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Color science and coloring in painting. Methodological development of the "basics of color science in the classroom for painting in the art school". Cold and warm shades

Introduction to color science

floristry is a complex science of color, including a systematic set of data from physics, physiology and psychology that study the natural phenomenon of color, as well as a set of data from philosophy, aesthetics, art history, philology, ethnography, and literature that study color as a cultural phenomenon.

coloring - This is a branch of the science of color that studies the theory of the application of color in practice in various areas of human activity.

color systems. History of color science.

It is customary to distinguish two stages in the history of color classification: before the 17th century and the 17th century - today.

mythological stage . 3 colors stood out: Red, White, Black.

The Ancient East. China . The main cosmic number was 5 (four cardinal points and the center of the earth). Features of the color of the Chinese culture of antiquity: a combination of artificiality and naturalness, colorfulness and multicolor ( which, unfortunately, later transformed into asceticism in relation to color, into monochrome and achromatic ink painting)

The Ancient East. India . In ancient India there were 2 color systems:

1) Archaic or ternary. Colors: Red, White, Black.

2) Vedic, or system based on the Vedas. The following colors are: Red (eastern rays of the Sun), White (southern rays), Black (western rays), very black (northern rays), Invisible (center).

The decoration of the palaces was carried out in three primary colors: White, Red, Gold (sometimes Blue and Blue were added)

The traditional primary colors in ancient India are White, Red, Black, Yellow and Blue. ( Roerich's paintings most accurately convey the traditional flavor of ancient India)

Ancient Egypt . The attitude to color depends on how sunny it is. See the article for more details.

Greco-Roman antiquity . In the 5th c. BC. Empedocles claimed that the universe is made up of: water (black), air (white), fire (red), and earth (yellow, ochre). And everything else is obtained by mixing these four elements.

Aristotle singled out 3 primary colors: White (water, air, earth), Yellow (fire), Black (destruction, state of transition).

Planid in his "Natural History" identified 4 primary colors: Red, White, Yellow and Black.

Empedocles and Planides used visual impressions to determine the primary colors, while Aristotle determined them experimentally.

Middle Ages. Western Europe . After reading the article, consider Fig. 1

In Fig. 1, the white color symbolizes Christ, God, angels, is a pure immaculate color. Yellow is a symbol of enlightenment, the action of the Holy Spirit. Red - fire, sun, blood of Christ. Blue is the color of the sky, the abode of the Lord. Green is the color of food, vegetation, the earthly path of Christ. Black is an underground color, the color of evil, the Antichrist. Purple is the color of contradictions.

Also quite interesting is the anti-system of colors, which included "extinguished" colors, i.e. any color combined with brown.

Middle Ages. Near and Middle East . The concept of color develops under the sign of Islam. Since the 7th century, the same colors have been valued as in Western Europe, only green stands out: this is the color of the Garden of Eden. Favorite type of color composition - multicolor or polychromy.

Renaissance . Leonardo Da Vinci is the creator of a new color system. He believed that there were 6 primary colors. Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, White, Black.

Europe. XVII - XIX century . At this time, a new stage begins in the history of color classification. The color separation process begins. Newton introduces the scientific symbolism of the separation of colors. He takes the spectrum of white, in which he highlights all the chromatic colors: Red, Orange, Green, Cyan (blue-green), Blue, Violet, adding Purple to this combination (considers this color a mixture of red and violet).

IN XVII century in Europe dominated by two styles: 1) Baroque. The excellence of color is praised. 2) Classicism. Only shades of colors are valued, the basis is muted colors.

IN XVIII century baroque turns into rococo. There is an attraction to the asymmetry of the composition, decor (soft detailing of forms), a combination of bright and pure tones of color with white and gold.

Goethe at the end of the century proposed a new way of classifying colors according to a physiological principle. See fig.2

Colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple.

The triangle shows the three primary colors used by the artists. The remaining colors (Orange, Green, Purple) are obtained by mixing the primary ones.

IN XIX century, romanticism arose in Europe. Subsequently, its occurrence leads to the emergence of two opposite directions: naturalism (meticulous transmission of all colors, tones, shades) and impressionism (transmission of images)

At the same time, a contemporary of Goethe, Philipp Otto Runge developed his color classification system using the principle of a globe or ball. See fig.3

IN the equatorial region is placed in a twelve-colored natural circle, the upper pole is covered with white, the lower - with black.

