| Author | Message | ||
  Dake |
If physics was all we had the moon would just be a rock in space. I think someone else said that somewhere but i like it. | ||
Anonymous |
The more I've thought about this subject, the more I think you (Robert) make mountains out of molehills. I am sticking to my flawed metaphor! | ||
Robert |
No, it's not Navaho--just nonsensical gibberish. But somehow I was inspired. | ||
Robert |
Kie 'Swanishijha lupo i' nabwanit Suji kinniewopli, Gat. | ||
Louise Nielsen |
---"Rotorange und Blaugrün sind die Pole des Kaltwarmkontrasts, die Farben dazwischen wirken bald kalt, bald warm, je nach ihrer Kontrastierung mit wärmeren oder kälteren Tönen" That means: redorange and bluegreen are the poles of the cold-warm-contrast, the colors in between seem to be cool or warm in relation to contrasts with other colors. Redorange is always warm. It dos not matter wich color is next to it. Same with bluegreen, it is always cool. (quoted from Ralf)--- If you want to write German then translate properly! -A more true translation(but probably not totally correct as I cannot translate the word 'bald' in this): redorange and bluegreen are the poles of the cold-warm-contrast, the colors in between seem to be cool(er) or warm(er) depending on contrasts with warmer or cooler tones | ||
George |
Robert, I started a new thread to answer your question. | ||
Robert |
George--Very good post. Thanks. Since we share a plein air passion, I'm curious. What is your exact palette? | ||
George |
Robert, Hi, I just came to this board. I find this thread very interesting. I hope I’m not too late to add my two cents. Robert, a lot of people seem to have missed your central point that “bias” is a more useful term for color mixing and color neutralizing than the vague, subjective and relative terms "warm" and "cool”. I’ll try not to make that mistake. But before I get to my two cents let me state that you really hooked my attention when you said - “I do all of my work plein air or from sketches and believe so much in this discipline that I purposefully don't own a camera”. This caught my attention because I too work plein air (or from memory) and also do not own a camera. I don’t understand the desire to paint a copy (painting) of a copy (photograph) of nature. Why paint from a copy (photo image) when one can paint from the original. I agree that the terms "warm" and "cool” are silly when talking about color straight from the tube or color mixed on the palette, but they can be very useful, clear and exact terms to use while thinking during the act of creating (painting). When you sit on a rock by a mountain stream and paint the water as it flows over and around the adjacent rocks, the subtleties of color are not easily thought of as “biased” toward this color or that color (to many variations exist). It’s much more useful to think of the raise in a wave of water as “cool” and the fall of the wave of water as “warm”. And it is more exact to think of one side of a rock as “warm” and the other side of that rock as “cool”. Does it matter what “warm or “cool” pigments you use? Not Really! What matters is that the terms “warm” and “cool” (in this context) are not subjective at all. Put your hand on the part of the rock that is in the sun and it will be “warmer” than the part of the rock that is in the shade. Then look at the color of the part of that rock that is in the sun and it will have more yellow than the part of the rock that is in the shade. Put your hand in the deep water and it will be “cooler” than the water near the surface. Then look at the water in the deep pool of the wave and it will have more red than thin blue green of the upper part of the wave. Look at the sun on the leaves as it breaks through the canopy of trees and notice that it has more yellow than the blue green leaves in the shadows. Touch those yellow (light reflecting) leaves – they will be warmer than the cool (to the touch) blue green leaves (to the eye) in the shadows. George | ||
Sid |
I agree with that completely. Maybe, after being educated as and working as a scientist, and now being retired as an artist, I'm just refusing to step back into the science mode!! Just another stubborn old coot! | ||
Garydoc (Garydoc) |
Sid, I basically agree with your position. It is not necessary to be a scientist to be an artist. But...when someone wonders "why does it work that way" or more importantly "why didn't it work this time" the science gives the reason. Looking at spectral curves and realizing that 'this pigment is a little weak in this part of the spectrum' doesn't make you a scientist, only a knowledgable colorist. The more info one has about a pigment, the more one can squeeze out of it's performance. | ||
Sid |
