Three-Dimensional Colo(u)r

[Glordag]

Firstly, many thanks to Einion in particular for several informative posts on the matter of colo(u)r theory and colo(u)r wheels. In particular, I was just looking at this thread: http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/viewthread.php?tid=29486

This thread resulted in a major revelation for me. The fact that color is represented by three characteristics as opposed to two immediately made me realize why I\'ve had some of the issues that I have with mixing paints and reading a colo(u)r wheel. In short, the wheels and other tools have tricked my mind into thinking of colo(u)r only in terms of hue and value, never in terms of chroma. This has, naturally, lead to much confusion when certain colo(u)rs seemed to lie outside of what I could visualize in a value range of particular hues. Einion\'s posts have also enlightened me to the differences between true color mixing and pigment mixing.

Now, as revealing as all of this is, it has brought many more questions to mind. In particular, I was wondering how to adjust the levels of a colo(u)r of paint in any direction. Here\'s how I\'m thinking of it right now without any testing to back it up:

(All concepts taken from a true color perspective - insight on how this translates to pigment mixing is welcome.)

Adjusting Value: Add black or white, respectively.

Adjusting Chroma: Add the cooler of the colo(u)rs in the colo(u)r\'s triad. I.E.: For magenta, add a bit of cyan. For blue, add a bit of green. For red, add a bit of blue. Perhaps a hint of the other colo(u)r in the triad? Of course, this only adjusts the chroma downwards. I\'m not sure if adjusting it upwards is really possible...

Adjusting Hue: Here I\'m at a loss. As far as I can discern, it\'s mostly impossible to obtain certain hues by mixing paints. This also reflects my experience in mixing paints. If I try mixing blue and yellow to get green, it usually comes out pretty dull and grey/brown-ish. I suspect that mixing colo(u)rs will almost always move the chroma down, at best.

Anyways, just some thoughts that I had. Hopefully I can take some of this and apply it to my painting .

 

[Dragonsreach]

Ok my twopence worth is that I think you are mistaking mixing colour with mixing paint.

Einion (Our local Guru on paint) can give you the full details but I think it\'s kinda down to the fact that mixing paint pigments aren\'t always a simple and straight forward as colours.
Manufacturers variances, Chemical compounds vary and we get lots of \"hiccups\", that colour theory suggests we shouldn\'t.

 

[Einion]

Well first off very happy to hear that some previous threads helped in this kind of way!

Originally posted by Glordag
This thread resulted in a major revelation for me. The fact that color is represented by three characteristics as opposed to two immediately made me realize why I\'ve had some of the issues that I have with mixing paints and reading a colo(u)r wheel. In short, the wheels and other tools have tricked my mind into thinking of colo(u)r only in terms of hue and value, never in terms of chroma.

It\'s quite common for people to usually think in only two of the dimensions of colour. Usually these are hue and chroma - value gets \'ignored\' because in a way it\'s so obvious plus published colour wheels tend to show these two (centre = neutral, edge = high chroma, so colours near the edge are chromatic, colours closer to the centre are duller).

Originally posted by Glordag
(All concepts taken from a true color perspective - insight on how this translates to pigment mixing is welcome.)

Adjusting Value: Add black or white, respectively.

It might be more useful to not think of it in this way. Just think of lighter and darker instead of +white and +black, helps to save falling into certain traps.

Originally posted by Glordag
Adjusting Chroma: Add the cooler of the colo(u)rs in the colo(u)r\'s triad.

No. Chroma differences = more or less brilliant or chromatic.

Achromatic or duller colour is best thought of as lower in chroma IMO, although some people prefer to think of them as being more grey. But some duller colours aren\'t dull enough to truly be seen as greyish (earthy colours and browns being a good example).

Originally posted by Glordag
Adjusting Hue: Here I\'m at a loss.

This is the easy one. Simply mix in something of a different \'basic colour\'.

Originally posted by Glordag
As far as I can discern, it\'s mostly impossible to obtain certain hues by mixing paints.

No, all hues can be achieved with paints (not all colour, just all hues). If you just have three primaries (RYB or CMY) you can mix all hues in between those of the starting paints.

Originally posted by Glordag
This also reflects my experience in mixing paints. If I try mixing blue and yellow to get green, it usually comes out pretty dull and grey/brown-ish.

This is a pigment/paint issue. Greens are actually generally the most brilliant of all mixed colour! With artists\' paints you usually don\'t have this problem.

Originally posted by Glordag
Anyways, just some thoughts that I had. Hopefully I can take some of this and apply it to my painting .

That is in many ways the hard part!


Okay, how some of these translate to mixing paints is where it begins to get more complex, and sometimes confusing.

Changing value
Well adding white and black do work - clearly you do get lighter and darker versions of anything when you mix them with white or black. But white pigment and black pigment don\'t only change the value, they frequently alter hue as well - probably the best example is adding black to yellow and it goes green.

Chroma changes will occur also because chroma is often directly linked to value. Anything that darkens yellow for example drops the chroma automatically since high chroma in yellows is a function of lightness.