Between the pure, variegated colors of the equator and the non-colored poles, there are mixtures of respectively pure paint with white (pastel colors are at the top of the ball) or black (dark shades or darkenings are at the bottom of the ball).

Each point on this color globe can be conditioned by longitude and latitude, which makes it possible to determine the name of the color by

corresponding system of calculation. In such a system, he provided for all the transitions from any color to any.

In addition, the following scientists who contributed to the classification of color can be noted: Chevreul (hemisphere), Adams, Bezold, Helm Goltz.

Modern . Color becomes a symbol. Features of the Art Nouveau aesthetics:

1) Preference for muted, dark colors, complex nuance scales, many shades with a narrow palette, the addition of metallic pigments (gold, silver, bronze)

2) Color becomes more of a means of expression than of imitation.

3) The tendency of convergence of color to music is indicated.

The scientist Ostwald improved the Runge sphere system. He takes a circle, divides it into 24 parts, paints each spectrum in a certain color ( see fig.4), but represents all colors in the form of a closed color solid, consisting of two cones united by a common base. The single axis of the cones is an achromatic series: the upper point is white, the lower one is black. (see fig.5).

Around the circumference of the base are the most saturated spectral colors (colors of the rainbow), which are arranged in a certain sequence: red - orange - yellow - green - blue - indigo - violet. ( You probably remember the playful tongue twister in which the first letter of each word is the first letter of the color name: "Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits".)

P.S. Currently, it is not customary to divide colors into secondary and primary ( an exception occurs in: heraldry, signaling and coding of marking marks).

What is the usual sky, grass, sun even a small child knows. These are the basic colors that make up the world. Growing up, we notice, in addition to the basic tones, an infinity of intermediate shades and semitones that can be combined with each other. Their various combinations affect a person. To understand these patterns, let's turn to the basics of color science.

History of the study of color

Scientists managed to learn a lot about the nature of color. Starting with the study of Isaac Newton, who received the spectrum of solar radiation from seven colors. The analysis of the spectra continued, influencing both the objective sciences and the development of philosophical thought. Johann Goethe acted as a philosophizing colorist. He suggested that the primary chromatic colors (blue, red, yellow) come out victorious from the struggle of light and darkness, while the rest are obtained from their mixing. Green, orange and purple are secondary, they appear from the alternate connection of the main three.

Modern color science uses the scheme of the 20th century artist from Switzerland - Johannes Itten. He summarized the thoughts of other scientists and proposed a convenient system that can be used to select the optimally combined palette. It includes three primary colors lying in the center. They are embraced by a secondary trinity, which is surrounded by twelve derived variants.

A harmonious combination of circle pieces is possible in 6 versions (contrasting or complementing each other). Itten's system can be extended to include black and white, which can also be mixed with twelve. We see most of these colors when opening a set of paints. They necessarily include the magnificent six and its cold / warm variants. The rest is born from the hands of the artist in practice, try to get new combinations! Other masters also did this, what came of it?


Painting and color

Painting, like a person, experienced the time of its “childhood”, when the whole depicted world was painted in a very limited set of colors. This was due to the difficulty of obtaining pigmenting substances - eco-friendly mixtures were not produced in factories, but were extracted with their own hands from natural materials.

On the other hand, the consistency in the choice of color was explained by its great semantic content. Random colors could not appear in the picture. For example, imagine the art of the Middle Ages. It is built from a combination of gold, red, blue. The Virgin Mary is usually dressed in blue because it is the color of purity, heaven, infinity, belonging to God. Christ is depicted in blue and red (torment, blood, the symbol of the Resurrection). The golden halo above the heads of the saints meant a connection with God.



New paints

With the onset of the Renaissance, art is transformed, following the time, the palette of paintings changes. More and more there are their mixtures, harmonic combinations. The new way of realism requires an image close to reality. But art is not life itself. Artists, reflecting the real world, take care of the harmony in the picture, so that a whole canvas is obtained. To do this, they turn to the basics of color science in painting.

A new turn on the road of art happens on the outskirts of the 20th century. All sorts of restrictions disappear, science penetrates into all spheres of life, so that artists are aware of the power of the pictorial palette. The creative environment is immersed in color science experiments. The brightness and saturation of the paintings of the Impressionists, who wanted to capture the feeling of the world in the picture in the fullness of colors, is adjacent to the well-known monochrome masterpiece of Kazimir Malevich. Color or its complete absence again becomes the central semantic element of the work. The harmony of the paintings gives way to the most contrasting combinations, conveying the storm that took place not only in art, but also in life.