Robert: To the contrary, I consider most of the discussions, questions, and advice given on this board to be very valuable! I just thought that the thread on warm/ cool vs. physical properties was getting dragged out and was a bit over the top when it was suggested that artists should essentially start studying physics! We all should be ready and willing to offer advice to others on the board. That is what I have assumed it is for. But no one should get upset if someone else has a different view of the topic. There are many different ways of accomplishing art and none of them are "wrong," just different. I am a firm believer in "Whatever works for you!" I look forward to more discussion with you and others, but be ready. I may disagree. And, sometimes I might even poke a little fun at you! That's ok, I hope? | ||
Robert |
Sid-- I thnik its obvious to all of us that art has been created for millenia without knowldege of the science of color pigment light reflectance. Also, I think its clear that most people wouldn't want to know about it because it would clutter their minds. That does not change the fact that the knowledge exists or that knowing these things would make color mixing less hit and miss, FWIW. It also is a fact that brushes are very personal choice. That said, if someone asks for advice or prefreference it seems okay to give it. otherwise no help would be offered. Basically what you seem to imply is that out dicussions are foolish becasue in the case of colors--"it's the art that counts npt the sciene" and " since bruishes are personal it makes no sense to recommend brushes." The logical end to this is to npt have these discussions. That does seem the norm becasue this board is often silent for months. Perhaps that is a better situation? | ||
Sid |
You know, I'll bet if more artists were forced to carefully study the hue angles and spectral curves of all their paintings, there would be a lot fewer artists!! Don't lose sight of the fact that the bulk of the worlds artists, including most professional teaching artists, seem quite comfortable using the concept of warm and cool colors, even if the concept is a little vague. Your physics may be absolutely correct, but how many artists want to be physicists? Not me! But don't let me derail your learned discussion. I think I'll go paint a predominantly cool painting. (Wait, I think all my paintings are "cool." Go figure! | ||
Garydoc (Garydoc) |
Robert, of course there are secondary peaks and dips in a pigment spectrum. That is why the individual pigments need to have their color spectra published. Ralph Meyer's book "The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques" (my copy is the 5th ed.) publishes many pigments' spectral curves, which is precisely what you are talking about. An artist, especially in transparent techniques, needs to know this information to properly control his/her pigments, and avoid all this warm/cool stuff. Unfortunately this information is not readily available on all pigments in a single source. I do however try to buy only single pigment paints to avoid the problem of ending up with mud. If you combine a pigment with two peaks in the blue and yellow (looks green to me) with a reddy-orange two peak pigment, you might not get a black, only a clot of dark clay. All manufacturors need to publish their pigments spectral curves. | ||
Robert |
Good Point -- Gary I often refer to hue angles posted on handprint to see exactly what "color" an unknown paint offering is to see it it's something I like. (Holbein royal blue has a hue angle of 296 which is similar to french ultramarine's hue angle, so I know about what color I'm getting). However, the original point of my starting this thread was definately related to "Mixology" not naming. It was to proffer "bias as more useful than "temperature". That's all. The idea is that though a pigment (as opposed to color) has a prevailing hue, its spectrum reveals that hue to be made of a unique combination of wavelengths. Ultramarine may have a spike of blue but also a lesser spike of violet and even a small one of green. So when mixing, that small spike of green means it will mix very weak greens and the large spike of violet will mean it will mix bright violets. It is violet **Biased**--I am asserting that this is more useful in terms of color mixing and color neutralizing than the vague, subjevtive and relative terms "warm" and "cool." | ||
Garydoc (Garydoc) |
