Large Colour Chart
The image above is a large colour chart. It is from my collection of dozens of colour charts however don’t be intimidated, most of my colour charts are only A4 in size (21cms x 29cms). Before jumping into colour, let me explain how and why I went to so much trouble to make colour charts.
I have to go back 4 decades to a time when I was eager to learn how to paint a ‘realistic’ oil landscape painting. I used to draw a lot in my school days but I wasn’t adept in the world of paint. I don’t want to bore you with all the details so I will skim.
I enrolled with 2 art teachers, first Professor Raymond De Cusack, followed by Michael Zaiter. Both teachers took in around 10 students per 3 hour lesson and you guessed it – the very first lessons were making colour charts. Years later when I went to art school at Eastern Sydney TAFE… same thing, learn about colour and had to make various colour wheels & charts.
COLOUR CHARTS
The chart above is on 300 gram paper and I painted a couple of layers of gesso primer over the paper before measuring my grid for the colour squares.
*It is very important to use gesso as an undercoat or binder under oil paints because gesso forms a barrier. Eventually the solvents from the oil paints leach into the paper and the paper will deteriorate thus loose it’s archival properties.
LET’S BEGIN!
PRIMARY COLOURS
Primary colours are RED, BLUE & YELLOW
*Quick Quiz… did you know that all colours come in two different temperatures – meaning they are also defined as warm or cool?
That is right, there is a warm yellow and a cool yellow! A warm red and a cool red… and so on, and so on!
Basically what this means can be explained by introducing the Colour Wheel.
The colour wheel is a MUST-HAVE for all artists and designers, it is your starting point for understanding colour relationships. It is a wonderful tool that explains all the basic principles of colour.
So, look at how the colours are arranged on a colour wheel, starting at yellow and going around the wheel in a clockwise motion – yellow | yellow-green | green | blue-green | blue | blue-violet | violet | red-violet | red | red-orange | orange | yellow-orange.
From yellow-green to violet are on the cool side of the colour spectrum (receding colours), whilst red-violet to yellow are warm (advancing colours).
“How do I get a cool yellow” you might be asking.
If you add a dash of any colour from the cool side of the colour wheel to your yellow, the yellow becomes a cool yellow.
Interesting fact:
Did you know that there have been experiments done to prove the human response to the temperature of colours?
Test subjects felt ‘colder’ in a room painted blue-green as opposed to the same room re-painted red-orange. This tends to indicate that the occupant’s metabolism speeds up in the ‘warm’ coloured room!
Colour Wheel
At this stage, I don’t feel the need to explain everything about *value, *tone, *complementary colours etc because it is all there in the images (colour wheel). If you have never used a colour wheel before… go exploring!
Read everything. Take your time and try to work it out what it means.
The colour wheel I have was purchased from Eckersleys. I am not sure if other suppliers stock this particular wheel but this one is great. It is double sided as you can see by the pics, and it has two layers of cardboard to each side. The base layer has all the colours printed on it. As you rotate the top layer you can see the underlying colours through the little ‘window slots’.
At the current position of the arrows, it shows orange-red is the complementary colour for blue-green. If I were to rotate the arrow to point to blue, the complementary colour for blue is orange (opposite each other on the wheel). The same goes for all colour relationships, just turn the dial.
Brown Colour Chart
Combined Browns Colour Chart
I have included some of my colour charts to show the true benefits of going to the trouble of doing colour mixing exercises, especially for NEWBIE artists!
- Drawing up a grid is useful for learning how to scale up artwork rather than copying via mechanical devices. For example: if you wish to draw an accurate pet portrait, using grids will help guide you.
- Filling in the squares of colour will help you learn how to hold a brush and how to cut in an area. So in essence, you are learning how to paint on your colour scales rather than on a painting. The more control and confidence you have before actually tackling a painting, the better.
- By doing colour charts you learn about tone. As you try to keep each tint equally distant from the last, you are training your mind to have better judgement on proportions. If you go back to the greyscale on the colour wheel, value 2 is tonally in the middle of values 1 and 3. And the same goes for colour scales. So you are learning how to mix colours in small amounts so you don’t waste too much paint. We have all made errors in judgement when it comes to matching colours, myself included.