Methodological guide "Color - the basis of painting" for children 6-7 years old.


Sokolova Svetlana Sergeevna, teacher of additional education, MBU DO "Syavsky Center for Children's Creativity", Syava village, Nizhny Novgorod region.

The methodical manual "Color is the basis of painting" is intended for children 6-7 years old. Developed on the basis of educational materials by G. P. Shalaeva "Learning to draw." It will be useful for educators, teachers of additional education in teaching children the basics of color science and the techniques of watercolor and gouache in painting. It can also be used by parents who are self-employed with their children.
Target: Acquaintance with the basic characteristics of color as a means of artistic expression.
Tasks:
lay theoretical knowledge about color;
develop a sense of color, artistic taste;
to form a system of knowledge and skills for working with color;
develop confidence and initiative.
The methodological manual "Color is the basis of painting" will significantly enrich the artistic and practical base of the younger student. This manual is aimed at mastering children's theoretical and practical knowledge and skills of working with color.
Knowledge about color, methods of working with paints is also necessary for mastering the technology of painting. Children are invited to master the principles and methods of working with primary and secondary colors, delicate and saturated, sonorous and deaf, cold and warm shades. An important part is the work on mastering color relations, where children get acquainted with the theory and visual-demonstration base and perform a number of creative tasks. Color is of great importance in the life of a modern person. Knowledge about color is necessary for everyone. The ability to see, feel color harmony helps the child to develop creative activity.

Note:
a) It is desirable to study the methodological manual in blocks (divided into the proposed sections). For each topic, conduct reinforcing exercises with students.
b) Use the material of the manual at your own discretion - based on the age characteristics of the child.

Methodological guide "Color is the basis of painting"

Topic. Primary and secondary colors.

Works painted with paints are called paintings.
- Paints are different: watercolor, oil, gouache.
- They write with paints, but do not draw!
- To make it more convenient to paint a picture with paints, the artist puts it on an easel.
- Paints are mixed with brushes or a palette knife on a plastic (wooden) plate - a palette.


Everyone knows that objects come in different colors and shades. For example, a lemon is yellow and an orange is orange, a cucumber is green and a cherry is red. But there are only three pure colors. The remaining colors are called derivatives, or composite.
The science of studying color is called - floriculture. Every artist should know color science, otherwise he will not be able to paint a good picture.
Color is the main expressive means of painting.
- Colors can be divided into primary and secondary.
- Colors can be divided into close and opposite.
- Colors can be divided into warm and cold, sonorous (bright) and deaf (calm).

Color spectrum.


Pure, bright colors are called color spectrum.


This joke was invented in order to remember the order of the colors in the spectrum.

Primary and secondary colors.


By mixing the primary colors, we get new ones, which are called - components or additional.



Color the first triangle with blue watercolor paint and let it dry thoroughly. At this time, carefully wash the brush in water and paint the second triangle with yellow paint. Let's see what we got. What color did the piece come out where the yellow color hit the blue? Green.
Further, also letting the drawing dry, we take red paint and paint over the third triangle, and we see that on that piece of it that “entered” the previous figure, it turned out not yellow, not red, but orange.


This method of overlapping one color with another is called glazing. Glazing is needed in order to enhance the brightness of the color or get a different color.
Let's look at the table and find out how to get other colors


Is it possible to get red, blue and yellow by mixing other colors?
Red, blue and yellow cannot be obtained by mixing others, which is why they are called main flowers. You can't do without them; and all the other colors that can be made up of the primary ones, mixing one with another, are called constituent.

The task. Color the rooster with compound colors.


Topic. Shades and midtones.

If you dilute paints with water, then their tone will be paler, that is, from red you get pale red, that is, pink, from blue, pale blue, that is, blue, and from yellow, pale yellow. The more water you add to the paint, the lighter the tone will be. These light tones of colors are called shades, or halftones.


Color shades of primary colors.
You can get different shades in another way - by adding white paint (white paint) to the paints. This color changing property is called lightness.


Adding black or gray paint to the three main ones will lead to a change in color from light-soft to gloomy-disturbing tones and to the manifestation of another property - color saturation.


