Questions about "Harmony"

[midcoast]

I know this is an elusive subject. I've been pondering it for a few months now, ever since I re-read Schmid's book "Alla Prima." It seems that "harmony" is my next learning point...I seem to keep butting up against it every time I paint.

My main question is: How do you make your paintings harmonious? Physically, what do you do? I'm not necessarily looking for only theory here, I'd like some practical application or advice

Some say using a limited palette is the key. I contend that I can create chaos on my canvas with just 3 colors plus white I see people who use a huge range of colors have very beautiful, harmonious paintings. I can see where using a limited palette can help, but I don't think it solves the problem.

Do you choose the color of the light, and then restrain its complement, as Schmid suggests? Do you mix your dominant color into every other color as you paint (Payne)? Do you gray down your mixtures so that none of them really leap off the canvas (kinda Christensen's style)? Do you choose one color to be very dominant, then introduce other colors sparingly (Mattlin)?? OR Do you have another method???

The more elusive question is next...and I have a hard time figuring out how to ask this. It's a right-brain question that my left-brain is having trouble verbalizing Given a certain subject, how do you figure out the harmony for your painting?

Do you choose early morning or late afternoon/evening light? I can see the natural color harmony easily at these times of day, and I do OK painting it. My trouble comes with the "normal" lighting during the rest of the day - I don't really know what to do. If I paint what I see, I have a riot on my canvas. I'm tempted these days to just paint at sunrise and sunset As an example, I've attached a photo of some typical subject matter I like to paint. What are your suggestions for making this into a harmonious painting?

I'd like this to be an open discussion because I suspect I'm not the only one butting up against this elusive element of successful paintings...

Thanks!

Nancy

[Marc Hanson]

Good question Nancy. This could require several posts, but I'm one for simplifying so I'll shoot for one.

I've never seen a pictorial subject that wasn't harmonious. One exception may be a hunter in a blaze orange vest, or a neon yellow road sign in the scene. But even then, that is part of the whole, and so is harmonious within that reality. If handled correctly by the painter, even that blaze orange vest will harmonize within the theme of the rest of the image. Handled correctly means that it's grayed enough to fall into place within the context of the other color.

If you consider that when you are standing in front of a subject and mixing the appropriate colors that 'look' like that subject, it's pretty hard not to make a 'harmonious' color scheme. I don't believe in the illustrator tricks of mixing a common color into other colors to co-ordinate the color scheme. Or choosing the dominant color and purposefully mixing other color to 'fit' into that pattern. While they work fine in the studio, that is not the reason for painting from life. Painting from life is the exporation and discovery of natural phenomena, why is this color related to that color? Formulas don't do the trick for my money when this is the objective.

If you are closely observing the light, you won't be able to help but make harmonious mixes because the 'LIGHT' is the harmonizing factor. All color in the scene is affected by the color of the light. Rather than pre-mix, or pre-concieve the issue, observe and mix what you see in all areas of the painting. The judgements involved in making the right choice is another matter. One that comes from learning and experience. But I've noticed that in students, given enough time, they all are able to match the color they see in nature. If they accomplish that, they will produce harmony because it's there already.

Fine tuning the eye, understanding color mixing, and realizing that the most successful way to put that harmony on canvas takes time but is soon accomplished.

The hard part is going past that. Going into the area of 'self expression', making a painting 'yours' and not like nature. I'm sure that there are painters who could take you to the exact spot that the painting was made and you'd have no trouble seeing the painting. Then there are paintings that make our mouths water that are not attached to any earthly spot even though they were painted at a specific place and time.

I've seen Schmid paint a number of demos on site and unless I was there, I couldn't tell you that they actuall existed as a particular place. None the less, they are harmonious and true to that time and place.

I like the idea that if you put a spot of color on a canvas and it jumps back at you...it's likely not harmonious to the rest of the color scheme. That's about the only qualifier in most cases.

[ElisabethG]

Good subject Nancy- it is a difficult one.
Marc- I found what you wrote to be thought provoking. I get what you are saying about the correct colors being naturally harmonized to one another & agree. I think, just like drawing, it is a matter of how observant an artist is. Color is very elusive- how bright, how cool, how dark/ light,etc. and does everything fall into place value-wise with everything else? It is something that starts to come with LOTS of practice, I'm thinking. As far as what each particular artist sees in a subject- I like some of what Gruppe has to say about that-returning to the same scene various times- one time the road might be the most important thing, next time you decide to emphasize the trees against the sky, etc. It has a lot to do with what grabs you that particular time. Also, I do believe that complimentary colors will appear naturally because of the way we see, and they do make for harmony- but we see better the more we paint, IMO. Good harmony is the result of an artist with enough experience to see and interpert a scene more precisely with accuarate value and color.

