Home Forums Explore Media Pastels Soft Pastel Learning Center The Spotlight – July 2013 – Color Contrast

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  • #991045
    Don Ketchek
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        Welcome artists! :wave:

        [FONT=Verdana]Here is a quick recap of what The Spotlight is all about!
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        The Spotlight is an activity thread for pastel artists of all experience levels working from photos chosen by a monthly host. Most months, the host will choose photos from only one subject, putting that subject into “the spotlight,” so to speak! For example, one month the subject will be painting water, another month will spotlight flowers, etc.

        Some months, rather than spotlight a subject, the focus will be on a challenge of some sort. In those cases, we might have a wider variety of photo references, but “the spotlight” will be on the challenge itself.

        Since this is a group activity, we can pool our knowledge and resources, and grow as artists in a fun, “no-pressure” atmosphere.

        And, remember, no critiques unless specifically asked for.

        The intent is to have fun, try new things, experiment, and perhaps most of all, to see what our friends and colleagues are painting from the same reference material!

        Please note: The photos this month were taken by me or are from the Reference Image Library. You have permission to use the photos as reference to create your artwork and to sell them and/or exhibit them. The actual photos still retain the copyright of the photographer. So you cannot copy the photo to your blog, for example, without the permission of the photographer, or digitally alter or reproduce the photo for any purpose other than for your personal use, with the exception of crops, digital alterations and posts of these photos within “The Spotlight” thread.

        This month’s Spotlight is on…Color Contrast!

        Last month we discussed complementary colors – colors that are opposite (or near opposite) on the color wheel. This month we will continue on the same theme, but we’ll go a bit beyond complements and essentially divide the color wheel in half – into the warm and cool colors. On the warm side we have yellows, oranges and reds – on the cool side we have greens, blues and purples. The division isn’t an exact one – and not everyone agrees where the dividing line is, but warm and cool contrast is another tool in the artist’s toolbox when it comes to building contrast in a painting!

        Very often when artists begin their journey, the word contrast is used primarily or solely to define light and dark. But color has 3 components – value (light and dark), hue (the actual color – yellow, red, blue, etc.) and chroma (how intense or bright – or dull – the color is). All of these contrasts can be used in paintings, and as we have discussed in numerous Spotlights, contrast is an effective way for artists to draw the eye towards focal areas of their paintings, as well as adding boldness, excitement and visual vibration.

        Of course, you can’t really separate the three aspects of a color – they all have value, hue and chroma. A few months ago, we spent some time discussing value. In a future Spotlight (perhaps) we will focus on chroma contrast. But this month we will look at hue – and more specifically, the contrast between warm and cool colors.

        One of the easiest types of paintings where we can introduce warm/cool contrast is any painting where we have a subject and background. Portraits (people or pets) and still life paintings often have relatively plain backgrounds that can either contrast, or not, with the colors of the subject. Let’s take a look at some examples:

        Here are two portraits by Renoir. On the left we have a cool background contrasting with the warmer colors of the skin tones and hair. On the right we have a very warm background that doesn’t contrast much with the warm skin tones and hair of the child. Aside from the background color, the two paintings are fairly similar, it seems to me – but the background difference gives each painting a very different atmosphere, in my opinion.

        Just for fun – and with apologies to Renoir, I took the second painting and changed the background color.

        The greater color contrast in the revised version definitely changes things! In my opinion, anyway, the cooler background seems more distant than the warm background. Not surprising, as you may have heard the saying, warm colors advance and cool colors recede! Color temperature is not the only factor (color intensity is also important as intense color comes forward, too) but I think this is a good example.

        I want to make clear that having greater color contrast does not necessarily mean the painting is better, or more successful. I’m just trying to demonstrate the difference it can make.

        Let’s look at a van Gogh still life!

        Here we have strong color contrasts between the cool flowers and leaves and the warm flower pot, table and background. The flowers really stand out! The flower pot and table, on the other hand, seem to blend in somewhat with the background, as they are all warm yellows and oranges. What if the background was also cool? With apologies to Vincent, let’s find out!

        Again, these are my interpretations (and everyone may have a different opinion), but this is a very different painting, to my eye. Now there is very little color contrast between the flowers and the background. There is more contrast now between the warm flower pot/table and the cool background/flowers. I think my eye goes to the flower pot first – not the flowers! The flowers certainly don’t stand out as much because of the minimal color contrast – thus they seem much less emphasized.