The task. Color the flowers with dark and light shades, use the mixing colors to color the leaves.


Memory knot.
Strengthen the main color of the object in the shadow, and weaken it in the light by adding water to the paint. In addition, by loosening the color, you can make the transition from light to dark more even.


These neutral colors enhance the main ones, meaning a white swan on a black background will be even whiter.


A white swan on a yellow background will not look so white.

Topic. Contrasting colors.

There are other colors called contrasting. Contrasting colors are opposite each other.


These are three pairs of contrasting colors.


These colors give brightness to each other, and the combination of these pairs is considered harmonious.
Let's pay attention to how bright the yellow triangle looks on the purple circle, the red circle in the green square, and the blue oval on the orange rectangle.


Let's look at maple leaf drawings. What background would be the most successful for him and why?



The task. Color the picture with contrasting colors.


Theme.Warm and cold color.


Warm colors are called so because they resemble the color of fire, sunlight.


Cool colors are called so because they are associated with ice and water.


The task. Color the picture with cold colors.


The task. Color the picture with warm colors.



Green is made from warm (yellow) and cool (blue) colors.


The task. Determine in what shades of green the children's drawings are drawn.

The task. Color the leaves with warm and cool shades of green.


Topic. Voiced and deaf colors.


The choice of color depends on the mood in the work. It is known that different colors affect our mood in different ways, they can cause joy, sadness, anxiety.

Bright colors in the paintings of famous artists.


Artist Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov "Golden Autumn"

color (English) color, French Souleur, German farbe) is the property of material objects to radiate and reflect light waves of a certain part of the spectrum. In a broad sense, color means a complex set of gradations, interactions, variability of tones and shades. The color visible to a person arises, on the one hand, under the influence of an objective physical phenomenon, on the other hand, as a result of electromagnetic radiation of various frequencies on the human visual apparatus. In addition to these factors, visual experience and memory, physiological and psychological characteristics influence the emergence of a person's color sensation.

Color is experienced not only visually, but also psychologically and symbolically, which is why it is studied as a complex phenomenon by many specialists. Physicists study light waves, measure and classify colors; chemists create new pigments for paints; physiologists study the effect of color on the eyes and, and psychologists - the effect of color on the human psyche.


Color theory is the body of knowledge about color. Currently, the science of studying color includes two main sections: color science and coloristics. The personification of scientific knowledge about color is also colorimetry. Color science studies color from the point of view of systematizing the knowledge of physics, chemistry, psychology, and physiology. Coloristics studies the main characteristics of color, the harmonization of color sets, the mechanism of the effect of color on spatial shaping, the means and methods of color organization of the architectural environment.

Color specifications

Colors fall into two categories - chromatic and achromatic. Chromatic colors include red, yellow, orange, green, blue, violet, and all their mixtures. We see chromatic colors individually. Achromatic (having no color) includes white, black and all shades of gray, they differ only in lightness. The human eye can distinguish up to 400 transitional shades from white to black.

There are four color groups: spectral, light, dark and pastel (or grayish) colors. Light - the colors of the spectrum, mixed with white; dark - spectrum colors mixed with black; grayish - the colors of the spectrum mixed with different shades of gray.


Getting the colors of the spectrum using a prism

// wikipedia.org

The main characteristics of color include: hue, saturation and lightness. Hue - a sign of chromatic color, in which one color differs from another: green, blue, purple. Saturation - the degree of difference between a chromatic color and an achromatic color similar to it in lightness. If you add a little gray to a pure red color, which is the same with it in lightness, then the new color will be less saturated. Lightness - the quality of a color by which it can be equated to one of the colors of the achromatic series, that is, the higher the brightness, the lighter the color.

color circles

Artists and scientists have long sought to bring all the variety of colors observed in nature into a system - to arrange them in a certain order, to highlight the primary and secondary colors. The primary colors are yellow, blue and red. By mixing them, you can get all the other shades.

In 1676, using a trihedral prism, he decomposed white sunlight into a color spectrum and noticed that it contained all colors except purple. The spectrum served as the basis for systematizing colors in the form of a color wheel, in which Newton identified seven sectors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.


Newton's color wheel

// wikipedia.org

The idea of ​​graphical expression of the color system in the form of a closed figure was suggested by the fact that the ends of the spectrum tend to close: blue passes through violet into purple, red on the other hand also approaches purple.