[rr113]

Interesting thread!

I know many painters believe that they paint the colors that they see in the landscape, but as Edgar Payne points out our pigments are an order of magnitude less intense than in the real world. Therefore we do not actually reproduce what we see (neither does the camera, of course, which is usually calibrated for skin tones). His example is: is a red truck drove by his studio and the color was so intense it reflected on his studio walls turning them red for a moment. It started him thinking and he realized the red in his paintings couldn't do that.

Fortunately the visual system can only make relative judgments. So within the frame of the canvas we put down colors that have the same relationship to each other as they do in real life but not actually the same colors. They read to the visual system as the same and as "harmonious". That's why it's important compositionally to keep the eye within the frame and to have a actual frame that works.

The practical advice given is to put down marks that will hold for us our darkest dark possible, the lightest light, and the most intense color that we can make with the pigments we have (and, perhaps, the easiest color as well). It is then within these parameters that you have to work, making things relatively the same (but not actually the same.)

From this point of view, when something is not harmonious, it would mean that we are not keeping the relative relationships correct. It is very tempting with a really attractive pigment to just put it down somewhere in the painting because you like it, but it then skews the relationships so the illlusion of reality doesn't work. It is also tempting to put in the painting a color that you can actually match. The yellow line down a highway is actually done with Hansa Yellow deep paint. It's tempting then to use the pigment if you happen to have it. The problem is you probably can't calibrate the other colors to it and the illusion is lost and there is dysharmony.

I think limited palettes work, actually make a pleasingly real looking painting, because they force even the most "fauvist" painter, to make relative judgments.

Richard

[Marc Hanson]

edit: excuse the 'typos'...not going back in to change them all!

Well put Elisabeth. I knew this wasn't a one poster.

This is from perhaps the best book I have on design, and it's a watercolor book. The author/artist is Edgar Whitney-"Complete Guide to Watercolor Painting", the book published in 1974. My dad gave it to me and I've read through it at least once a year since then. It's out of print, but if you ever find one, it's worth it. Not many color pictures, but many, many B&W illustrations showing just what he's talking about.

I thought that it might be useful for this discussion. Harmony isn't just color, the other elements need to be in line as well. That's a lot of what he addresses in the book, though this is just a few paragraphs.

"There are 8 principles or elements of design. Ignorance of the design significance of fifteen words-or synonyms for them- means design validities will infrequently and accidentally occur in hyour paintings and you will not be qualified to evaluate the accident when it happens. Understanding of the fifteen words-or synonyms for them will enable you to fuse design values with psychological values in your (paintings), and more successfully express and communicate your ideas and emotions.

UNTIY, CONFLICT, DOMINANCE, REPETITION, ALTERATION, BALANCE, HARMONY, AND GRADATION are design principles.

The elements of design-the only tools you have to work with in nthe space arts-are line, value, color, texture, shape, size , and direction. Do you want to think about, plan, organize your life, or would you rather improvise en route like a dog, turning in whichever direction smells good? ......

The fifteen words listed above are the most significant words a painter has. With them he can think, plan, build, organize, express himself, and communicate. "

Just to quote what he says about Harmony...
"Harmony is achieved when two or more of a unit's components are similar. Blue and green are harmoniously related, green being half blue. Blue and yellow in full intensity would be discord. A circle and an oval are obviously more harmonious than the utterly different shapes of a circle and a triangle, which are extremes of contrast. Harmony lies between the extremes of a gamut. Harmony and unity are not synonymous. Equal areas and intensities of red and purple would be disunity though teh colors are harmonious. Dominance of one color would achieve unity. The degree of harmony or discord esisting between two units depends upon the number of dimensions in which similarities occur. All art structure is fundamentally a combining or a fixing of the relationships of repetition, harmony, and discord.

Harmony exists in the closer proximities between extremes. A series of straight lines starting with a perpendicular with each adjacent line changing direction only five detrees and continuing until a horizontal line is reached, would present hatmonious directions en route, but oppositions at the extremes of teh transition or gradation. A gradation of value or gradual change of color from hot to cold would illustrate the same truth. Juxtaposed areasin a transition from one extreme of a gamut to another are harmonious, The extremes are in violent contrast or discordant.

