caulfield
10-07-2005, 08:59 AM
OK - when I was in art school we learned "color theory." We learned about mixing colors, the qualities of the colors, different color combinations like complementary etc. and even made some abstract work using these combinations...
But we never really learned how to apply color theory in realistic applications. The most simple being atmospheric perspective... the way things get cooler the farther away they get away in a landscape. Everything is saturated in the foreground and then yellow tones slip away, then red tones, purples, and you are left with blues - which is really evident in a landscape with a distant mountain.
That was easy to get on my own... but what about when you are working on something without such a large range of distance like a still-life or portrait? Well you can use the same tricks to get things to really look REAL and dimensional and of course make sure one thing looks like it is behind another. For example - making things bluer if they are the objects in the back of a still-life makes them look further away and BEHIND the closer objects. BUT what about now on a single object... can you use the same trick? Yep you can - and this is my mini-revelation, lol. When doing portraits I've always used cooler colors in certain places that I see cooler colors in the photo reference I'm using, but what I missed to make the portrait more realistic than the photo (which flattens things) is that I can use cooler colors in places that the photo doesn't have any, to show that that part is receding. The edges of the face are a great place to use them - it will really make the face look like it is round and not a flat plane. Another place - that I always have trouble is mouths! They always seem like they are just placed on the face but not a part of it... well a darker value at the corners help - but a bit of a cooler color on the corners and the bit of the lip closest to the corners drops it all in place! Yippee!
Of course using warm colors in the closest places to the viewer (even if it doesn't show it in the reference photo) will do it too! That would explain the trick Arlene taught me (that I mentioned before) washing yellow over a focal object. Well if you wash yellow over the part you want to come out at you more (and be in front) it will work wonders!
Anyway - just wanted to share! If you have any places this really works in your work please explain it here!!
Nicole
But we never really learned how to apply color theory in realistic applications. The most simple being atmospheric perspective... the way things get cooler the farther away they get away in a landscape. Everything is saturated in the foreground and then yellow tones slip away, then red tones, purples, and you are left with blues - which is really evident in a landscape with a distant mountain.
That was easy to get on my own... but what about when you are working on something without such a large range of distance like a still-life or portrait? Well you can use the same tricks to get things to really look REAL and dimensional and of course make sure one thing looks like it is behind another. For example - making things bluer if they are the objects in the back of a still-life makes them look further away and BEHIND the closer objects. BUT what about now on a single object... can you use the same trick? Yep you can - and this is my mini-revelation, lol. When doing portraits I've always used cooler colors in certain places that I see cooler colors in the photo reference I'm using, but what I missed to make the portrait more realistic than the photo (which flattens things) is that I can use cooler colors in places that the photo doesn't have any, to show that that part is receding. The edges of the face are a great place to use them - it will really make the face look like it is round and not a flat plane. Another place - that I always have trouble is mouths! They always seem like they are just placed on the face but not a part of it... well a darker value at the corners help - but a bit of a cooler color on the corners and the bit of the lip closest to the corners drops it all in place! Yippee!
Of course using warm colors in the closest places to the viewer (even if it doesn't show it in the reference photo) will do it too! That would explain the trick Arlene taught me (that I mentioned before) washing yellow over a focal object. Well if you wash yellow over the part you want to come out at you more (and be in front) it will work wonders!
Anyway - just wanted to share! If you have any places this really works in your work please explain it here!!
Nicole