140 years after Newton, the color wheel was improved by Johann Goethe, who added purple, obtained by mixing purple and red. In addition, Goethe was the first to think about the fact that color has an effect on the human psyche, and in his scientific work "Teaching about Color" he was the first to discover the phenomenon of "sensual and moral action of color."


Goethe color wheel

// wikipedia.org

Philipp Otto Runge, a German painter of the Romantic school, published his theory of color in 1810. Among the primary colors, in addition to yellow, blue and red, the artist also included black and white. Runge built his conclusions on experiments with pigments, which made his teaching closer to painting. The three-dimensional model of Runge's color systematics served as the basis for all subsequent models.


Runge color ball

// wikipedia.org

Other color systems are Albert Munsell's color ball and Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald's double cone. In Munsell's system, reliance is placed on hue, lightness and saturation, while Ostwald's reliance is on hue, white and black colors. New systems relied on the experience of predecessors. So, Munsell took Runge's color ball as a basis.

Today, the color wheel of Johannes Itten, a Swiss artist, art theorist and teacher, is widely used in painting, design, architecture and applied arts. His 12-part color wheel shows the world's most common arrangement of colors, their interaction with each other. Itten distinguished primary colors, second-order colors (green, purple and orange), which are obtained by mixing a pair of primary colors, and third-order colors, which are obtained by mixing a primary color with a second-order color. For example, yellow mixed with green will be called light green by ordinary people, but in color science it is called yellow-green.


Itten color wheel

// wikipedia.org

Classification of color systems

The need for color systematization is dictated by practice. For example, it is important for the theory of painting. The spectrum served as the basis for the systematization of colors in the form of a color circle and a triangle. In addition to the color systems listed above, we also highlight the color atlas of the chemist Michel Chevreul, the chromometer of Eugene Delacroix and the Chromatoaccordion by Rudolf Adams.

Chevreul was the first to develop a color system adapted to the needs of production. He created a color atlas, including 72 pure colors, which were based on six primary colors in twelve modifications. The theoretical works of Chevreul enjoyed great prestige and popularity among artists.


Chevreul color system

// wikipedia.org

Eugene Delacroix went down in history as an outstanding colorist, carefully studied the mechanisms of harmonization, studied the work of oriental masters of color and the works of Chevreul. He compiled several "color manuals" that made it easy and quick to select the desired color combination.

In 1865, Rudolf Adams, in his book Chromatoaccordion, outlined his vision of color harmony as the consonant action of various parts as a whole, the so-called diversity in unity. Harmonizing colors should contain elements of all the primary colors of the circle: red, yellow and blue; black, white and gray are also unity, but without diversity. To facilitate the selection of combinations, Adams built a "color accordion" based on a 24-part color wheel, on which these colors were represented in six degrees of lightness.

Of the color systems of our time, it is worth highlighting: the practical color coordinate system (PCCS); color system Coloroid; natural color system - ECS (NCS).


Coloroid color system

// wikipedia.org

The practical color coordinate system - PCCS (PCCS) - the structure is based on a change in color according to three characteristics, and the color body of the Munsell system was taken as the basis of the color body, in which the colors that form the color circle were located on the inclined equator. Color system Coloroid has a color body in the form of a cylinder, chromatic colors are located inside this cylinder, and achromatic colors are located on its axis.

At the Swedish Color Center, under the leadership of Anders Hard, a natural color system, the ECS (NCS), was developed. The work was based on the axiom that the perception of color, characteristic of human psychophysiology, is different from the assessment of color as a physical quantity. The natural color system is a method of describing relationships between colors solely on the basis of their natural perception, that is, people are able to judge color without reference to physics. Man is the true instrument for measuring and evaluating color. The natural color system is convenient for practitioners who are engaged in the formation of a color environment: designers, architects, urban planners. It was created to study the polychromy of the architectural spatial environment.

Color models

A color model is an abstract model for describing how colors are represented as tuples of numbers. They are called color coordinates, usually three or four values ​​are used. The color model specifies the correspondence between the colors perceived by a person and stored in memory, and the colors formed on the output devices. Such models are a means for a quantitative conceptual description of color and are used in, for example photoshop.