The degree of discord or harmony in a design would certainly have significance in the espression of a given subject, showing either tranquility or violence, lassitude or rage, for example. Harmony may be seen in natural or traditional association of objects functionall related-small boats and fishing tackle; a book and a pipe. Literary implications or conceprs are usually symbolic harmonies-liberty and a torch; justice and the scales. But harmonies are more readily seen in similarities in the seven elements of design."

"Unity will exist where there is dominance of one color, either in a large area or in a smaller area where the color is of great intensity; dominance of one interval between colors; and dominance of a strong pattern.

Interest must be created by varying hues, intensities, and values, and by varying the intervals in all three. It takes experience to appraise teh total area of radically different shapes, but for the sake of interest there must be variety in the size of color areas. A desired balance need not be upset by size of areas. Larger areas can be made, and usually are, less intense, balanced by smaller, more intense areas. Unity is got by dominance of one area through either size of atrea or intensity of it.

As with value organization, so with color organization: the large area usually dictates or fixes the hue of a picture. Therefore a hue most expresive of a subject matter or mood is usually used in the largest area.

There are, broadly, five different kinds of color harmony: monochromatic, comlementary, analogous, split complementary, and triadic. Study these principles carefully and put them to use.

MONOCHROMATIC HARMONY exists when different shades, intensities, and tints of the same hue are used.

COMPLEMENTARY HARMONY is achieved when colors used diametrically oppose each other across the color circle(wheel). Complementary schemes are usually happier than monochromatic or analogous schemes because of greater possibilities for balance, keying, variety, and contrast.

ANALAGOUS HARMONY is composed by using colors in close relationship to each other, any small segment of the color wheel.

SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY schemes are got when colors closely related to ne or both complements are also used. It is a sort of synthesis of complementary and analogous schemes.

TRIADIC HARMONY is the result of using any 3 colors of the color whell equidistant from each other. Harmony will be destroyed if all three are in full intensity. Usually two are very considerably grayed, or neutralized.
Colors can be related or contrasted via all three properties-hue, intensity, value."

[Bill Foehringer]

Well, yes harmony starts with the light. It has to. Everything we see we see because of the light that falls through the sky and then passes through the atmosphere again between the subject and our eyes. I will defer to the master R Schmid and paraphrase: 'If something is wrong with a painting it is one of two things, either the artist is painting something that is not really there or the artist is not painting something that should be there.'
In this discussion of harmony and light if something is out of harmony it is mostly, in my case anyway, some color or value that is not in the subject.
Harmony is a big subject because it includes the whole. Composition, line, edge everything. Everything in a painting needs to fit relative to everything else, that's the goal anyway.
The edges have to be in the right place and have the correct relative sharpness/softness to edges elsewhere in a painting. The shadows must all agree in their angle relative to the light and to the color temp of the light and to their place in the subject, near or farther away.
As Marc stated this is a subject that is difficult to condense. It is the light that is the source of harmony. And if there is disharmony it is because the artist did not see or interpret the light correctly in one or more of many ways.
That was alot of hot air. How does one interpret a subject so that one can keep the harmony that is there?
This is me trying to work through this myself because I have reached the point where I see that what my work lacks is subtlety. It is why I will still create a cartoon-like painting of blocks of color that do not relate to one another. So if what comes next is wrong or incomplete by all means straighten my arse out! LOL
First I must determine the overall color of the direct light from the sun? If it's overcast is it a thin or warm overcast or a thick and cooler overcast? How warm or cool is it? What is it that is altering the warm light of the sun as it comes through the atmosphere? Like you mentioned Nancy, it is easier to see the color harmony when the sun is near the horizon because of the effect of the atmosphere than when the sun blazes directly down at high noon in the summer. So then I would create a warm or cool underpainting. If I were painting a blazing day with many colors in the subject and I wanted to heighten the excitement even more I might deliberately choose a vibrant complement underpainting to the light I see. If the light is very warm/yellow, paint a vibrant red or blue violet underneath. Or if one wants a more serene sunny day paint with a warm greyed yellow underneath.
Second look into the shadows what color are they? How do they change with distance? I can see that the color temperature of the shadow must relate to the color temp of the light closely or the shadows become dark blobs that float up off the surface instead of receding from the light.
Next note the highlights. Are some warm in direct sun? Are some cool because they are reflections of the cool blue of the sky?
Could there be a warm highlight in the shade even though the sky is blue? Yes if there is warm reflected light from an object nearby that has a warm local color. On a fall day where the bright yellow of nearby leaves is picked up by a surface in shadow and re-reflected to the eye.
It's so hard not to turn these observations into shouts on the paper.
The blue reflection of the sky in a shiny leaf is altered by the warm light of the atmosphere refected from other sources. So a bright blue that exactly matches the sky color may not be called for but it has to contain the same pigment. I think using an ultramarine in the sky and a phthalo blue on the leaf reflection would look disharmonious. It would be better to alter the ultrablue with the color of the light.
In the season just past here in Illinois there were many greens but some greens were clearly out of place and could not be used full strength. I did find that some of the more 'acid' spring greens could be used if altered by greyed reds to kill the acid yet provide some variety to the other green pastels.
I'm just going along free-associating as I type but this topic is a good one for the old noggin'. BillF

