But baby it’s cold outside - and some ramblings about colour theory
I’m freezing my frickin’ face off out there!
Painting with gouache or other traditional paints helps me build confidence using colour. I spent a lot of time recently reading about colour theory - which I found really helpful. I felt like for the first time I knew what the hell I was doing and why.
The little painting above, for example, uses the analogous colours of blue, blue-violet, and violet as a dominant colours and the “flesh” colour is, in fact, a very light peach - which compliments the dominants.
What we call “flesh” colour actually rarely exists in reality. In Photoshop, if we colour-pick flesh tones from good paintings or photographs, we see that flesh can be any colour - as it is merely responding to the colours around it.
It’s amazes me to consider the parallels between mathematics, colour theory, music theory and even story structure. These seemingly mysterious artistic and abstract endeavours all have deep-seeded psychological algorithms. Anyway, I might explore this further, when I actually think I have a firmer grasp on it.
Comments (6 comments)
Can you recommend any good references for colour theory? Books, websites, etc, etc. It’s one of those mysterious topics I’d like to learn more about as well.
And, really, you should paint something warmer next time. The freezing cold doesn’t really need any encouragement. Brr. :)
Ryan / February 8th, 2007, 7:21 pm / #
There’s nothing “mysterious” about it, we humans just adhere to the conceit of our own understanding so readily that anything overtly complex is dismissed as having quasi-mystical properties. The truth of the matter is reality is very complicated and we don’t actually live long enough to grasp more than a minute percentage of it.
Lyon / February 8th, 2007, 8:57 pm / #
Yes, definitely a colour theory post coming up.
matt / February 9th, 2007, 1:09 am / #
Matt - I absolutely love this piece of work. You are a talented man.
Ingrid / February 9th, 2007, 6:51 pm / #
I think the Welland force vie must be running strong thru the cold weather. I spent most of last week at work re-reading/understanding/dabbling in color theory and it’s application in terms of print media. ie. subtractive vs additive. I think you and i need to have a color date soon mucha-cho
Stone / February 9th, 2007, 11:19 pm / #
A friend once told me a story of how when in college, he unearthed a secret album recorded by his math professor of back in the 70s . The album contained tracks with such titles as “Your Love is Like an Algorithm” and various other math-love connections. The friend played the album on campus radio to great reviews. I think the math professor remained a bachelor, however.
Minny / February 11th, 2007, 7:06 pm / #
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