Robert, et all I go back to my post way earlier. We should have colors designated by their peak wavelenth. There is nothing wrong with noting the "apparent" color that a tube contains by that sort of nomenclature. Then you would know instantly that a "red" pigment of R700 is "yellower" than one of R725. That is NOT warmer or cooler, merely that the R700 is biased more toward the middle of the spectrum than the 725 which is biased more toward IR (NOT really "bluer" but "redder"!) This is an accurate nomenclature, and goes against all the other mindless crap thats been touted about color theories. As you said, or implied, the rest of it is about MIXING colors from a limited palette. That is not about naming colors, only about practical ways to achieve a "PEAK REFLECTANCE" which we call "hue". That is the hard science, the facts as far as can be put into english. (Psychology, poetry, mixology, and all the rest are real, but have no basis in naming colors.) | ||
Robert |
Thanks so much Jane, but I don't have the equipment or know how to post images on the web. I do all of my work plein air or from sketches and believe so much in this discipline that I purposefully don't own a camera -- to avoid temptation. This discussion group and e-mail are all the web involvement I allow myself. Have never believed the web was a viable place to sell. | ||
jandrle |
Robert... can you guide me to some of your art posted on this site or another? I would like to see it. Thanks, Jane | ||
Erica |
Robert-- I've merely observed this debate up until now but thought I'd chime in. A metaphor is the comparison of something literal to something imaginative. The metaphor is useful in drawing parallels, but is in fact not literally true. Given this understanding, you are on target in refering to the warm / cool comparison as metaphor and not fact, since colors are not literally of different degrees farenheit. Is this a flawed metaphor as you assert? In looking at why you asserted it, I would have to agree that it is, especially in areas of proximity. Is red violet cool or warm? It is cooler than scarlet and warmer than violet. What does that tell us? Actually next to nothing. It's just a way of relating colors--a mental shorthand. But you say this is okay, but it impedes our actual understanding if we stop there. This leads to understanding of "primary" colors. This involves a lot reading into color theory. Thankfully I have read your two main sources, Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green by Wilcox and Handprint's massive section on the subject. I have to concur with you. If you understand what is really going on with light and pigments, then actually there are not three primaries--whether or not you call one of them red or magenta. I feel that your efforts to explain these things are wasted on those who are responding since if they really were interested in facts, they'd look them up. They are artists and may not care. However, sometimes knowledge of one's tools allows one to use them more fluently. Please bother to proof your writing. It would make it more pleasant to follow. Erika Gardner | ||
Robert |
Here we are either at a point of understanding or an unbreachable impasse: I am talking about the actual reality, the "facts," not the metapohors we employ to aid out understanind. In that sense, factually, warm and cool are not factually qualities of colors and there are not factually three primaries at all, never were-- Calling a color warm or cool is metaphor, not fact, ie poetry. Yes art is poetry, but that's not the same as factual description of the bature of color. Your description of the three primaries is not at all a reflection of reality but only pedagological convienance. I refer you to this page that is a nive overvirew of the topic: http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color14.html#history And here is a little conclucion excerpt: The common thread among all these applications of the "primary" color concept — and the only justifiable reason for "primary" color mixing — is the desire to minimize the number of colors required to produce all mixed hues in a specific context. This goal makes biological sense if you are evolving a color sensing eye (and need to minimize the number of photoreceptor cells), mathematical sense if you want to model how that eye works (and want to do it with the fewest variables), economic sense if you are printing a color job (where each color requires a separate printing plate, ink, and pass with the printing press), or technological sense if you are manufacturing color televisions or computer monitors or color film (where each color requires a separate phosphor or dye). But if you are not building eyes or modeling color vision responses or running a printing press or designing a computer monitor, and can inexpensively "expand your gamut" with four paints — or six, or twelve, or twenty — on your palette, then "primary" colors are simply irrelevant to your purposes Quoted from Handprint.com | ||
Ralf |