        Hopefully, the above examples show that making color contrast decisions can play a big part in the overall “feel” of the painting as well as lead the viewer’s eye towards different areas of importance.

        One aspect of color contrast that artist’s decide on when they paint is – how much color contrast do they want? The van Gogh still life has very strong warm/cool contrast with colors essentially opposite from one another on the color wheel, or complementary colors. But, as we saw in the Renoir portrait with the red background, an artist can certainly choose to use colors with little color contrast, using colors that are next to – and close to one another – on the color wheel (analogous colors).

        In my search for paintings using analogous color schemes, there almost always was a little bit of some complementary color present. But here are a couple examples of paintings with minimal warm/cool contrast; the first, a beautiful pastel portrait by Benedetto Luti, the second a van Gogh still life.

        These paintings use warm, analogous color schemes, using primarily yellows, oranges and reds. When comparing these paintings to the portrait and still life we looked at earlier, these seem calmer and less visually exciting. Yes, it is a generalization, but less color contrast can often be used to create calmer, more soothing paintings compared to the visual vibration and excitement of a painting with strong warm/cool contrast. Again, keep in mind that the other aspects of color contrast (value and chroma) can create bold, exciting paintings, too! This van Gogh still life is very bold when it comes to value contrast and intense color, but I wonder, would it be even bolder if there was warm/cool contrast, too?

        One thing to keep in mind is that warm and cool areas don’t have to be 100% warm or cool. You can always have some warm colors in a predominantly cool area and vice versa. In some cases, the combination will create that vibrancy of complements that we discussed last month. Here’s another Renoir and van Gogh:

        The Renoir (left) has a background mix of warm and cool colors. The combination keeps the background more interesting than if it was just one color and adds some vibrancy. The warm colors in the background also harmonize more with the warm colors of the subject and his clothing, which helps make the painting more unified. The van Gogh (right) is all about vibrancy and unity! There are spots of warm colors in the predominantly cool background and clothing, and spots of cool colors in the warm skin tones and beard!

        A NOTE ABOUT THE TERMS WARM & COOL:

        The terms warm and cool when it comes to colors is widespread, but they can be a bit confusing. If you read a number of art how-to books, or look at videos or take some classes, you may notice that each instructor seems to have a different interpretation of where the dividing line is – and which colors are the warmest and coolest. Some will say orange and blue are the warmest and coolest, other may say yellow and purple. Some say red is warmest! Emile Gruppe in his famous book on color classifies red and green as neutral – neither warm nor cool! It can be confusing – but in my opinion, those individual difference don’t matter one bit! The terms are general – and simply describe contrasting sides of the color wheel. Individual difference merely reflect the fact that each person sees color a bit differently!

        OK, now that we have discussed what warm/cool contrast is all about, let’s get to the references! For the most part, I tried to find references that didn’t have much color in the background, so that it would be easier to experiment with different color possibilities! So please feel free to experiment with various color contrast schemes!

        The references:

        Photo by HOllyLL

        Photo by LostArt. Keep in mind that this is not a Spotlight on portraits, so there is no need whatsoever to try for a likeness!

        Photo by MandyB

        Photo by pancho

        Photo by stalksthedawn

        As always, feel free to crop and recompose the elements in the photos. And feel free to experiment with various complementary and analogous color schemes! Feel free to post any thumbnails or color studies that you do in addition to your final paintings!

        And keep in mind that the background and surrounding colors often reflect somewhat into the main subject. So, if you change the background or surrounding colors, you might want to put some hint of those colors into the subject.

        Enjoy!

        Don

        #1190006
        ElleZ
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            Thanks Don this Spotlight is interesting to me, sad that I have missed a few of these over the last couple of months. Does WC keep the previous months Spotlights & if so could you let me know where? Thanks heaps.

            C & C Welcome.
            :wave: [FONT=Fixedsys]Cheers, Elle.

            #1190007
            ElleZ
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                Found Junes, so will keep going back through the pages for the others.

                C & C Welcome.
                :wave: [FONT=Fixedsys]Cheers, Elle.

                #1189965
                *Deirdre*
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                    Found Junes, so will keep going back through the pages for the others.

                    The easiest way is to use ADVANCED SEARCH


                    Make sure to select titles only
                    and Pastel talk as the forum :D

                    [FONT="Tahoma"]Regards, Deirdre (Always pleased to get C&Cs!) Don't forget - comment on other threads in the forum as well as posting your own work - also, we encourage you to post WIPs, they help others to learn as well as you.
                    Moderator
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                    #1190008
                    ElleZ
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                        Thanks Deirdre, that seems much easier than what I had in mind.