RGB color model represented as a cube

// wikipedia.org

According to the principle of operation, the models can be divided into several classes: additive, subtractive and perceptual. Additive ones are based on the addition of colors, such as the RGB model - Red, Green, Blue(red, green, blue). Subtractive models are based on the operation of subtracting colors (subtractive synthesis), for example CMYK - cyan, Magenta, Yellow, key color(cyan, magenta, yellow, key color (black)). Perceptual models - HSB, HLS, LAB, YCC - are based on perception. Color models can be device-dependent (they are still the majority, RGB and CMYK are among them) and device-independent (model Lab).


Real CMY ink overlay

// wikipedia.org

The psychological impact of color

The impact and perception of color is a complex process that is caused by various psychological factors and is based on the physiology of the nervous system. Wassily Kandinsky, in his training course for the Bauhaus, focuses on the physical foundations of the color order, exploring first of all the color triad yellow - red - blue, with which, respectively, the three basic shapes are consistent: square, triangle, circle. Emphasizes the spatial and psychological effect of individual colors. Yellow - dynamics, outward movement, acute angle. Blue is the opposite of yellow, enhances its quality, the feeling of cold, movement inward, corresponds to a circle, an obtuse angle. Red - hot, movement within itself, corresponds to the balance and heaviness of the square, the right angle on the plane. White and black are silent colors: white symbolizes the possibility of the birth of a new color, black means absorption.


"Yellow-Red-Blue", Wassily Kandinsky

// wikipedia.org

Here we should touch on the issue of color harmony, which depends, in particular, on the characteristics of color perception. Color harmony is the result of harmonization - the balance of two or more colors, as well as color groups. An analysis of the evolution of theories of color harmony has led to the need for a comprehensive consideration of the problem, including the characteristics of color perception, physiological and age characteristics of a person, his social status, environmental conditions and, of course, the level of general culture.

Colors affect a person in different ways. For example, warm colors - red, orange, yellow - encourage action, act as annoying. Cool colors - purple, blue, cyan, blue-green - muffle irritation. Pastel colors have a softening and restraining effect. There are colors that affect the perception of space: warm ones are perceived closer to us, cold ones, on the contrary, emphasize the distance.


"Four Dark Marks on Red" by Mark Rothko

// wikipedia.org

Color perception is subjective. From an aesthetic point of view, the color is determined according to color preferences. In order to determine color preferences in different years, numerous experiments were carried out, color preferences were especially actively studied by English psychologists, in particular W. Winch. All sorts of experiments in this area are still being carried out. Various effects of color depending on gender are being studied. But do not forget that a lot depends on individual characteristics: character, upbringing, territorial location. Faced with any color in his life repeatedly in different objective situations, a person develops his own attitude towards him, which undoubtedly has an impact on the perception of a particular color.

People who live in cold climates in the north try to make up for the lack of sun and use warm colors more often in their homes. People living in the south, where there is a lot of sun, try to use cold or neutral colors both in clothes and in the interior. Red-haired people prefer to wear clothes of cool shades - blue-violet, blue-green, that is, colors that are complementary to orange, red-orange.


Color associations

Color associations evoke an emotion or sensation in a person associated with memories of what he saw or experienced. The phenomenon of color associations lies in the fact that a given color excites certain emotions, ideas, sensations of a different nature, that is, the influence of color excites other senses, as well as the memory of what has been seen or experienced.

Colors can “send” memory to a certain time of the year: warm shades speak of summer, cold ones speak of winter. Everyone knows the temperature association: red - hot, blue - cold. Age Associations: Children are associated with brighter colors, while older people are associated with soft, muted hues. There may be associations associated with weight: light, airy, weightless - light shades; heavy - dark shades.

Color theory in painting

The theory of color in painting is quite a broad concept. The patterns of the color system in painting are the patterns of objective reality reworked by the artist. Color harmony, coloring, contrasts are color categories that exist in color theory and which the artist interprets in his own way. However, artistic creativity cannot be reduced only to a scheme and science, the artist does not create according to recipes and mostly works intuitively, and this phenomenon is inexplicable. Therefore, today we do not have a theory of painting as a scientific discipline, there is no theory that fully sets out the basic principles of painting.


"Liberty Leading the People" Eugene Delacroix

// wikipedia/org

The color structure of the picture is determined visually. Usually a person, contemplating a picture, gives it verbal characteristics, very general and, as a rule, far from fully reflecting the studied features of the work. As a rule, the color scheme of a painting is described by stereotyped and, in fact, little saying phrases, for example: “The artist uses the scale ...” or “Harmony is built on contrast or nuance ...” Such characteristics, of course, contain known information about the artistic features of the work, but far from sufficient and hardly used for broader generalizations.


