm for color theory

The class began with a call for reflection, as Dick and Holly asked for class feedback and wanted to know how students were feeling about the course. Dick wanted to know how this information was affecting people, and if they were as enthused about it as much as he is. He reflected on his time as a graduate student, and the excitement he felt when he studied with Albers. He hopes he is still expressing his excitement about this subject in a tangible way that students can share with him.

Everyone commented on how amazing this new way of thinking about color has been for them. Individuals talked about seeing color differently in their everyday lives, and how vivid things seem to be now. One student spoke of playing with arrays based on what she sees outside her window, as the weather and time of day changes. Another student described her experience as: “I mean, it’s mind-blowing. It’s just totally mind-blowing to think about color in such a different way.”

A couple participants mentioned still being a bit shocked by learning about this new color wheel, and thinking about the way these colors interact is so new to them that it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming (not to mention staring at a computer screen of color swatches for hours on end!). One student commented that it is still hard for her to see where this is going, and wanted to know how she will apply this information to her work. Dick said, “Oh, you want to know where this is going? Well, I can’t give you that, I can’t give you the answer! It’s called ‘delayed closure’.” Ah, yes, his preferred method of teaching!

Creating color matrices in Illustrator

We then switched to an Illustrator demo, with Dick teaching the class how to create full, four-sided color matrices. He relayed the story of how he came up with this idea, while traveling back to Maui after teaching a workshop: “And on that flight home, I thought, ‘Well, what would happen if yellow married cyan, and then married blue, or any other color? What would happen if cyan then married another color?’ What would happen if …? So I went home and created a matrix.”

Following the ARRAY concept of color relationships, I have
expanded Josef Albers’ two-parent relationship to a broader
spectrum of color possibilities. The results are startling and
a new tool for those who seek color harmony.

The Color Matrix from Richard (Dick) Nelson on Vimeo.

He mentioned the benefit of coming up with color matrixes for fun: “And for me, this is where this course can do wonders for people who tend to get stuck with the same palette. I would never think to use some of these colors, but the array can show me some of those magical things, not to mention the luminosity … and again: they’re all related.“ It all comes back to relationship!

Homework critiques

We moved on to the homework critiques, and Dick made special mention of Chelsea’s work, since she is still using ColorAid paper, and the skill she is utilizing to pick her arrays is quite admirable. Unlike playing around on Illustrator, Chelsea has to work at a slower pace, shifting through colors one at a time, and she can’t switch parents or change a family nearly as fast as you can with an ‘eyedropper tool’ on the computer. But she is developing an eye for reading the subtle notes in a color, by taking random color chips and learning to see their ‘ancestry’ (i.e., knowing who the ‘parents colors’ are).

Of course, Illustrator isn’t completely perfect either, and has its own drawbacks to consider, such as the algorithm that calculates the array doesn’t always mimic what would happen in real life. When using the program, you still have to be diligent and check your arrays for consistency. If the array is off, it will be much harder to create the illusion of color change.

We went through some examples of the two previous assignments: ‘Make 3 colors look like 2’, and ‘Make 4 colors look like 3”. Here are some quotes from the critique:

On the selection of backgrounds:

“Why can’t I use two very dominant parents [as my ground] color in this assignment (‘Make 3 colors look like 2’)? Because you can’t have that great of a difference in the backgrounds.”

The importance of checking your arrays for consistent steps, no matter if you are using Illustrator or the medium of your choice:

“The first thing I want you to do is look at one of the parents. The second thing is look at the first child in; I should begin to see a clue that it is moving toward the other parent. And if it gets darker, or lighter, I should see that reflected in the other parent … I want you to train your own vision enough to recognize the process I’m going through right now: in a child color, I should see some glow of the opposite parent, and if I don’t, this should tell us that something is wrong here. And at that stage, what should we do? Try a different parent.”

Looking for those color interactions that offer up delightful surprises:

“When you take colors which are more opposite on the color wheel, then things will happen that are not as easily predictable … In other words, the two parents will provide for a surprise kind of interaction, things that are not kind of basic; or kindergarten, so to speak. It’s like French cuisine, there are flavors which I would generally not normally suggest; and now in a color scheme.”

And he congratulated the class on how far the group’s color perception has come in only two weeks:

“Go back a week ago, when the assignment was to make one color two different colors … and now, look at that. That’s sensational. How far we’ve come in one week, to pull off that deception. I don’t think a couple weeks ago, you would have believed possible that you could get a colored strip to look that different … but you really pulled it off.”