Most paints also go duller, even if not quickly, when white is added. But not always! Some blues for example get more brilliant when you add in a little white, before going duller as the proportion of white in the mix increases.

Lowering chroma
Not all paints are high in chroma to begin with. But if you do have only brilliant, saturated paints then in order to make duller versions of them you can use mixing complements or blend in some grey.

Be aware that both of these routes can also change hue. Yellow + grey (even a perfect neutral) will generally get a little greener. With mixing complements, because most of them aren\'t perfect pairs you can get slight shifts in hue (often not large enough to worry about) as the mixture moves toward the midpoint.

Changing hue
This is most of what colour mixing is about - add yellow to red and the hue moves toward yellow; add blue to yellow and the hue shifts toward green. And so on.

Being able to see any variation in hue between very different colours - as for example when the hue shifts unintentionally while you are dulling something down - can be very difficult and takes a lot of work.

Questions?

Einion

 

[demonherald]

I always like reading stuff like this it is still a relatively new area for me .. Never even heard of colour theory until I started looking at painting sites online..

I think one of the big key factrs in any colour mixing is familiarising yourself with the range / ranges of paints you are using. and I think this is where the difference between mixing colours and mixing paints comes in.

I spend or have spent many hours messing round with paint on pallettes to see how they interact with each other . GW are my staple although they are getting slowly moved away by P3 . I\'m now pretty much a the point where I can match just about any colour I see out there using GW paints .

I usually start my \"experiments by putting a little aint on a pallette then adding white in stages , black in stages... then playing with different colours and finding some strange and different mixes , The one colour I always struggled with was brown as GW brown\'s carry a lot of red.. I ound this out by adding white and noticing they all went pink. after several experiments I realised that mixing green into the base colour .. (only a little) and using a slightly greyer clour to highlight gave me nice manageable browns..
Blue was another finding the flattenng effect einion mentions. I solved this by adding a touch of purple into the base along with a little blue ink and using a blue grey to higlight.

In short read up on theory and always treat it as such .. Theory ..\" This should happen in a perfect world\" but there is no substitute for playing around with your own paints and finding the colours that work for you.

 

[Glordag]

Thanks for the replies, all!

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
Ok my twopence worth is that I think you are mistaking mixing colour with mixing paint.

Well, the point of my post is more or less how to translate mixing color into mixing paint. I understand the difference between the two, just not how to use it .

Originally posted by Einion
Questions?

Of course .

Originally posted by Einion

Originally posted by Glordag
Adjusting Chroma: Add the cooler of the colo(u)rs in the colo(u)r\'s triad.

No. Chroma differences = more or less brilliant or chromatic.

Achromatic or duller colour is best thought of as lower in chroma IMO, although some people prefer to think of them as being more grey. But some duller colours aren\'t dull enough to truly be seen as greyish (earthy colours and browns being a good example).

Well, I understand your point, but the question is how \"more or less brilliant of chromatic\" is represented visually. From the examples I was looking at, it seemed like the \"less chromatic\" colors were obtained via the method I was just describing (with a duller look *boggle*). I think this must be a problem of my mind trying to resolve chroma in terms of hue and value, despite the fact that this might not be how it works. Now I\'m just kind of confused .

Originally posted by Einion

Originally posted by Glordag
Adjusting Hue: Here I\'m at a loss.

This is the easy one. Simply mix in something of a different \'basic colour\'.

Originally posted by Glordag
As far as I can discern, it\'s mostly impossible to obtain certain hues by mixing paints.

No, all hues can be achieved with paints (not all colour, just all hues). If you just have three primaries (RYB or CMY) you can mix all hues in between those of the starting paints.

Originally posted by Glordag
This also reflects my experience in mixing paints. If I try mixing blue and yellow to get green, it usually comes out pretty dull and grey/brown-ish.

This is a pigment/paint issue. Greens are actually generally the most brilliant of all mixed colour! With artists\' paints you usually don\'t have this problem.

Well, in all fairness it\'s been a while since I\'ve tried to mix a green together. For the most part I\'m happy with the range that GW produces.

Originally posted by Einion

Lowering chroma
Not all paints are high in chroma to begin with. But if you do have only brilliant, saturated paints then in order to make duller versions of them you can use mixing complements or blend in some grey.

Be aware that both of these routes can also change hue. Yellow + grey (even a perfect neutral) will generally get a little greener. With mixing complements, because most of them aren\'t perfect pairs you can get slight shifts in hue (often not large enough to worry about) as the mixture moves toward the midpoint.

I guess my problem with this whole chroma thing is that \"less chromatic\" doesn\'t seem to be just \"more grey\" to me. It seems to add a shift in the hue towards a certain direction, as well. That\'s why I was hypothesizing about the use of color triads to adjust chroma.

Originally posted by Einion

Changing hue
This is most of what colour mixing is about - add yellow to red and the hue moves toward yellow; add blue to yellow and the hue shifts toward green. And so on.