Robert wrote: "...Please acknowledge that you are speaking poetry, not fact. ..." Art is about poetry! I guess you would agree to that. "...I think that since blue gtreen contains an element of yellow that blue lacks, it must be warmer!!!... " Here again some color theorie: There are three basic pigment colors: redviolet(magenta), yellow and bluegreen (cyan) The three basic light colors are: red, green and blue. (So it is a natures fact, that cyan, yellow and magenta are the 'body'-colors) We paint with pigments, so cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY) are our basic colors. So there is no yellow in pure cyan. (You can not mix a pure cyan with blue and yellow!) You can mix blue with cyan and magenta (If you can not, try to get pure cyan). So blue contains a warm part! The warmest basic colors are magenta and yellow. The warmest color at all is a mixture of magenta and yellow (redorange) To get this you must use absolutley pure and clean pigments!!! Or try it this way: Add little points of cyan next to as many points of magenta. (Yust look at a color print!) -> You will see blue. Don't be fooled by the pigments you can buy. There is no yellow in bluegreen. You mix pure green with yellow and pure bluegreen! (You can also mix a duller green with blue and yellow) You should read about the psychology of colors (again some kind of poetry) where people in a redorange room believe it is 5 degrees warmer than people in a bluegreen (cyan) room. | ||
Robert |
Again, I have no quibble whith those who relate to warm-cool as a useful metaphoir. But, as it was presented by an earlier poster, it is not a "factual" description of color--but metaphor, and as such is useful but does not substitute for actual knowledge, though some treat it as if it did. Well, to cut through it all, let's say that technique and hard knowledge about my chose field of expertise, watercolor painting, is not only useless, but counterproductive. Let's say that what is important is pure self-expression without the encumbrances of technical bindings. Right...(he says saracsticlly). Let's say that Yo-yo Ma never learned to play the cello by playing scales and mastering all of the knowledge of technique and playing all of the classics to perfection. Let's say that the US women's olypic gymnastics team just decided never to worry about technique and knowledge about what to do but just to run out and spontaneouly move about on the bars and floor without any training. There's a lot of bad art out there produced by sensitive, heartful people. There's also technically perfect art that seems souless. You need both, knowledge/technique and soul. | ||
Zoe |
Dare I jump into this "metaphor." I will :) I don't think Robert the intention of this metaphor is intellectual but rather inferred intuition. One often speaks of warm and cool in people, places and art. Some colours envelop; other colours repell. Several colours engage, many evoke. To ascribe "cool" and "warm" to a colour is a metaphor, and to my way of thinking a very apt metaphor. If you tell me that you will paint your bedroom a cool lemon yellow, I immediately form an image of a "fresh lemon." If you merely told me you were painting your room a yellow colour, I might get lost in all the various yellows that dance in my head. Knowing that one yellow leans more to green might help my painting, however, it doesn't inform my vision. Just my thoughts! | ||
Robert |
I think my philosophy is 2 part: Spiritless art is dead but, art without the skill to effectively communicate its vision is spiritless. | ||
Robert |
Jane, What is the problem with a bit of knowledge and technical skill? It does not undercut or nullify artistic greatness. I heard an interview with Sarah Brightman on PBS this week. She , great a singer as she is, that she spends hours each day singing scales. Does her attention to technical matters nullify her great voice or enable her to realize its fullest expression. I find this dichotomy between knowledge and art, technique and artist greatness sophomoric and foolish. Any generalization we make about art and its production are suspect. | ||
jandrle |
I would say that the word "authentic" is not synonomous with the word "good" or "masterpiece". Technical skills can produce a fine looking painting but I would not call it art. Yes, I stand by my statement. | ||
Robert |
"... pour your heart out on canvas." This raises an interesting (to me) question. Is "pouring your heart out on canvas" the only way to achieve authenticity? I've read plenty of terrible poetry in which the poet"poured his (her) heart out." The poems were sinvere but sounded like hallmark greeting cards. Might the same thing apply to art? What about the opposite of "pouring your heart out:disappearing--so the vision can come through unencumbered by the vagaries of emotions? For every van gogh, there is a cezanne. | ||