Equal value and transposing colors

Interestingly enough, many of the homework samples were done with parents of very similar values, which turned out to be the new lesson for this week: equal value. In a few of the homework examples, the class had noticed it was hard to see the inner shapes in crisp detail, and the edges of the shape seemed “fuzzy”, or out of focus.

It turns out this fuzziness is the product of two colors that are matching in value, the aptly named “vanishing boundary” effect. If two colors have matching values, the edge of their shape visually blends with the other one, “as though you’re having eye trouble”, as one student put it.class3_vanish-bound

Dick took the class through another Illustrator demo, this one a game to teach how to identify matching values. There was a large square, surrounded by a thin gray scale; a smaller square inside the larger one; and a different assortment of color chips below. The instructions asked for the students to match the value of the large square to the small square, and offered a series of steps to learn how to gauge the value. The game proved challenging, especially with the size of the small color chips! But it did go to show how difficult it is for our eyes to go past hue and truly discern proper values.

Transposing colors

After playing the game for a bit, we went over this week’s homework assignment of transposing colors. Dick praised Albers for the ingenuity of this exercise and the cleverness of the format, by which you can gauge many different color values in one piece. “You have four colors on the outside, and four colors on the inside. And Albers uses the term ‘transformation’: that you transform one set of colors for another set of colors, but the transformation is that they are only changed in hue, not in value.”

Dick has also adopted his own term. “Instead of using Albers’ term ‘transforming’ color, I prefer something that happens in music, to ‘transpose’. What you’re doing with color is like changing the key, but the intervals between the notes stay the same. It’s the same melody on the inside as on the outside; the only thing that’s changed is that it’s gone from warm to cool colors in the center.”

Matching values with ColorAid chips

We ended the class with one more exercise, matching up paper color chips by value. Dick placed a stack of random ColorAid chips on the table, and had teams of two students compare colors. When a team felt they had a good match, Dick would hold up the two colors and ask for the class opinion.


Once again, harder than it seems! Matching up values is a learned trait, and often our prejudices about color confuse our estimation of value. The same as being able to name a color’s ‘ingredients’, Dick says that instant value recognition is a quality you can teach yourself to be good at, but only by spending hours looking at colors! And he promised the students would have plenty of experience with that this week, in their attempts to complete this unique assignment.

 

Homework assignment

Transposing colors of equal value

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/TransposeColorREV2.pdf”]

Dick warns that this is a very difficult assignment: “Give this exercise a try, but recognize that we do not expect any attempts to be right on target until value discrimination develops by hours of trial and correction. At this time, experience with expected failures should be the mindset, so don’t be discouraged with your early results and their direct flight to the trash bucket. This week is truly trial with high percentage of failure.”

Videos

MatrixTutorial from Richard (Dick) Nelson on Vimeo.

A step-by-step tutorial on building a color matrix in Adobe Illustrator.

Class materials

Slide presentation: Equal value and vanishing boundaries

Vanishing boundaries and luminosity

Vanishing boundaries are a special case of equal value. Vanishing boundaries occur between two colors having similar hue and equal value. The optical mixing perceived by the eye results in a more luminous effect than if the colors had been mixed on the palette, and this is the secret of Impressionist painting. Kit Gentry is an artist who, after taking Dick’s class, masterfully applies this approach in his work.

 

Color Relationships 1, Summer 2015 week 2

Wow, only our second session and we are fast covering ground! In this class, we moved right ahead, learning more about arrays; the importance of recognizing the difference between hue and value; how to look at your work objectively; and most importantly: HALATIONS! The following post summarizes our exciting class activities, the importance of critique, the new homework, and the fun videos we watched (no shortage of laughter!). Read on for more …

Wow, second session and we are fast covering ground! In this class, we moved right ahead, learning more about arrays; the importance of recognizing the difference between hue and value; how to look at your work objectively; and most importantly: HALATIONS! The following post summarizes our exciting class activities, the importance of critique, the new homework, and the fun videos we watched (no shortage of laughter!). Read on for more …