[Donald_Smith]

Well said Marc! don't you wish they had a spell checker on here? I know I do. I was going to run out to my car and get my book by Tony Couch. He discusses the same words you shared. If they can't find the book you recommended, then I know for a fact his are available. www.tonycouch.com I believe is his link. I ordered one off Ebay, then ran across his website, and found out, I bought an older copy for only $1.00 less than a newer version would have cost.

Now back to the main subject, harmony. It's rainy, you're out painting, the day is dark and overcast, and you just love the scene in front of you. For the painting to be harmious, you wont have strong contrasting sunlight, the painting will be dark and the colors grayed. For interest, you might have some bright lights in a window, or street lamp. It is the contrast between the lights and darks that will create interest, but that goes against harmony. Marc did an excellent job of explaining harmony through color schemes. You can also have harmony in each of the other areas, line, value, direction, color, shape, size and texture. Tony Couch says in "Watercolor You can Do it," that each of the above can be used in all of the others "UNiTY, CONFLICT, DOMINANCE, REPETITION, ALTERATION, BALANCE, HARMONY, AND GRADATION." You don't do them all at once, you pick and choose. These are tools and you use them as needed to best illustrate what you're wanting to focus on. If you see a stand of tall trees and you want to paint that, your harmony will be the verticle lines that are repeated with variety for interest. Balance will be created by having a big tree on one side and several small trees on the other. or maybe a clump of big trees on one side with a hill and boulder on the other. If you put all the weight on one side, the painting will loose it's ballance and it's harmony. Harmony is affected by each of these, line, value, direction, color, shape, size and texture.

I hope this makes since, it was rushed and I didn't have time to organize my thoughts very well.

Don

[Bill Foehringer]

Oops! When I typed 'hot air' I meant what I had just said was theoretical generalities. Nancy's question was more specific. What exactly does one do with paint and brush or pastel to create harmony? How does one take the knowledge that light, color, edge, shape, value and composition create harmony and turn that knowledge into harmonious marks on a painted surface? As Elizabeth said: practice and observation. I think we would all agree about that. Nancy's question is to the core: What is it that we should look for in the harmony of the subject that we can use to transfer that harmony to our paintings?
As I've thought just a bit more I think that part of the answer lies in the words subtlety and reserve. Know what it is in the subject that is of most interest. Make everything else relative to that. If an edge away from the center of interest is too sharp then the painting will be less harmonious.
Observe observe observe all day long every day. BillF

[Bill Foehringer]