Munsell Color Atlas

// Mark Fairchild, wikipedia.org

This raises the question: is it possible to measure the color structure of the picture? Maybe. The purpose of measuring color in painting is to solve a very narrow issue - to find ways to more specifically and accurately characterize the features of the color system and, on this basis, create a classification of various types of color harmony and color. But the results of color measurements in a painting by no means provide the researcher with a tool to determine the aesthetic qualities of a work of art. The color system is measured using the designation of each color, as, for example, in the Munsell atlas using a letter and two numbers: the letter is the color tone, the numbers are lightness and saturation, that is, to measure the color system of the picture, you must have an atlas of colors.

An important point in painting is the study of color in space. We will not dwell on the physical characteristics of color, we will not analyze the principles of additive and subtractive synthesis and delve into the study of the synthesis of color flows. We will not compare optical synthesis and paint synthesis. This is not our task. Our task is to highlight all the main, paramount, without delving into scientific research. The basics of color science for artists - that's what we need. The only remark will be that in order to work on the study of the material we will need good colors. To study color science, you need good quality gouache.

1. Color science - the beginning:

It is believed that there are three primary colors, and all other colors can be obtained by mixing the primary colors at different proportional ratios. You probably won't be able to do this with paint. If possible, then you need to try very hard, match color to color, and all this is done with good artistic gouache. But we cannot be responsible for the quality of paints, right? That is why we do it by mixing more than three colors. In physics, there may be three primary colors, but we will have a little more.

2. Spectral circle. It is easier to consider that there are twelve primary colors of the spectrum:

All spectral colors are called chromatic.

All other colors are obtained by mixing primary.

Gray white and black are called achromatic:

Complementary Colors are opposite colors on the spectrum. They complement each other, that is, when complementary colors are located side by side, they reinforce each other, "ignite".

For example, we have this nondescript dull purple color:

By itself, it does not carry much beauty and can tell us little of itself. But if you add a complementary color to it, then it will sparkle and sparkle. See:

Our purple has sparkled and is the same color we took at the beginning.

BUT when you mix these colors, you always get gray.

Basics of color science

3. Basics of color science - the main characteristics of color:

1. Color name - the so-called Color tone

2.Lightness- tone

3. Saturation - tension, purity

What is the saturation of the color, how pure is it, how much of it.

4.Heat-coldness

All these concepts are different and only in each color they are present. For example:
Look around you, find any object. It will be of a certain color, for example, the same yellow. Let's think - the color tone will be yellow, but in lightness it may turn out to be different, either yellow is light, or yellow is dark. Now you need to determine its saturation - how much yellow is present in a given color? A lot of yellow - strong voltage, yellow with impurities - low voltage, low purity. And lastly, warmth. Our yellow color can be both cool and warm. It will be easier to understand this when comparing several different objects of the same color tone, in this case yellow. Find some yellow objects and compare them according to the characteristics below. Everything will become clear to you.

If you have not yet switched to the direction in which I am leading you, I offer one entertainment:

Color is an expression of the quality of energy carried by the medium. In other words, any object carries the energy of a certain quality, in our case, color. As you probably know, each color is perceived differently by us. Yellow increases attention, somewhere annoying. Blue is a calm color, passive. Red increases sensitivity, attention. Violet - influences our inner self so much that it can even depress. This is how we feel colors. And now let's try to associate them with any objects, for example, with food:
I'll ask you a question: what color do potatoes taste like? What? White? Not!!! You should feel how the taste of the potato makes you feel, and not what color it is. It gives me a feeling that can be attributed to the characteristics of green. Another question:
What color does the meat taste like? Of course red! Red - strength, life, movement - which gives us a piece of delicious steak, for example. What color is strawberry flavor? For me it's pink.
Let's move on to music. If you hear the sound of an organ, what sensations do these sounds make you feel? For me, they cause sensations that characterize the purple color. And if you hear the sound of a balalaika? What color is this music?

4. Basics of color science - colors:

Well, are you having fun? Are you on the right wave? Then we go further.
All colors participating in the composition must be subordinate to one color, which always depends on:

Light colors

2. From the colors involved in the composition.

3. From the area of ​​the spots involved in the composition. Let's say the largest spot of your composition is green, then this color will be brought into the gamut. And exactly gamma determines the integrity of the composition.