Class overview

Color Chip Game

colorclass2_game3The second class of the Color Relationships Summer 2015 met again at Dick’s house on Tuesday, August 4th. After meeting one more student who was absent from the first class, we started right off with another game: Color Chip Array. Students paired off and had to sort through a pack of 4-5 colors to find the appropriate “relatives” and discard the hues that didn’t belong. The instructions then called for something interesting: “When the array is determined, create a format which produces a HALATION.” Well, what the heck is a halation? Before Dick would give the answer, he wanted the class to figure it out for themselves (no surprise there!). Teams worked on the arrays for around 10 minutes, then had to share their results with the rest of the class.

colorclass2_game1

The game proved to be a bit more difficult than originally assumed, and many of the color chips had been chosen so that the colors were remarkably close in hue with subtle differences. Keeping with the metaphor of a “family”, Dick brought up a good technique to use when determining if colors are related: “When looking at color, ask, ‘What’s in this? Who’s the father? Who’s the mother? What are the values of the parents, and is one parent lighter than the other? Is the child progressing towards one or the other; that is, is it going lighter or darker?”

colorclass2_game2

 

This is all about learning to identify what makes up a hue; that is, what ingredients does it have in it? Is there magenta? Is there yellow? Is there black, or white, or a complementary color? Dick stressed this point a few times throughout the class, that it is important to learn how to label colors so you can talk about them in a logical fashion. Don’t just come up with a clever name for a hue; learn to identify what primaries have gone into it, and in what proportion, and if they were modified in any way (with black, white, or if it’s been toned).

Halation

From this discussion, we narrowed down which hues belonged in which families, and which color chips could be discarded. Dick then introduced another technique for identifying color relationships: halation. Halation is a term that Dick was introduced to through Josef Albers, and although Dick remembers hearing Albers use it, there is no reference to the term in the entire Albers book. However, the term stuck, and it is a most appropriate word for the incredible, almost magical effect that occurs when colors are in true relationship to each other.

Dick demonstrated the effect by having the class gather around the table, and slowly pulling one color chip away from the rest of the array. If you watched closely, you could see the other color showing up along the edges of the chip, like a shadow moving across the paper, or as Dick described it, “like the wake of a ship.” Once you see it, you can’t believe that you have been ignoring this phenomenon your whole life! It appears to look like a trick of the light, or that some clever person has delicately airbrushed a light wash of color over another one, but when you see the demonstration, there is no faking it.colorclass2_group3

1 + 1 = 3

This is why halation can be such a powerful method of checking to see if the hues you are working with are truly in relation to each other: you will either see the halation between them, or not. This was also a powerful demonstration of one of Albers’ favorite quotes: ‘1+1=3’. Dick used the example of a hand: “A hand is not just four fingers, a thumb, and a palm – no, it’s so much more than that. It’s more than the sum of its parts. So one color plus another color is not just two, but has a sum, an effect, which is greater than its parts.”

Dick explained that this term would be an important part of today’s lesson, and was one of the key aspects of creating color harmony. Later in class during the critiques, the use and importance of halations became more apparent as it turned out to be an integral part of proper relationship, and is a phenomenon that is best understood through practice rather than simply discussing it.

Critique and objective analysis

We started with Chelsea’s homework, since she had chosen to go with the ColorAid paper, which meant she did not have the luxury of having Illustrator create an array for her, and had to make one herself from selecting color chips. Dick had cautioned how difficult this would be, since the colors are not organized, and as we have already seen, color perception can be easily thrown off by the other colors that surround it.

However, Chelsea had done a masterful job with her array, finding a closely related color family that truly reflected her parent hues. This led Dick to point out the practical use of the halation effect: “If your array is done properly, you should see halation between every color except which? The parents.” Why not the parents? “Halation can only occur if it is surrounded by other colors on both sides – you can’t have it isolated like the parent/anchor colors. It has to be inside two others.”

The class could clearly see the halation between Chelsea’s “children”, and the strong parent colors added to the effect. Dick also critiqued the formal qualities of the work: the design, the proportion of colors to each other, and how Chelsea was able to communicate her intentions through purely visual means. This is another one of Dick’s goals in this class, to educate his students on forming a coherent visual language. As he put it: “I’m playing the same role that Albers played with me: he questioned everything. Albers could be so objective. And I want you to think about that: what does placing this line here do? Does this help it? Does this hinder it?”

After our coffee break, we continued with the rest of the critiques, all done with Illustrator. Before starting the critiques, Dick made sure to reiterate what he was looking for in the assignments: “There are only two things I’m concerned with: HUE and VALUE. So when we look at the homework, continue to ask yourselves, ‘Is this a hue change or a value change?’”