OK Nancy. I've been looking at your thumbnail. Blue is the obvious unifier. Even the pile of rubble at mid-right edge and the foreground gravel are bluish.
Ok on my monitor the blue of the distant sky is a warm blue. The blue of the house trim is also a warm blue. Use the same blue pigment in both mixed accordingly.
The warm light of the sun on the clouds should be repeated in the sunny highlights. See the highlight in the corner of the cab roof nearest to the camera? See the light at the tip of the taller chimney? How about the shorter stubby chimney? A warm highlight also. The light on the fenders is also warm. How about the highlights on the power transformers on the telephone pole-warm. All of these highlights should contain the same warm pigment used in the clouds. The roof of the main building while red is blued by the overhead sky. The flat roofed leanto at the rear is reddish but reflects more of the warm sun. What about the snow on the distant slopes? Mostly blue in tone but maybe a dash of sunlight yellow to match the clouds? I know this goes against reducing yellow with distance but it seems that the color of that snow is warmer than if it were just reflecting blue sky and being blued by aerial perspective.
I see some blue violet flowers in lower left foreground. Compare them to the blue violet of the distant mountains. You may want to add a couple more clumps of blue violet flowers here and there. The 'white' siding of the building contains some blue also. I'm having trouble reading that as pthalo or ultramarine blue. I'd try a tint of ultramarine there.
There are some bluish, spikey looking shrubs that read toward a phthalo blue also.
I'm reading the tint of the foreground light flowers as a blue violet tint played against their sun-yellowed stems. The stand of pines in the middle ground are yellowed by the sunlight.
The pattern and harmony are in the push and pull between the warm sun and the coolish colors in the sky as they interplay with the local colors of the visual components in the subject.
The center of interest to me is how the old truck contains all the colors of interest in the rest of the painting. The remaining paint at the lower rear of the rear fender is more ultra than it is phthalo. The rust red echoes the red of the building roof. 'Color Echoes' would be my title for this painting. Is this what you were looking for Nancy? BillF

[Bill Foehringer]

Refering to Marc's comment about the hard thing is to convey a feeling to the viewer. The feeling I'd want to convey by echoing the colors in the truck into the landscape and back again is that this is a truck that is in its element. This is where it's 'lived' its 'life'. I'd want to say that the mountains have a way of leaving their imprint on the viewer as seen through the weathered truck and secondarily in the building. Our lives are weathered by our environment just as our creations are weathered by the mountains. Not that I could pull that off in a painting. BillF

[midcoast]

WOW, thanks for all of the replies, everyone. What a great discussion! This is going to be my lunchtime reading and responding, but thanks for keeping this discussion going I'll be back in a few...

Bill - yes, I'm looking for practical explanations from everyone on how they would approach "harmony" in the old truck photo (or in any other examples they wish to provide). It would be kinda cool to see what different painters would do with this subject matter, keeping in mind the focus of my questions on harmony.

Nancy

[Marc Hanson]

Nancy I see this verbally as a 'double split complementary' color scheme with the red/green split as dominant, with the blue/orange split as secondary. This allows you to venture to each side of the chosen colors. In this case I'd say green/blue- green with red as an accent would be the major thrust. Then greyed versions of the adjacent colors as subordinate supporting characters.

The light in the photo seems to have a 'silvery' cast to it and I'd consider that as the 'harmonizing' influence in any mixtures.

This is a case where the 'Christensen greys' can really help. Yeah it's a little technique-y, but it would go a long way to adding the unifying color cast that would pull an image like this together.

[Donald_Smith]

Nancy,

I have a few more minutes now that it's lunch time. I thought I would try to give my 2 cents on your reference photo specifically. On my monitor and with my color vision problems, I will have a slightly different perspective than most, so keep that in mind when reading my comments.

I agree with a lot of what Bill said, but I can't be as specific as he is on which colors to use.

To me the over color is blue, with some green and red thrown in. This makes for an interesting painting because you can quickly decide that the overall painting will have a blue and green color scheme, blue being the domaniant color and green to a lesser degree. The red roof makes for a nice contrast to the green to add some interest. I also see red in the rust spots on the truck, with blue highlights. The only part that doesn't look blue to me is the gray pile of rocks on the right, and the immediate forground rocks. I would leave the pile of rocks out, and also the diagonal gray line of rocks in the foreground. Lighting at this time of day is straight over head, and makes for a boring painting. If you're talented enough, and I think you are for all of your paintings I've seen, you can use your artistic license and either move the sun forwards to an evening lighting, or backwards to a morning lighting. Typically, a morning light will be bluer and easier to switch to, while an evening light is usually warmer, so you would loose all of those cool shades you now see in your photo.

