About this course - in more detail

What is Colour (or Color) and how does Secrets of the Great Painters deal with it?

We will explore this question in detail as we work though the 12 books in the series. For now, for your sanity and mine, here is a brief introduction.

Light from an Object

Colour is actually light. Light comes in rays made of particles called photons from objects. The paint in your tubes are objects which emit colour on different wavelengths. Painting is about tuning them in the the right frequencies. Like streams of water these photons move about in waves. Some are long and flat others short and voluptuous. Depending on the shape and speed of the wave a different kind of light is produced.

Colours also have different speeds and wavelengths. The human eye is particularly well adapted to analysing them. . An artist needs to know for example that when we look at an object, say a tartan rug, the red waves will reach us before the black. A good composition has been ruined by a poor palette that did not take this into consideration.

Light on an Object

Objects throw out light so we know what they are. A tartan rug beams out red and black. Objects also have light thrown at them. This is called ambient light. It comes from their surroundings and is made up of light from other objects including the sun, sky and earth. Sometimes an ambient light obscures an objects local colour so that we do not know what it is. Think of an overexposed photograph where too much white light has diluted the local colour.

What the human brain perceives when it looks at an object is the mixing of light waves; or more accurately the battle of waves for supremacy. When an object like a red and black tartan rug sends out its colour waves it must do battle with other objects around it and the ambient light.

This is how it works.

Imagine the red and black tartan rug used for an artists' picnic. The colours will look very different in the blue grey shadowless morning when they are setting up their easels and reaching for the coffee than later on in the afternoon. In a sun free sky the red is seen in a natural light. It shows us its natural colour.

In the books

Colour Discovery One

The first book explores paintings which use Natural Light and Colours.

The artists have just got a really good palette of Natural Colours mixed, then out comes the orange sun, shadows appear in the trees and on the bank and the colours change. The light from the sun is providing a lens through which the colours are seen. Colours are now being seen in an optical light. The rug is presenting itself in its Optical Colours.

Later still when the sun is setting and the sky appears red the colours change again. The red in the rug will be enhanced by a red lens. Another set of Optical Colours.

Even later still when the sun has gone down and the artists take to squinting at the rug through the bottom of an empty green wine bottle they will be looking through a lens which will change the colours yet again.

Optical Light is by far the most popular light for artists because it gives such a wide range of colours to choose from.

Colour Discovery Two

The second book explores paintings using Optical Light and Colours

The Light in the Mind

The human brain is so clever that it does not have to rely on the human eye for information. It can create and process its own! For the artist this is imagination and creativity. In paintings it produces a third type of colour Arbitrary Colour. This basically means that we can paint anything in any colour we like! The only information we may be processing is the colours in our collection of tubes.

Our artists, now frustrated with the changing light, resort to a few bottles of wine at lunchtime. Freed from inhibitions they, begin to paint it using non traditionally Scottish colours like lime green and purple. They are using Arbitrary Colours ie the colour choice of the artist. Arbitrary colour does not have to take account of other objects, ambient light or lenses, it comes from the artists' imagination, however that is accessed! This is the light in the mind. You would expect Arbitrary Colours to give an artist an infinite number of colour palettes but when we look at paintings using arbitrary colour in Book Three you will find fewer of them than in the other books. You will find out why when you read it!

Colour Theories

We have taken it for granted that our artists on our picnic are expert enough recognise and mix the colours they see. This is colour mixing on a small scale after all. Imagine though a paint manufacturer who needs to have much more control over what is produced. They need 100% accuracy if they are to have satisfied artist customers. Colours need to be described precisely.

This need to produce colours accurately has been addressed over the centuries by colour theorists. Many of these theorists have been artists themselves. Using different data and different approaches, being original or borrowing from each other they have created some fascinating theories on colour recognition. Modern colour theories also address colour attributes like luminosity and transparency.

I will not go into details of all the theories here. There is lots of information on the net. The theory on which I base Tubewindowsart ColourConnection is the Natural Colour System. This system was developed by the Scandinavian Colour Institute (Skandinaviska Färginstitutet AB) of Stockholm, Sweden. It is based on the work of German physiologist Ewald Hering. You will see why Sweden would be a good place to undertake such work in the next chapter.

Colour Mixing

For the artist a pigment is essentially an object which emits light. We move lumps of paint around just as we would any other object. Hopefully more artistically!

Paint is an object which has a local colour dependent on the pigment used to make it. In oils especially the pigments have their own characteristics which make mixing problematic. When creating a palette in oils we have to be aware of what light the objects are seen in many light sources will be battling for our attention. The light coming through the window, the colour of the tubes, the ground on the canvas, the clothes we are wearing, our spectacles etc etc… as well as the idiosyncracies of our oil paints!

No wonder we sometimes get it wrong!

If you have worked your way through Books One, Two and Three of Secrets of the Great Painters you will be able to identify the code for any colour you need. Now all you have to do is mix it. Using the Natural Colour System, Book Four Basic Colour Mixing and Book Five Advanced Colour Mixing will show you how to mix the exact colour, its tint and shade, every time with the minimum amount of tubes. You will never have to rely on manufacturers to produce the exact colour you need.

Colour and the Human Mind

Colour coming at you in waves is how we make sense of our physical world but these waves also affect us psychologically; even if we're not consciously aware of it. The Great Painters are great because they understood how their colours would affect us, even centuries later.

Colour Discoveries Four to Eight

Colour Meaning and Form deals with the psychological effects of colour. If you have followed the five books on colour recognition and mixing you will be in a perfect position to start the detective work for finding the hidden and not so hidden meanings in the works of The Great Painters.

Book Six will also deal in detail with colour attributes which are really the forms of a colour, their opacity, permanence or ability to be changed.

Colour Discoveries Nine to Eleven

Books Nine to Eleven look in more detail at colours used for individual subjects. This is not to show you how to paint people or animals but to explore how palettes work. We cover landscapes, people, objects, animals and computers. Using a palette from one genre in another has been the basis of many great works. It is how many painters achieve their originality.