After looking through several examples, students were getting faster at recognizing when the effect was one related to hue or one related to value. Some of the best examples made use of both attributes, which demonstrated the importance of knowing the difference between them, and how to use them effectively. The class could also clearly see when halation was occurring in an array, and when it was absent. Dick stressed again the importance of using that effect to gauge how well the relationship is working between the parents. If the array is in proper harmony, you will see halation appearing between the children.

And from there, the questions about hue and value become more specific to the assignment. “Continue to ask: is it a value change, or a hue change? See if changing one or the other strengthens or hinders the work.” Along with that, we saw examples of how the size, shape, and proportion of children colors to parent colors can dramatically affect the reading of the final piece. “How about the size of the area, the size of the child? Too much, too little? Why? Pay attention to that, because you want to influence as much as possible.”

Anomalies in Illustrator

We also got to see a few examples of how the Illustrator program doesn’t always produce predictable results. The computer program is not perfect, and does not always calculate a color array that would match real world results. Again, watching for hue and value consistency will go a long way in finding harmonious color relations. For example, if a child appears to get darker than both of its parents, then the array is wrong and needs adjustment. Use your discernment when looking at your arrays: if the colors do not follow a logical pattern, or you can’t see halation between the colors, change them. Dick cautioned, “Don’t be too dependent on this application to give you accurate results.”

Overall, Dick was very impressed with what the class turned in for homework assignments, and congratulated everyone on their understanding of hue and value effects. And because they did so well, he decided to combine the next two homework assignments and have the class complete them both for next session. This will allow us to have extra time to go over some advanced color concepts at the end of the course.

Videos

Before launching into our new homework assignments, we watched another one of Dick’s Vimeo presentations, “Red & Blue are not primary colors.” This involved demonstrating the luminous colors that are created when all three primaries are used in varying strengths, and the incredible variety of color that occurs when these hues are next to each other. As Dick said, “There’s no way to have dissonance when all colors are in harmony. You will see halations and luminosity by relating the three primaries to each other.”

Dick also demonstrated the Huedoku app on his iPad to show the incredible effect that halation can have: once again, it’s either there or it’s not. There is no way to deny the truth of that statement once you see the game in action; and a color palette that at first sings and glows, then becomes flat and boring once shuffled around randomly. Place the chips in their proper positions, and the whole thing comes alive again, with unbelievably radiant color squares.

Last, Dick shared a YouTube video about Albers’ paintings, narrated by a curator of a museum. It turned out to be an interesting example of an “expert” who was actually making stuff up! The video included commentary about “colors migrating across borders” and “uneven lines” allowing “colors to jump across [their] boundaries.” Dick pointed out how dangerous it is to blindly believe those who claim to be “experts”, without questioning and finding proof that what they say is truly correct. “Unbelievable, folks: now this is a curator at a museum talking about these paintings. We must be very careful about who is our authority, and if they can’t prove [their theory] other than ‘it migrates across the boundary by the unevenness of the edge’, I mean, come on … You experienced this morning the incredible sensation of a halation: that is interaction. That’s what Albers is all about.”

And although we did not watch this video in class, Dick requested to include on this page one of his own videos talking about Albers’ famous series of paintings and prints, “Homage to the Square”, which was Albers’ preferred method of exploring color relationships. He completed hundreds of these images throughout his life, and his impact on the visual arts was so influential that one painting was even commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp in 1980, with his famous maxim underneath: “Learning never ends.”

Homework assignment

→ REMEMBER: The halation effect tells you whether or not you’re on the right track. You should see halation in your color array if it is done correctly.

**Just a reminder, you do not need to do B&W value studies! ONLY COMPLETE AND SUBMIT COLOR STUDIES.**

This week, there are two homework assignments:

  1. Making 3 colors appear as 2, or appearing as a reverse ground (see PDF below). Create several solutions to this assignment. If you have access to the Interaction of Color book or app, this exercise comes from chapter VI, “1 color appears as 2 – looking like the reversed grounds”.
  2. Making 4 colors appear as 3. This exercise comes from Albers chapter VII, “2 different colors look alike – subtraction of color”.

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Lesson2Combined.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Lesson3Combined.pdf”]

Videos

Red & Blue are not primary colors from Richard (Dick) Nelson on Vimeo.

Proving that red and blue are not primary colors. while showing what colors can be produced with Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, the true primaries.

