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| Various early color wheels |
As a child I attended some courses offered through an art museum geared toward teens. It provided a brief intro on mixing colors using acrylic paint. Young and stubborn, I did not like it because the instructor did not permit us to use black. Something that I would later remember when I painted.
High school art teachers focused on creativity and innovation. The paints we used were premixed and the equivalent of 42 colors in a box of crayons. A lot of good habits were undone. We did sketch and paint for light source using only grey black and white, but how many vases next to a cup and apples for stilife practice can one draw?
The later was my last high school teacher, who taught us little, eventhough she was an artist herself. The emphasis was on. modern art, particularly the impressionist. An art period I appreciate but don't like.
Then came art college. Paint color chips from white to black in 36 squares in equal increments. After a weekend of frustration I got a B because one square was slightly off. Color palettes. Here are the colors in grids; next assignment replicate it using cold and warm palette then the same with changing the hues then cold secondary with warm tertiary and vice versa. An entire course for color theory.
Over and over until it became automatic, which was the point.
The lessons I learned were invaluable and lasted a lifetime. I knew before I was accepted that I was not going to be a professional artist. Little to no demand for realism painters, but a "when time permits" professional artist was perfect for me. Not using black because it dulls paintings has remained, as using cold colors to make something recede.
What surprised me is that very few books were used in contrast to science. We used Albert Munsell color theory (20th century) and his wheel, but the book wasn't required reading.
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| Albert Munsell |
I was interested in learning more but all I could find was Newton's discovery of the color spectrum, (1704 Opticks), and Goethes book on color theory. (1810) They were treated with as much reverance as old news the earth is round. There were many others, but Munsell is the one that is used.
I mention Goethe because he assigned emotions and psychological characteristics to each color.
I will split this into a second post.
Did you study Josef Albers on relationships of colors? Maybe he's coming up in part two.
ReplyDeleteCodex: Not at the time. I was not in the design, graphics program but geared toward realism scientific illustration. But I'll have another look. Thank you for reminding me. Is there anything about the perception of color rather than psychology that you're aware of?
DeleteTake a look at synesthesia of color, the brain function, it's very interesting. I've blogged about it now and then.
DeleteCodex: Aware of synesthesia. Fascinating and very rare. I'll have a look at what you wrote.
DeleteI never studied anything at all to do with art or colours. I didn't even finish high school. In primary school we had one art class a week and were told what to paint. High school was similar, though we also had to sketch whichever student had been chosen to sit and pose.
ReplyDeleteCodex: did you finish later?
DeleteAll the art classes I took over my lifetime never once did it include anything to do with painting...not oils, not acrylics, not watercolors. Maybe I'd have been more interested in the medium if I had. I took a few art classes after school at the museum school a kid, art in private and public school...drawing, pastels, batik, must have had some painting but no serious instruction. Life drawing, drawing, design in college. Either painting was not an option or I just wasn't interested. Been a long time I don't really remember. The one year I spent at the Chicago Art Institute, accepted but not as a degree student (would need an instructor to mentor me) I took ceramics, sculpture, textile design, I forget what else. Second semester I signed up for what I thought was a painting class but turned out to be just studio time to paint, no instruction, no instructor. I dropped out ready to get on with life. The textile design class (back when I thought that would be my medium), we spent I don't remember how long mixing our own colors from five basic colors, dying swaths, and writing down formulas much like your mixing of paints and then using the dyes to design and make a textile. I did enjoy that class and the instructor would have sponsored me into the degree program if I had not dropped out of school altogether. And then I stumbled on etched glass, no color involved, which changed my trajectory for a couple of decades. When I started working with the pate de verre cast glass technique using transparent colors I had to learn through doing how to layer the colors in the molds so that they either didn't affect each other or did the way I wanted. And now, here I am finally working with paints, watercolor, on paper.
ReplyDeleteCodex: will comment back later. Moderation is awkward.
DeleteCodex: Art colleges don't to that anymore, there's only a supervisor if it's MFA or above.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. It's still a big jump to glass. I like the medium because it's portable and no cleaning.
Didn't know that textiles did that too. No black was so we learn how to mix almost black because there is no such thing as black.(mixed black has more depth)
Goethe was the dominant figure of my school canon, literature, poetry, travel writing, letters and his theory of colour , all came up in various subjects.
ReplyDeleteHave you heard of Werner's nomenclature of colours? Gottlob Werner was a German geologist who developed this in order to develop a visual standard incl names for colours observed in nature and research. Darwin took his work with him on the Beagle for his own illustrations.
You can find lots of info online. I particularly like this site:
https://c82.net/werner/#intro
Codex: let's not forget he coined morphology wrote Faust. Anything the man.could not do?
DeleteNever heard of him. Thank you for the link and recommendation.
How are you feeling and healing?
Codex: I did come across him. Recognized the book. Munsell is used because it standardized the colors.
DeleteIs Werner still used in geology?