jandrle |
I learned about finding a person in his or her art in college through critiques of our student artwork. The first critique I ever had in a drawing class the instructor said that the only thing my work told him was that I was not telling him anything about myself. This is the single hardest challenge any artist has. Paint what you love, find your voice, pour your heart out on canvas. Where do you think these cliches come from? It isn't at all about what works for me, it is what art is all about. | ||
Robert |
"I belong to a cooperative gallery and can sit here as I read these posts and assign warm and cool to every member in it. " If this works for you, great | ||
jandrle |
To some degree I believe that warm and cool are important in painting. Generally an artist will have (and be comfortable with) a warm palette or a cool palette depending on who they are. Painting is what a person is saying about him or herself. Warm and cool play into that. It isn't something an artist intellectulizes about, arguing about what is this and what is that, it is an overall feeling a painting takes on... I belong to a cooperative gallery and can sit here as I read these posts and assign warm and cool to every member in it. And their art reflects who they are. I am not assigning a positive or negative value to either. | ||
Robert |
I was overly emphatic in the preceding post. Sorry if I offended-- not my intent. This warm and cool debate is beginning to strike me the same way discussions of presidential politics is striking me. People come into the discussions with their minds made up, filled with whatever they've been fed by whomever they've been listening to. Such discussions never change minds, they simply become an opportunity for further entrenchment in a particular mindset. Enough for me. I'm out of this. | ||
Robert |
Ralf wrote: Here are some facts: The coolest color is not blue. It's blue-green! The warmest color is not red. It's red-orange! So ultramarine is warmer than cerulean! Cadmium red is warm!! compared to Quinacridone violet (permanent rose) and nearly as warm as cadmium orange! Facts!!!! Give me a break!!!! You can't be serious. Is your mind unable to separate fact from poetry? Please acknowledge that you are speaking poetry, not fact. Blue green is neither warm nor cool. It is a specific wavelength of light and is purely a visualo phemomenon, not a tactile one as warm and cool monikers suggest. If you, admittedly in the majority (schooled as you were by artists who bought into this methaphor,, who are convinced that colors are cool and warm want to use this as a convienant shortcut to imprecisely understand color, be my guest. But please realize it is metaphor and is very unspecific and relative at that. It is poetry not fact and as such obfuscates the more fundamental realities of color. Is blue green really "coolr" than blue/ By whose rules? I think that since blue gtreen contains an element of yellow that blue lacks, it must be warmer!!! But it's all subjective and besides if I touch with my finger a puddle of cerulean and a puddle of cadmium scarlet they are both the same temperature. | ||
Ralf |
Robert wrote: .. One is avoiding the fact that cerulean leans more toward green (with its yellow content). Wouldn't this make it warmer, since yellow is warmer than violet. But ultramarine is said to be warmer. ... Here are some facts: The coolest color is not blue. It's blue-green! The warmest color is not red. It's red-orange! So ultramarine is warmer than cerulean! Cadmium red is warm!! compared to Quinacridone violet (permanent rose) and nearly as warm as cadmium orange! You can find this out in a book of Johannes Itten 'Kunst der Farbe'. It is available in English too, I think. "Rotorange und Blaugrün sind die Pole des Kaltwarmkontrasts, die Farben dazwischen wirken bald kalt, bald warm, je nach ihrer Kontrastierung mit wärmeren oder kälteren Tönen" That means: redorange and bluegreen are the poles of the cold-warm-contrast, the colors in between seem to be cool or warm in relation to contrasts with other colors. Redorange is always warm. It dos not matter wich color is next to it. Same with bluegreen, it is always cool. | ||
Robert |
aren't we deciding on the temperature in relationship to other elements? --Mary Mary--my point is that "temperature" is a flawed metaphor. Temperature is what your skin feels when you touch bath water. Your eyes, in the case of blue for example, see biases toward green or violet. Is green really cool whiole violet is warm? No. Green contains yellow which is warm also. It's all utter nonsense. I do not relate and am becoming very intoleratnt of "temperature" talk. By hey, that's just me. | ||