I know some people don't, but when I started painting, I learned with acrylics, and the sky was always the first thing painted. I still start with the sky when painting oils. It has taken some practice but I can now get my trees on and have the sky color showing threw so I don't have to paint my sky holes in the trees. That isn't a problem with this painting, just thought I would mention it. To me the clouds also look cool, so I would start with cerelium blue lighten with some Tit white, paint the sky, add my clouds. Darken the sky mixture a little some Ultra Blue and a touch of Diox Purple (maybe), add more white if needed to get the mountain color just about 1 or 2 shades darker than the sky, a touch of burnt sienna could be added if you wanted to gray it a little. Paint my mountain, then add a little more blue and maybe purple to get the next closest mountain painted, it would be about 1 shade darker than the distant mountain. I would then work on my green trees with some sap green and Diox purple to darken and gray it a bit. The grass would come next. It looks cool to me, a blueish green, so I would take some of the tree color, add some blue and white to lighten it, then gradate the color from the distance to the middle foreground. I would then paint underpaint the roof of the house with some of the dark mountain color and some turps, later I would over paint it with a light redish brown color making sure some of the blue shows through. The redish brown could be darkend for use on the truck. There is more rust showing than blue so I would underpaint with the rust color. the sides of the house also look like a blueish white, so they would be painted before the truck. (I'm in a hurry so my order is getting a little mixed up, when I'm painting I have more time to think and contemplate my next move. I always start at the distance and work forwards which is easier with acrylics than oils because they dry so fast.) After the house and truck have been painted, I'll finish the gradation of the foreground grass, getting darker as I come forwards. Now the whole painting should be covered with paint and no canvas is showing. I would then start to add details. In the distant mountains, I would add the snow, the trees would get a light warm yellow green highlight to help add interest. Shadows would be painted, blue highlights on the truck, and the warm white highlight on the roof of the house. My foreground would get some texture for the bunches of grass, and some shadows as well. Since I do like the warm green grass in the foreground of your photo, I would add some of it in the lower corners to help center the interest on the truck. The harmony would be in the color scheme. You could move the house to the right just a little, and then the triangle of green trees would help to point towards it. I would try to come up with something that would help to lead the eye into the painting. The truck would have the brightest colors and the house second, then everything else would be grayed a little to help make the subject stand out. the roads might be left out, or I would use artisit lic. and create a dirt road leading up to the house to draw the eye into the painting. If I did that, I would leave out the jumble of stuff just to the right of the house's main roof. I like to keep my paintings simple, so unless something really adds to the painting or it is needed to support the subject, it gets left out. Say good buy to all the telephone poles. Of course the darker blue trim on the house would get added during the detail phase, but I'm learning that it should be suggested instead of actually painted in detail, since it is the secondary subject. I might also bring some of the sky color into the forground by making the flowers blueish instead of the stark white.

It's a difficult balance to paint what you see, yet use artistic license to create an interesting painting. They are opposites after all.

Comments and opposing ideas are welcomed.

Don

[Bill Foehringer]

Interesting takes on interpretation. It would be interesting to do this scene for each artist to do it their way first (say the blue green dominant way versus the split complementary way) and then switch and try to do it like the other artist's version. Right now I'm trying to envision how I would follow Marc's suggestion as a split complementary. Interesting thread. BillF

[midcoast]

Marc -

I like your ideas (your first post) about putting a splot of your mixed color on the canvas and seeing if it jumps back at you. I've noticed myself doing that in the past several months, so I guess I'm making progress. You put it eloquently though when you say the hard part is going past the mere color mixing to making the painting your own. I think this is where I am stuck. I'm fine with changing compositional elements to suit the painting, changing the flow, and pushing/pulling values, but I think there is another element to making "my" painting less literal and more about the way I see the world.

Walt Gonske is a good example of someone who I believe is successful at this (Besides Mr. Schmid). So is Kevin MacPherson. I guess that's "where" I want to get to with my painting, but don't quite "get it" yet.

I do use some of Christensen's methods from time to time, but I am going to have to play around with some of the other things mentioned here.

I see where getting the relationships of value and color are key, given that we paint with pigment instead of light. Something else I am continuing to work on. I am finding myself making my darks a little less intensely dark - lightening them up a little bit seems to make them "fit" better into the painting (for me, anyway). I think my eye is starting to be more sensitive to the true value of the dark. Interestingly, I'm also finding myself making lights a little less light and more colorful (eliminating more white from the mix).

Marc - this is strangely the first time I've heard about those design principles. I see now where we're talking about more than just color now. This is a great quote from the book and I appreciate your posting of it. It's going to take a while to assimilate this What I'm distilling from this is employing extremes in a painting opposes harmony, while more similarity enhances harmony.

Reading further, I'm starting to feel a light click on. Some of this is making sense with the use of a dominant color scheme, and in neutralizing. Wow, lots more to read!

Nancy