Each stroke should contain three colors - local color (the color of the object), the color of the scale (in what scale, for example, your still life) and the color of light (it can be both cold and warm).

5. Constructive beginning of the form:

Constructive beginning of the form: light, semitone, shadow

Plastic continuation - add a semitone of light, a semitone of shadow, a reflection and a glare:

Glare - shows the material from which the item is made.
Reflex is reflected light from a nearby form or plane.
Group of light - light, semitone of light, glare.
Shadow group - shadow, semitone shadow, reflex.
Links these two groups of zero semitone. In zero, a semitone is a non-local color, an absolute value, and it depends on the overall light tone.

6. Basics of color science - color change according to the shape of the object:

By name, color tone does not change color. An interesting process occurs with lightness. Light color darkens as it moves away

Dark - brightens

By saturation, the color fades away, weakens

By warm-coldness - cold colors moving away will warm up

Warm - colder

In the light, the color is lighter, in the shade it is weaker and is distributed over halftones:

By heat-coldness - if you choose warm light, then the shadows will be cold. If the light is cold, then the shadows will be warm. Warm light will get colder as it moves away, cold light will get warmer. A warm shadow moving away will get colder, a cold one will get warmer. The color in the shadow is lit by saturation.

7. And now the hardest part:

7.1. The darkest midtone in the light is lighter than the lightest midtone in the shadow.

7.2. The most colorless midtone in the light is more colorful than the most colored midtone in the shadow.

7.3. The warmest midtone in cold light is colder than the coldest midtone in shadow.

Is everything complicated and confusing? It seems that way the first time. Such thoughts will vanish when you start drawing. I give you ready-made laws that other people develop over the years in the process of studying. Here in time everything happens much faster. You just need to learn all this, accept and put into practice guided by the motto:

I do not see, but I know! And I do what I know!

And you can strengthen your knowledge, guided by the motto, on the study of painting page.

It would not be bad if I could do some color science exercises. The fact is that during painting, especially when you paint with watercolors, it is sometimes difficult to quickly figure out which stroke to lay down now. Of course, color searches, sketches that we make before starting work, help us in this. But the following exercises will help you feel more confident in the process of work:

1. For this we need gouache, which was mentioned at the beginning of this page. Use any color. Let's say you take purple. Work with him. Imagine that this violet color is the local color of the object, the color of the zero semitone. And make color stretches, what would happen to the color if it participated in your composition. Let's say the color of your object is cool purple. Moving away towards the shadows, it will warm up, well, darken. Make such a color stretch. And now about how this exercise is done, technically:

A) you can do it on paper immediately by drawing with gouache

B) you can use coloring. Dyes are pieces of paper that you pre-dye in various colors that differ in tone, color, saturation, clarity, and so on. Paintings are painted in the most various colors that can be obtained. There can be not only hundreds, but thousands of coloring in the work on the color science exercise. And the more the better. From these drawings, choosing the colors we need, a stretch of the color we need is drawn up. We select the pieces we need, cut them out and make up a stretch, gluing one color next to another. And on the principle of it, we will already be working on a purple object in, for example, our still life. But strokes will already be more confident and will be done consciously.

2. You can make a wide variety of color streamers. Stretch colors from warm to cold, from light to dark, from one color to another. You can do stretching according to the principle of the rules that you learned about here. Practice, you will only benefit from it. You can learn a lot about color and how it behaves next to others or when they are mixed. It is possible to make a color spectral circle from the color spectrum using various extensions. I found an old work, but you can use it as an example. Here the colors are arranged spectrally, each in its place - this is already an exercise on color, plus each of the spectral colors is still stretched towards white and black. The most difficult thing here is to harmonize all the colors, choose the right color so that it is in its place:

3. As in painting, we do color searches with watercolors, so in color science we can do color searches with the help of paints. But there is unlimited time to think about where and in what place any color and what color will be located. Performing this exercise, you can not be limited to a sketch, but do all the work by compiling the necessary pieces of color patterns. Below is the work of my eight-year-old daughter. For her level, this is a very good job. I show only the principle of work, you will do much better:

If you manage to find errors in this work, it means that you have successfully passed the material and understood it.