Mary Vivit |
And, of course, I meant to write, "iT depends". | ||
Mary Vivit |
ACK!!! Don't give up entirely!! I think you're right on track. When we look at a subject to paint, be it abstract or realistic or somewhere in between, aren't we deciding on the temperature in relationship to other elements? I do primarily botanicals. So when I look at that peony or lily or rose or whatever, I can see areas that are warmer or cooler *in relation to* adjacent and surrounding areas. The temperature issue can't be hard and fast as to "what-colors-are-cool/what-colors-are-warm"...more like "what color am I going to glaze this petal with to cool it down". Might be blue. Might be a violet-red. My favorite answer: I depends. | ||
Robert |
"Is cadmium red warm or cool? Cool if compared to Quinacridone violet (permanent rose), warm if compared to cadmium orange. " See Ive even confusd myself. Isn't this nonsensical, to try to sort out wheterh Cadmium Red is warm or cool?! I suppose it is warm compared to Quinacridone violet and cool when compared to cadmium orange. Wait a minute------- Cadmium red cool?????????I thought red was the hottest color? Does this mean that the colors on each side of cadmium red are cooler?????? Cadmium orange and aliz crimson are both cooler than cad. red???????? Mercy! Spare me! I give UPPPPPPPPPP. They are coming to take me away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | ||
Robert |
Another way of explaining this issue-- Is lemon yellow warm or cool? Warm if compared to pthalo green, cool if compared to cadmium yellow pale. Is cadmium yellow pale warm or cool? Cool if compared to cadmium yellow medium, Warm if compared to lemon yellow . Is cadmium red warm or cool? Cool if compared to Quinacridone violet (permanent rose), warm if compared to cadmium orange. To say cadmium red is warmer than cadmium orange conveys next to nothing. What does it mean to "warm up" a passage? Add a "cool" red or a warm red, or a warm yellow???????????????????? We must abandon this language if for no other reason because it is irritating as hell to have to wade through for people who see it's impoverished nature. Of course we still have to listen to this stuff because so many people use it and we have to be polite because we want to be friendly (in the same way we smile and nod when a person is senile), but if we thought in terms of the color wheel and explained a color's exact hue by it's tendency toward one of its 2 neighbors on the wheel, we would actually be communicating something clearly. Warm and cool have to do with bathwater, not color!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | ||
Robert |
More toward Kukana's question-- "Ultramarine blue is a violet biased blue. Cerulean blue is a green biased blue." We should all consider what one is saying by calling cerulean "cooler" than ultramarine (since ultramarine is "warm" becasue of its violet bias). One is avoiding the fact that cerulean leans more toward green (with its yellow content). Wouldn't this make it warmer, since yellow is warmer than violet. But ultramarine is said to be warmer. The whole warm cool thing falls apart easily, doesn't it? | ||
Robert |
Actually it is quite established already. The three primaries are biased towards on or the other of the secondaries. A given Blue is biased toward either violet or green etc. Michael Wilcox's Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green uses this thinking with useful instructive results. Robert | ||
Kukana |
OK, Lets figure out the wording here,.. Robert, how do you think we should state the Bias. Ultramarine Blue Biased towards Violet? A violet biased Ultramarine? Ultramarine with a violet bias? I think the change away from the whole cool/warm thing has to start somewhere..why not with us. But we should start it with some consistancy in verbage. | ||
jandrle |
Kukana... I am doing local shows. Two are Howard Alan, the others are local promoters, shows that have proven to be good for me in the past. Am toying with a trip to Florida, trying to get into the Las Olas show and one in Key West. Just did a show at our gallery called Beach Trips and have a ton of Florida style stuff... of course I have to apply and be accepted in both if I decide to do them. Last month was my small Iowa hometown's 150th anniversary and I did eight images of historic places there and had cards printed. That has been my biggest money maker so far this year. The spring shows were awful here, I talked to a woman yesterday who did a show that had been very good for her in the past and she didn't sell one thing. What has your experience been? Jane | ||
rainbow |