Albers Homage To The Square: An Explanation from Richard (Dick) Nelson on Vimeo.

A descriptive analysis of the work of Josef Albers by a former student Dick Nelson. This is followed with Dick’s animated collection of his own color studies which incorporate Albers format and his principles of color interaction.

Class materials

Slide presentation: Making 3 colors appear as 2, or appearing as a reverse ground

Slide presentation: Making 4 colors appear as 3

Color Residual 5: May

Abstract versus representational: Do you have to choose? Nine artists explored their use of color, and discussed goals, difficulties, solutions, and ideas. Evidence mounts of increasing color awareness and sophistication.

The fifth color residual session was held on Saturday, May 31, 2014. Three guests and five regulars contributed to stimulating discussions between artists, sharing goals, difficulties, solutions, and ideas. Evidence mounts of increasing color awareness and sophistication.

Opening comments

Jerome Bruner quotesTo set the stage for the session, Dick shared a quote from educator Jerome Bruner on effective surprise. “When a work takes your breath away,” elicits an “Aha!” or “Wow!”, “for me, that is the measurement,” Dick said. The illustrations accompanying the quote demonstrate how knowledge of color relationships – color relativity – can create an “effective surprise.” The color of a narrow strip of flat color can appear to be different, depending on its background – here, a narrow gray strip on a light-to-dark gray background, and on a gradient from purple to green (complementary colors).

Several people shared their experiences with trying to apply the color relationships lessons in their work. Valerie described it dramatically as feeling like “jumping off an airplane with a parachute and a manual.” Bonnie, who has been painting all her life, agreed, saying, “You think you understand it intellectually, but it’s incredibly hard to apply…It’s easier to start by using it in non-representational art.”

Dick also mentioned that his colleague and friend, prolific Canadian artist Robert Genn, had recently died. Dick subscribes to his “Twice-Weekly Letters” sent to artists all around the world. Robert’s daughter Sara is continuing their publication. In her announcement of his death, she wrote, “Dad’s dream has been to reach artists of all stripes – individuals with a common joy, journeying in this life-enhancing, inexplicable affair of the heart. He wrote, ‘We have no other motivation than to give creative people an opportunity to share ideas and possibly broaden their capabilities – to get more joy and understanding from their own unique processes.’” These color residual sessions provide such an opportunity for a few people at a time on Maui, and I encourage anyone who seeks that kind of stimulation and fellowship to subscribe to the Twice-Weekly Letters that will continue to be sent.

Sharing and critique

Ignorance Is Bliss
As a prelude to the critique session, Dick shared some favorite thoughts about critique.

2014-05-31 13.30.55Valerie used Dick’s Illustrator experiments with transparent overlays of primary colors as the inspiration for her own layering experiments in watercolor. Questions about saturation falling off, both as the watercolor dries, and with viewing distance, led to discussions about balancing the quantities of colors (which color is the lead actor? which are the supporting cast?) and how artists can provide a rich experience for the viewer both close up and from a distance. Kit commented that John Singer Sargent wore a hole in the carpet in his studio between his easel and the other side of the room, and that one of Kit’s college professors had a “de-magnifying” glass to get a sense of how a piece would look from a distance. Dick said they are (or were) a commonly used tool in printing production.

Betty Hay also took inspiration from Dick’s experiments, as shared in greeting cards last time, choosing key colors for two new landscapes. In one, she pushed the chroma for more drama, and consciously echoed sky colors from the top in foreground vegetation highlights in the bottom. In the second, she explored the subtle magic of luminosity created through vanishing boundaries. Who would have thought that gray could be so beautiful? This reminded Dick of one of Josef Albers’ favorite assignments to students: “Take your least favorite / mud color, and make it sing.” Of the second painting, Dick said, “That sky is one of the most exciting ones I’ve ever seen. I’m especially pleased when these are not just lessons in color, when you begin to plug it in. I think, Betty Hay, that you’ve opened a very important door for yourself and for us.”

Chelsea also brought in a children’s book, unique in that it uses transparent overlays of the true primary colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow) to physically show how they mix. The book is The Adventures of the Three Colors, by Annette Tison and Talus Taylor, originally printed in 1971 and reprinted in 1980 (the edition she showed us).

Closing thoughts

Abstract versus representational: Do you have to choose? These artists have found both useful and expressive.

Color ribbons

Aloha all you color enthusiasts!