- Finally, the greatest benefit is that you will have a vast library of colours to scan when matching your painting reference material.
If you go back up to the 1st browns scale, I have started with hues straight from the tube. Then I added tints (Titanium White) in graduating amounts. You could do 7 or 9 scales but I believe 5 is enough – you can perceive the colours in-between.
In the 2nd chart (combined browns) – I have used Burnt Umber as my core colour. Look at the difference in the tints when I introduced the other browns. Burnt Umber mixed with Cadmium Red is a completely different colour now.
Hero Image: Colour Chart
For the colour chart at the top of the page, I went a step further.
*The 1st row is a straight colour (hue) from the tubes – the colours are written above each colour.
*The 2nd row, each hue is mixed with titanium white – ratio: 50/50
I loosely mixed the colours so it indicates various levels of tinting in one square
*The 3rd row shows sap green on the right – I mixed the hues from the top row with sap green 50/50
*The 4th row consists of the top hues, mixed with sap green 50/50 – now I add titanium white 50/50
I mixed the hues listed along the top with the hues written on the side of the chart. Then on the rows (down the right side) without writing, I mixed titanium white. I followed this procedure all the way down the colour chart. So the above colour chart example was about a variety of hues mixed with a variety of green hues, then tinted to give me an understanding of what colours would be achieved by these particular combos.
After I completed this large colour chart, I did the same but added blues down the side. Then I did another one with reds. At the end of the day, no more guesswork when I need to get a colour match. All the examples I have shown here in this blog are oil paints. I have not done the same with acrylic paint but the principles are the same.
Advanced Colour
The Elements Of Colour – by Johannes Itten
Johannes Ittens was born in 1888, Switzerland.
This book teaches students every aspect of colour theory and it is invaluable to any serious artist. I have pulled a couple of pages just to demonstrate how comprehensive Johannes Ittens knowledge is. He studied and compared the findings of all the colourist masters, then formulated his own extended theories and observations.
Ittens dedicated over 50 years of his life to the study of colour!
Light Dark Contrast
In this example taken from the book, Ittens talks about the importance of understanding light and dark contrasts and various graduations. In image 13 all the colours have equal brilliance whereas image 14 is about equal darkness. At a glance, the yellow square in the middle appears to be brighter than the other squares. But if you squint your eyes almost shut, all the colours will blur to make one equal tone, thus rendering them of equal brilliance.
Contrast Of Extension
There are 2 factors that determine the force of a colour, extent & brilliance.
The extension of a colour refers to the proportions of real estate colours taken up. Look at image 47, the green field dominates the real estate yet the red jumps out at the viewer. The colours are not in harmony or balance even though they are complementary colours!
Don’t confuse saturation (colourfulness) with brilliance (brightness)
Brilliance is about the light value of a hue (colour).
Did you know that colours have different levels of intensity or brilliance? Even though yellow and violet are complementary opposites, yellow is 3 times more brilliant. So to make purple and yellow appear in perfect harmonious balance – you need violet to dominate the real estate. Image 42. Yellow 1/4 : Violet 3/4
Yellow Blue Tonal Chart
The example above is a graduation of hue from yellow to blue with tints on the left, and shades on the right. I painted a series of colour charts and scales back in 2003 whilst studying Fine Arts at TAFE. all these examples were painted using gouache.
16 Segment Colour Wheel
The above example is a 16-segment colour wheel, I just added an extra graduation between the primary colours. In the middle section I show how mixing 2 primary colours yields the middle (in-between) colour – ex: yellow + red = orange.
Another fun fact:
Did you know that if you mix 2 complementary colours in equal proportions – you get grey?
Red + Green = Grey
Blue + Orange = Grey
Yellow + Violet = Grey
Colour Contrast
Above: The pattern or design is the same so it is only colour that changes yet we get an entirely different feeling or response when viewing the squares.
Colour theory is so in-depth that I could go on for hours, … actually days or weeks.
I think that will do for now, I just wanted to whet your appetite. I hope you got inspired to go forth and deep dive into the wonderful world of colour!
