In painting, you blend colors and deal with differentiation. But there are much too many color effects, that argot be explained by most color theory and color shove clue.
Im an artist since 1991. Stable when I didnt use color conclusively, I noticed that a silvery painted on somber gets a different look than a piceous painted on ashen. When you paint a semi - transparant snowy over nigrescent, it gets a hiemal, bluish tone. And when you paint a semi - transparent sooty over white, it gets a snug, brownish tone.
Years subsequent I found, that this phenomenon can be explained by Goethes theory of color.
Goethes doesnt juggle with wavelengths, atoms or breaking indexes - instead he consciously uses one his own perception. He found that for color to surface ( in for archetype the surface ), you need light, darkness and a transparent cast of matter ( like air, wash, glass etc, )
Sizzling colors ( chicken - orange - fuchsia ) turn up when you see darkness before light, and you see blues when, seen from your standpoint, you see light before darkness. In a prisma, it works about the same way. Check out my website, for more on that.
Of course, atoms and wavelengths have a truth of their own. But its a machine - truth. We dont see atoms or wavelengths. Newtons theory of color is good for building color - tvs, but for art it was a disaster. More than once, I heard my colleague - painters declare color actually doesnt exist, and is a purely subjective phenomenon. Thats not something an artist can work with.
With Goethes theory of color you cant build color tvs, because it describes the ideal part of nature itself. But Goethes theory of color is great for artists. It applies to all painting techniques, including desktop graphic design.
I took some lessons of two watercolorists. They were experts in a method developed by a unique watercolorist ( Liane Collot - dHerbois ) who took Goethes knowledge as a basis, and experimented with it to explore the features of every single color. She also found out, that colors dont have to mix as matter at all. She could bring out a radiant magenta, by using only blue and yellow paint. The magenta was there for everyone to see. Even if it was only light, it appeared as if actually painted on. And we all know, you dont get magenta, when you mix yellow and blue paint - you get green, when you mix yellow and blue.
But more important: I noticed that the color effects I learned happen exactly the same way in mechanical and digital color reproduction. The interval color that was created in a painting, comes out stronger on a photograph of the painting, or on an LCD screen or a color copier.
In color photography and graphic design these color effects play a role too. Professionals learn to more or less deal with them, but they are never really explained. When you do digital photography, and work you your pictures on the screen, youll probably know that inexplicable magenta hue, coming from nowhere. When you make a picture in black and white, and have very well - balanced tonal values ( light and darkness ), stripes of green and magenta appear. When they touch, you get blue. This also happens, when you color - copy a black and white picture, with the lid open. The funny thing is: before I found this out, I learned from a watercolorist, that magenta and green can make a light blue interval color
The effect of the interval is not only about color mixing as light. It has to do with the effect of darkness or shadow as well. For the effect to appear, colors must be equally strong, they must be painted atmospherically, and there must be a little space in between, where both dont come. The yellow interval between green and red can be explained by color mixing as light, but the magenta interval between yellow and blue cant. The darkness is playing a role there too. I have spoken about it with a goethean science teacher, he doesn ' t understand it yet either. But I ' m sure it will be understood some day.
There is still a lot to explore, when it comes to color effects. This is really a kind of science, and we all know science is a very slow process. But at least now I know, why reds look great when painted on white semi - transparant, and blues look ugly when you paint them that way.