Just wanted to share some color experiments I have been doing with the help of my computer, Albers, students and fifty-plus years of painting and teaching. It’s reasonable to assume that few, if any, artists could arrive at these color combinations through the traditional methods and theories of color composition. This is an addictive process which allows for discovery of unimagined and unique color concepts. A similar parallel might be found in composing music, for the orchestrations are based on most of the same sensations created by selecting particular instruments, themes and passages. And, of course, we will always find those whose response would be “So, what is it?”

Dick

Color Ribbons
These color ribbons were created with three primary colors. By overlapping varying percentages of transparency, color relatedness was never an issue. Luminosity was achieved, not by color intensity, but rather through halations and vanishing boundaries. Note how few colors are full chroma. Most are tones. Adobe Illustrator was used to produce these ribbons, but they could also be produced in transparent watercolor or acrylics.

See a video which demonstrates how these kinds of color relationships can be produced from the three primary colors cyan, magenta, and yellow in this post.

Color Relationships 2013 week 9

Homework

  • Transposing colors of equal value
  • Think of 1-3 ideas for a final project
  • Optional: vanishing boundaries
  • Rework or refine any previous assignments.
  • Look for positive and negative examples to share.

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TransposeColor.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Synthesis-project.pdf”]

Vanishing boundaries assignment
Vanishing boundaries assignment

Class recap

Chris Scharein
Chris Scharein has taken many of Dick’s classes, beginning in 1999. She brought in some examples of her current projects, boxes made from tri-hue watercolors.

Critique – reworked assignments 1-7

Reworking an assignment strengthens your understanding of the concepts and provides a lasting reminder for future reference.

Consistency is key to believability for illusions of light and shadow. Cheryl suggested a simple method for self-checking. Assign number values between 1 and 10 to the different areas of the study. You want the difference between one color’s light and dark value to be the same as a second color’s.

Review

Each person gave some feedback on the course so far. Many are finding they see the world, and artwork (including their own) much differently. They notice things they didn’t before. Some would like to see a follow-on class focused on application, or stay together to critique each other’s work. Chris recalled an advanced group that she was in, where a different person would set the assignment each week for everyone to bring in the next week.

Critique – Assignment 8, Colored light

Tuesday homework: Colored light
Tuesday homework: Colored light
Saturday homework: Colored light
Saturday homework: Colored light

A common problem with the homework studies was not recognizing that light affects everything in the scene. That’s what makes it so powerful as a unifying factor. Everything in the study needs to be under the influence of either the light or its shadow. There can be no white or other foreign background color. There were also some problems with perspective and gestalt. A casual arrangement of shapes is more believable – has better gestalt – than one in which edges are parallel with or coincide with other shapes. Noticing and correcting those issues can make a more convincing illusion.

Here’s a short video on drawing a cube in two-point perspective. (Thanks, Valerie!)

This week’s new concepts: Equal value and vanishing boundaries

The luminosity achieved in many Impressionist paintings, notably those of Claude Monet, comes from the optical mixing that we perceive of individual brush strokes of colors which are very close in hue and value. Applying this principle, anyone should be able to create luminosity in their work, if they want to. In his “Breakthrough” web page, Kit Gentry shows close-ups of sections of his painting and explains what he was trying to do and how he did it. He writes, “Each brushstroke is allowed to sit next to its neighbors with a minimum of cross-blending … You’ll find that many of the strokes of pink, purple, orange and green seem to merge together seamlessly due to their similarity in value, while their differing hues retain their own unique identity. This introduces a high degree of color vibrancy to the work.” (Excerpts from Kit Gentry’s website used with permission.)

To achieve luminosity from vanishing boundaries, you have to develop your capacity to accurately perceive value, something that is difficult for us to do. We can easily distinguish different hues, but comparing the values of different hues is hard. Albers estimated that students’ initial judgments were wrong over half the time! Repeated attempts and careful comparisons will help develop your eye. This week’s color transposition assignment is designed to provide that practice and improve value discrimination.

Dick showed how he is able to create luminosity in his watercolors. He starts by applying yellow in small, irregular shapes. Its value is very close to the white of the paper, so when magenta and cyan are glazed over, the resulting colors maintain the relationship of equal value and similar hues.

Class materials

Here are two ways color luminosity can be achieved. This should dispel the notion that the French Impressionists achieved color luminosity by way of full chroma color application. See the truth with your own eyes.

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Equal-ValuePDF.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/VanishBound.pdf”]