                        C & C Welcome.
                        :wave: [FONT=Fixedsys]Cheers, Elle.

                        #1190039
                        Grinner
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                            Deirdre, my two cents: the first post of each Spotlight that I have seen contains so much helpful information that I think all of them should be copied to The Learning Center so people can more easily benefit from them later on. Thanks again to Don for putting these together! I really appreciate what you contribute to all of us :)

                            #1189966
                            *Deirdre*
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                                Grinner good idea…as soon as I get my PC fixed I’m on to it…I am having to use my ipad until then.

                                [FONT="Tahoma"]Regards, Deirdre (Always pleased to get C&Cs!) Don't forget - comment on other threads in the forum as well as posting your own work - also, we encourage you to post WIPs, they help others to learn as well as you.
                                Moderator
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                                #1189973
                                robertsloan2
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                                    Great references and topic! Of course I love that tawny cat at the end. I’m so tempted to try something a little wild with that one. Warm-cool color contrasts, intensity-muted contrasts, there’s so much room for contrast and color. Thanks for all the simple backgrounds to leave it to us what to do with the backgrounds.

                                    I’m definitely going to have fun this month.


                                    Robert A. Sloan, proud member of the Oil Pastel Society
                                    Site owner, artist and writer of http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com
                                    blogs: Rob's Art Lessons and Rob's Daily Painting

                                    #1190011
                                    Ruthie57
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                                        Most interesting lesson Don! Your last paragraph shows how subjective colour can be, different things to different people. To me personally orange is the warmest colour and blue is the coolest. I also see blue violet as cooler than blue green. Just to confuse things more there are warm reds and cools reds, cool blues and warm blues etc. And that’s before we think about the influence other nearby colours have on a colour! It’s a minefield I have not yet got my head round so I will definitely take part. It may not be for a couple of weeks though as, guess what…I’ll be away again soon!

                                        #1190042
                                        VanessaT
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                                            Ooh this one is a bit tricky! I must admit I need to give this more thought. The ideas aren’t flowing as naturally this time so it’s definitely going to be challenging. LOL I better go pull out my colour wheel.

                                            Vanessa Turner - MY BLOG

                                            Art drafted from the soul and delivered through the hands vanessaturner.com

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                                            #1190025
                                            chuas2
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                                                I’m with Vanessa, I need to give this more thought, since I’m such a BAD colorist. But another great lesson, more great references, and I’ll give it a shot. Thanks Don!
                                                Kris

                                                #1189988
                                                Don Ketchek
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                                                    Thanks everybody for the nice comments. As Ruth mentioned, some folks refer to warm and cool in a more specific way – as in a warm or cool green or a warmer or cooler red. And that does get complicated – and personally I try to ignore that sort of warm-cool comparison! What we will hopefully do this month is use the more general definition of warm and cool – meaning the warm and cool sides of the color wheel. That is the way we will use warm and cool contrast! Colors from one side of the wheel – Yellow, orange and red – contrasting with greens, blues and purples.

                                                    Don

                                                    #1190016
                                                    ncgirl
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                                                        This is part one of my contribution. The nice thing about pastels (for me anyway) is the support provides the background color. I added a few strokes on this for fun.

                                                        Part two will be the same palette, on a warm support. Wish me luck, I’m forcing myself to stick to the same colors, I’ve hidden all others away (“just a little flesh tone…”).

                                                        [ATTACH]799326[/ATTACH]

                                                        Critique is more than welcome, I’m always looking for ways to improve. :heart:

                                                        Sandra
                                                        #1189974
                                                        robertsloan2
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                                                            Sandra, this is great! I like the cool-to-blue contrast, that’s so striking. Great likeness too. Looking forward to seeing how it looks on a warm support.


                                                            Robert A. Sloan, proud member of the Oil Pastel Society
                                                            Site owner, artist and writer of http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com
                                                            blogs: Rob's Art Lessons and Rob's Daily Painting

                                                            #1190009
                                                            ElleZ
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                                                                Fabulous start to this month’s Spotlight Sandra, and I look forward to seeing your part two.

                                                                C & C Welcome.
                                                                :wave: [FONT=Fixedsys]Cheers, Elle.

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