This thread has really helped me understand this--the description is better. I can look at my palette and swatches and see what I color I want to use but the whole warm/ cool thing escaped me as a theory. Even makeups use that--I buy the neutrals to simplify things. I have noticed in the last few years when I go for eye exams that I see a yellow tint with one eye and not the other. I don't have cataracts, I have light brown/hazel eyes. Does anyone else have this? Is it normal? I don't think it affects my painting but it's weird. | ||
Kukana |
The typo thing is my biggest faux pas too. I judt think faster than I type!! I was talking to some people today about the warm cool thing they asked me to write an article for our newletter on it. We'll see! I think I'll just tell everyone to read this thread. | ||
Robert |
I really am sorry I post often with typos. I need to proofread before I post, not after. | ||
Robert |
Exactly Kakuna-- Cerulean blue is a green biased blue but is it warm or cool? it is supposedly cooler than ultramarine but since it contains more grren, a warmer color than blue, it is really warmer that ultramarine!!! The wold warm coolr descriptor is so flawed that I can't think of anything in any other discipline that is nearly so imprecise and relative. To be frank, whenever I read someone descrining their paintings as warm or cool I get the spinal shivverrers like nails on the blackboard. I don't think we should let it always go unchallenged as we, as artists, have. But of course, it's a little thing in the big picture. | ||
Kukana |
I understand what you are saying but using the bias term is so much more descriptive. Jane, I like you,am a "Warm" painter. I too, struggle to paint "cool" To see our work side by side one might call one cooler and one warmer simpy if one is bais toward say a yellow orange and one slighty towards a more green yellow. Both would be warm if compared to a purple and blue painting yet between the two of us there would be a warm and cool one. This is exactly the struggles I had with paint on my walls. I kept saying that the studio was too cool of a yellow and the painter said "Lady, ya can't get any warmer that yella!" Compared to my purple foyer it was warm but it was more Biased towards green than I would have liked! Compared to my orange terra cotta tile it looked icey! It is being repainted today! I like the Bias term! :) (PS Jane, Are you doing a bunch of shows this year???) | ||
jandrle |
When I was doing digital imaging I had an ongoing conflict with the owner of the shop I was working in. I saw warm and he saw cool. That meant that I was biased toward yellow (warm) and he was biased toward blue (cool). I think this might be common language for photographers. If you look at the Pantone inks swatch books you see warm greys and cool greys, again yellow vs. blue. In a painting I would think it is an overall feel. I would assume the chosen combination of colors used would follow a person's bias naturally. For instance it would be very hard for me to paint a cool painting. Or use a cool palette. Just wouldn't look good to me. Jane | ||
Robert |
Boy did I goof on the Suzie Short post--She uses the term "bias" but she uses it to refer to "warm or cool bias" (sense of touch), not color (sense of sight)bias such as red or blue etc. I guess that just shows that artist have been almost universally mislead in terms the way to communicate color verbally. Her lingo is no net improvement over the usual warm cool mess. Sorry, R. | ||
Robert |
Bias-- is fairly widely used (more accurate lingo than warm / cool). For example, here's a recommended palette from Suzie Short's website describing a basic palette in terms of bias: 7 BASIC WATERCOLOR PIGMENTS - 1. A Cool yellow-bias to green- such as Hansa (med PY97); Windsor Yellow (PY175, PY154, PY97); Lemon Yellow (PY3-not Cadmium) 2. A Warm yellow-bias to orange- such as New Gamboge (PY153) or Indian Yellow (PY108) 3. A Cool red- bias to purple-such as Permanent Rose, Quinacridone Rose, (PV19) 4. A Warm red- bias to orange-such as Vermilion (PR188; PR254+PY154) Perinone orange (PO43) Quinacrodone Coral (PR209) Perylene Scarlet (PR149) Cadmium Red hue* 5. A Warm blue-bias to purple-such as Cobalt blue (PB28) Ultramarine (PB29) 6. A Cool blue-bias to green- such as Pthalo blue, Windsor blue, Intense blue (PB15 or PB15:3) 7. A warm neutral (brown) bias to orange- such as Burnt Sienna (PBr7, PR101) or Quinacridone Burnt Orange (PO48) | ||
Kukana |
