RED

Red is one of the first colors used by man and can be seen in Paleolithic cave paintings. It’s emotional qualities are often thought of as passion, anger, vitality, love, danger, blood. It has also been used to represent wealth and has had several symbolic meanings in religious paintings.

BLUE

Egyptians were the first people to create the color Blue in pigment. Blue has been associated with calm, serenity, infinity, spirituality, water, sky, cool or cold, sadness. When blue pigment was made from lapis lazuli, it was worth more than gold, thus it has also been used to represent wealth and has had religious connotations.

YELLOW

Yellow is also one of the oldest pigments in the form of Yellow Ochre. It has been found in cave paintings as well as Egyptian and Roman art. Yellow has quite a few emotional and historical connotations. Several of the positive ones are, sunshine, warmth, optimism, joy, energy, intellect. Conversely, Judas is often depicted wearing yellow as it also symbolizes cowardice and deceit.

ORANGE

The color Orange is often associated with excitement, warmth, amusement, and energy. It can also signify danger or caution when used to catch our eye in potentially dangerous situations (think safety vests and inmate’s jumpsuits). It has religious connotations particularly in the East with Buddhism and Hinduism. It can also denote the Autumn and the changing of seasons.

GREEN

Green is known for many symbolic qualities such as nature, growth, renewal (think Spring season), wealth, vitality, and youth. More negatively it can be associated with envy and illness, and when de-saturated and used in interiors it can create an eerie effect.

VIOLET/PURPLE

A Violet or Purple pigment dates back to prehistoric times and cave paintings. The Ancient Phoenicians later discovered a new method to make Violet by using thousands of sea snail shells which was an extremely expensive and difficult process. Thus, only the very wealthy or royalty could afford to wear any clothing with purple dye and they (along with the Catholic Church) were also the only ones who could afford to commission paintings with the pigment. Purple can symbolize wisdom, power, spirituality, luxury, wealth and nobility. It has also been said that it can both stimulate your imagination and create calmness. Violet can also invoke a sense of mystery.

Color Temperature

One of the last important concepts of color theory that we have not yet reviewed is Color Temperature. Every color has a temperature that is either warm or cool and most colors have a cool and warm version. Gamblin has a great chart that shows the temperature of each of their paints. These color temperatures will hold true for other mediums, such as acrylics and watercolors.

In this next short video we look at some warm and cool versions of our colors. I also demonstrate different ways to cool your colors down and/or warm them up.

▸ PASSWORD: WARM1
▸ VIDEO LENGTH: 9:45 minutes

Know the rules…and learn how to break them!

Learn these Color Theory Rules to create a sense of depth or space in your paintings.

• Warm colors come forward and cool colors recede.

• Bright, high chroma colors, come forward and more neutral, low chroma colors, recede.

• Dark values come forward and light values recede in landscape painting and as a very generalized rule.

• In portraiture, light values come forward and darker values recede.

• Harder, “found,” edges come forward and softer, “lost,” edges recede. (Not color theory, but important to know.)

In this painting you can see how depth of space is created by several of these rules:

• Brighter and warmer colors come forward.

• Cooler and duller colors go back in space and create a sense of depth in the painting.

Project Ten: A SENSE OF PLACE

In the photos below, the artist, Richard Diebenkorn, has tried to capture the sense of the place where he was living at the time. He would work in series and these particular abstracts were done in Berkeley, California and Albuquerque, New Mexico. You can see the color differences immediately. Berkeley has more vegetation, is cooler, and is close to the San Francisco Bay. Albuquerque has more open space with the desert surrounding it as well as the colors of sand, clay and the feeling of heat.
Here is a link to an interesting article regarding Diebenkorn’s process with these abstract paintings.

Your Turn:

Focus on a place that you know well. If you choose to do an abstract, feel free to use photo reference reminders for color, shapes, value and line. Try to create your feeling and interpretation of that place by really focusing on color.
If you prefer to chose subject matter that is realist, think about interpreting the image in colors that might be unexpected and represent your feelings about the place. Try to capture the “Sense of Place” more than visual accuracy. If you work from a photo, try printing it in black and white so that you can create your own color palette.

Things to Remember:

• All of the color concepts that we have learned in this course: Limitations, Value, Chroma, Color Proportions, Triads, Temperature, etc.

• The “Rules” listed above. Be aware of them and if you are intentionally breaking them.

• Can you create a sense of depth in your painting? Or, conversely, would you prefer to keep it flat?

• Are you being expressive with your colors and not just copying a photo?

Desert Demo Colors

Your Turn:

Create a painting that expresses one or more emotions that are personal to you. As you have seen, this can be a pure abstract or it can be realist and with narrative. It can be challenging to be vulnerable and truly express our feelings, but often when we do, we create our best work.

Things to Remember:

• Use color expressively. Think about it’s impact and meaning.

• Remember all of the elements of design (Value, Color, Shape, Line, Texture) and how you might manipulate them and/or use them to your advantage.

• “Listen to” and watch your painting. If it begins to move in a direction that you didn’t expect consider following that direction.

Some thoughts I had while painting “Honey:”

Warmth, sweet, sticky, summer, honey colors, the feel of the gooey texture of honey, the transparency of honey, the taste of honey….