Being able to see any variation in hue between very different colours - as for example when the hue shifts unintentionally while you are dulling something down - can be very difficult and takes a lot of work.

I still feel like mixing any two paints together generally lowers the chroma, even if just a little. Am I incorrect in thinking this?

Originally posted by demonherald
In short read up on theory and always treat it as such .. Theory ..\" This should happen in a perfect world\" but there is no substitute for playing around with your own paints and finding the colours that work for you.

Very true, but I think a proper understanding of the theory and generalizations about how pigment mixing can utilize the theory can cut a lot of time and experimentation out of the process, in addition to perhaps some better results with shading and highlighting.

 

[freakinacage]

i am colour blind and this makes my head hurt!

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by freakinacage
i am colour blind and this makes my head hurt!

I\'m not and it still does.
Read this 3 times and I\'m still struggling. Gonna have to print it off and take my time.

 

[mickc22]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach

Originally posted by freakinacage
i am colour blind and this makes my head hurt!

I\'m not and it still does.
Read this 3 times and I\'m still struggling. Gonna have to print it off and take my time.

It\'s not just me then, hew:!

 

[Glordag]

Originally posted by mickc22

It\'s not just me then, hew:!

Nope, not just you . I\'d say this is only slightly more complex than the quantum mechanics classes I had to take back in college! Though, in all fairness, this involves less dead (or alive?!) cats...

On the plus side, we can all just walk away and pretend this thread never existed and probably get along just fine with the painting (; .

 

[Einion]

Sorry, forgot about this thread!

Originally posted by Glordag
Well, I understand your point, but the question is how \"more or less brilliant of chromatic\" is represented visually.

Simply, more brilliant (to be precise: higher in chroma) is more vivid or intense, lower in chroma is duller or less intense.

One of the best ways of visualising colourspace as a whole, to get a mental map of how everything relates, is with the Munsell colour solid. It\'s roughly ball shaped, with the core representing neutral (zero chroma) and the skin being colours of all the hues at maximum chroma for a given value.

It is easy to get confused when learning to visualise colour this way, you\'re not alone believe me. Lots of people have trouble with this. You might have to really immerse yourself in the subject to get this to be automatic or second nature, or you might be lucky and it\'ll just suddenly click when you see the right kind of diagram or colour representation that\'ll suddenly have it make sense.

Originally posted by Glordag
I guess my problem with this whole chroma thing is that \"less chromatic\" doesn\'t seem to be just \"more grey\" to me.

Lower chroma doesn\'t mean greyer in the way that might be most commonly thought of when you read the word (as in \"This looks greyish.\"), just duller, even if only slightly.

Take a brilliant red paint for example, mix in a small amount of grey and that will lower the chroma, possibly just enough that you can only tell easily by comparing the greyed version with the unmodified red.

Lower chroma in a nutshell - all lower-chroma colours of any hue, from just a bit duller all the way to near-greys. So both a 10:1 mix of red and grey, slightly duller, and a 1:20 mix which is only just visible as reddish, are both still technically reds. Just of very different chromas.

You can choose to think of the near-grey version more as grey but it can be more useful to still visualise it as a red. In the same way that coffee with milk in it is just a light, very dull orange!

Originally posted by Glordag
It seems to add a shift in the hue towards a certain direction, as well. That\'s why I was hypothesizing about the use of color triads to adjust chroma.

Methods to lower chroma can give a change in hue. Ideal ones don\'t, but we have to be ready to adjust hue back to where it should be if necessary.

Sometimes a change in chroma just makes colours look like they\'ve changed in hue, when in fact they haven\'t, or much less than you\'d think. Examples: darker and duller reds often appear to be slightly violet; darker yellows often look greenish (at the very least they nearly always look greener).

Originally posted by Glordag
I still feel like mixing any two paints together generally lowers the chroma, even if just a little. Am I incorrect in thinking this?

Basically, the chroma of a mix is always lower than the chroma of one of the two starting paints. Sometimes both (especially in complementary mixing).

But this is in absolute terms - do remember that a mix can still look quite \'bright\', given the right two paints. In artists\' paints if you had any of a number of light yellows and you do a mix with a phthalo blue you get very brilliant greens, often far too bright to be useful without deliberately dulling them down a touch.

Originally posted by Glordag

Originally posted by mickc22
It\'s not just me then, hew:!

Nope, not just you . I\'d say this is only slightly more complex than the quantum mechanics classes I had to take back in college!

Nah, it\'s much easier, really!

Originally posted by Glordag
Though, in all fairness, this involves less dead (or alive?!) cats...

lol

Einion

 

[mickc22]

Originally posted by Glordag

Originally posted by mickc22

It\'s not just me then, hew:!

Nope, not just you . I\'d say this is only slightly more complex than the quantum mechanics classes I had to take back in college! Though, in all fairness, this involves less dead (or alive?!) cats...

On the plus side, we can all just walk away and pretend this thread never existed and probably get along just fine with the painting (; .

would that be Schrodinger\'s cat?