I am building a new home and studio right now and we are finally at the painting stage. As I have been trying to pick out colors for the walls of the studio I am amazed at the "bias" my "brains see's" as I am trying to pick out a yellow. After reading this thread I love John's verbage of calling it a bias...So much easier to express yellow bias towards orange..towards green, etc. I even have the boys down at Benjamin Moore paint store using it now. What great word can we use when talking about graying the color and inturn biasing it toward a specific color as Jeanne Dobie does in her book about neutrals??? By the way, i've decided Yellow is a hard color to use in a room with western light. I thought I found the perfect color..but.... At 10 am it bias toward green, 2pm it obnoxious lemon and by 6pm it orange! I've decided yellow is not going to work. I love how much I learn on this board from you all!!! | ||
Garydoc (Garydoc) |
CUTE DAKE!!!lol | ||
dake |
Hey Garydoc, you should know then that it's not the eyes that "see", it's the brain. | ||
Robert |
you could order them over the internet and put a rush on them (with Cheap Joes). | ||
bates |
I am looking for suppliers in Ontario who sell Winsor Newton water colour paints. Any information you provide is greatly appreciated. I called Curry's but they are backlogged. I need paints by Aug. 12 | ||
Robert |
And even in the initial post I leaned too far to convention by calling alpha quinacridone violet, "permanent rose." Another related issue for another day--using brand names for pigments. | ||
Anonymous |
Another agreement here!! When I first started painting, I found this very unhelpful. Now when teachers/authors use it, I just do the translation in my head. When I work with my limited palette, 2 reds, 2 blues, 2 yellows, I think of them as shifting on the color wheel, not warm or cool, but I think every teacher is forced into using the warm-cool thing, since the metaphor is everywhere. ML | ||
Garydoc (Garydoc) |
Exactly correct!! As an eye doctor, I feel that color theory should be taught in accord with correct physical principles. The wavelength of the light (as we perceive it) is the overriding characteristic of the color. That is the hue. Tints and shades are variations of hue based upon chroma and intensity. Color temperature is a totally different concept that is based upon the color of a radiating body, and is the only thing that should be equated as to being "warmer or cooler". Since we can't call colors by their peak spectral reflection, we can use their pigment names and describe them by their bias as Robert suggests. That is, to me, an acceptable shorthand. (It would be nice if we could actually call a pigment R720nm or somesuch, but then the manufacturers would all have to standardize their colors too much.) | ||
John Preston |
Robert, I agree completely. No concept confounds students more than warm and cool, precisely because it's all so relative. Bias is SO much easier to see and grasp. I think it's all the fault of Josef Albers and Hans Hoffman, who popularized it. | ||
Robert |
In the interest of discussion, I personally feel it's a shame so many artists have picked up the unfortunate method of distingishing shades of color as "cool" or "warm." I realize the practice is almost ubiquitous but as someone who wasn't trained to use these terms I find their use irritating in thier imprecision. I understand it is convienant to refer to lemon yellow as cool and indian yellow as warm, to call ultramarine blue warm and pthalo blue cool, to say that permanent rose is cooler than cadmium scarlet. It makes more sense to use biases--Cadmium scarlet is biased towrad orange, permanent rose toward violet. In what universe is ultramarine really a warm color? It is simply violet biased whereas cerulean has a greener leaning. In poetry this is called "synesthesia" confusing one sense with another. Here color is best understood in terms of visuals, not the sense of touch (warmer, cooler). To desribe ultramarine blue I shouldn't have to resort to comparing it to permanent rose--it is cooler than permanet rose but warmer than pthalo green. But the terms cool and warm only have meaning in relation to another color.But is ultramarine blue really warmer than pthalo green. Pthalo green leans more toward yellow so it is actually warmer than ultramarine. But pthalo blue is cooler than ultramarine but warmer than pthalo green. But that's not right becasue pthalo blue leans more toward blue while pthalo green toward yellow, so it is cooler than pthalo green, being bluer. (Throws up his hands) Why not just say ultramarine contains a violet bias. No need to compare it to another pigment (warmer than..). No need to create a metaphor comparing the colors to the sense of touch. Better to use colors to catagorize colors. More precise. Less depedent on relative comparisons. Again, in what universe is ultramarine actually "warm"? Again I find the whole habit of warm--cooler to be unfortunate in its imprecision. But old habits die hard. |
