3.

Color

What makes lines, shapes, forms, and space alive is through their colors. They are
apparent in making more variations to our perceptions such as the colors of flowers, the sky,
paint of walls, and even skin tones. Colors have the most powerful connection to human nature
and emotions. In fact, colors are used to describe emotions such as feeling blue to describe
sadness or green thumb to describe someone who is good with plants. With the differences in
colors around you, the way you appreciate colors may also vary.

Perception of Color

Color is one of the elements of art that is derived from light and the different reflections
of it. In psychophysics, you learned that colors are based on white light. When such white light
passes through a prism, it shall bend and create a prism or band of colors. These colors are usually
the representation of the rainbow. But these colors are not coloring per se. These colors are
waves that activate the color receptors of your eyes called cones. So ripe mangoes may not be
yellow after all, but the reflection of mangoes activate the yellow receptors of the eyes. The rod
receptors, on the other hand, receive and process information of darkness and lightness. So the
rods shall facilitate how colors must be perceived depending on available light. Therefore, the
way we perceive colors depends upon the light that is reflected on each object.

Hence, there are three properties of colors that matter in this section. They are called
hue, value and intensity. These properties are even present in photography.

Hue
In the color spectrum, there is such a thing
as primary colors namely, red, blue, and yellow.
They are also considered as primary hues. The
secondary hues are made by mixing two primary
colors. There are also six intermediate or tertiary
colors by mixing a primary color with secondary
color. To organize these colors or hues, the color
spectrum can be bent to create a color wheel that
illustrates how the mixing is employed.

Value
Value describes the lightness and darkness
of a color. There will be times that certain color
will seem to be darker to represent a darker or
gloomier theme of the art piece. Essentially, not
all hues should have the same value within a
space. Naturally, yellow seems to be the lightest hue as it reflects the lightest and violet is the
darker hue as it reflects the least light. Black, white, and gray are considered neutral colors. White

1
light reflects colors while black absorbs all of it. Grey will reflect light depending on its value. The
darker it is, the more it absorbs, the less it reflects and vice versa.

To alter values, hues may be added with black or white. Tinting is the process of producing
a light value such as creating a bright sunny day with mixing white and blue to the skies while
shading is the process of producing a darker value such as mixing violet, blue, gray, and black to
create night skies.

Intensity
Intensity refers to how bright and dull the use of hue is. If a certain surface of an object
reflects yellow light, then the surface projects intense and bright yellow. But if the surface reflects
other colors, yellow will be more subdued. Intensity can be high or low density such that in bright
and dull colors, respectively.

Complementary colors are those that are opposite to each other in the color wheel. The
complement of a hue may absorb all the light waves that the hue reflects. Example, red and green
are complements. In effect, green may absorb red waves and may reflect the blue and yellow.
This explains how some people will have conditions such as color vision deficiency or color
blindness. There may be tendencies for people to perceive green as red or red as green.

Another consequence is when you mix a hue with its complement dulls the original hue
and lowers its intensity. The more complement you add, the duller the hue will appear.
Eventually, the hue will lose its original intensity and appear gray. But if you use a dominant hue
in a mixture, there will be more apparent manifestations of the dominant hue such as coloring a
dark violet night sky and mixing with small hues of blue, the more dominant color will still be
violet.

Color schemes
Organizing colors are part of the planning phase in the creation of art. Making a cohesive
story or song is like identifying a color scheme appropriate to the story of the art piece. Planning
these colors according to a scheme will allow you to create a cohesive piece of artwork.

a. Monochromatic Colors
This is a technique where only one color is used. Even the hue, tints, and shade
are consistent all throughout. With a limited option for colors, this provides a strong and
unifying expression to the art. However, this strategy may lessen the variation quality of
the work.

b. Analogous Colors
In analogous colored artwork, the hues used are usually those that are side by side
in the color wheel and operate in a common hue. Examples are blue, blue-green, blue-
violet, and red. This could be limited to three hues to create unity among the common
color range.

2
 c. Complementary Colors
Complementary colors are used when the theme of art is intended to create
strong expression of contrast. In theory, complementary colors tend to establish a
vibration with each other. These vibrations can translate into arousal of emotions.
Example is that red and green are complementary colors. When red symbolizes fire and
green symbolizes the life attached to plants and animals, these patterns create a sense of
arousal to your emotions.

d. Color triads
From the name itself, art must be focused on three general colors spaced on equal
intervals on the color wheel. Compared to complementing, triads do not convey strong
differentiation of colors. This can cover primary, secondary, and tertiary hue triads.

e. Split Complements
This is used when you combine a hue with each side of its exact complement. This
now offers more variety and more dynamics to color range and selection. For example,
the complement of red orange is blue green. The hue next to blue green are blue and
green. These can be used to create the perfect nature art piece with red orange as the
sun, blue for the waters, and green for the trees.

Expressive Qualities of Colors

Like other elements, colors convey ideas, emotions and actual behaviors. What makes
color useful in expression is its ability to represent reality, something that is more like how our
senses see it.

a. Optical color
The use of optical color is an artist approach to reproduce colors as they seem to be.
This approach intends to capture reality as it is and not a version or impression of it. Optical
colors are usually the approach of most artists with the attempt to ensure that their art is
similarly colored with reality. To illustrate optical color, artists check how each hue will appear
when influenced by surrounding colors.

b. Arbitrary colors
Because feelings, emotions and some thoughts are abstract, literal portrayal of colors
such as optical colors is mostly inapplicable. Instead, arbitrary application of colors may give
justice to the identifiability of some subject matters in art. In this sense, color is not only an
element or a medium to express art, but it is also the subject of art per se.

c. Space
Together with lines, positioning colors have also been used to create impressions of
depth. Warm colors are believed to advance towards viewers while cool colors tend to
recede.

3
d. Movement
Colors can create representations of movement as well. Contrasting values create
movement while values that are close to each other tend to create gradual and calmer flow.

4. Texture

Texture in art refers to how the subjects and objects of the piece feels if touched. This is
an essential component in creating the dynamics in the artwork by showing that certain
surfaces have different feels according to their nature. For example, you may want to express
a smooth texture on a flowing flat river painting compared to a rough and rocky river painting.

With some artist confronted of different objects and subjects, textures are also a way of
representing them to the viewers. Food in paintings have different texture to provide
vicarious viewing among the audience. An ice cream painting, for example, must project
smooth and silky texture compared to pizza with different layers of pepperoni, cheese,
tomato sauce and crust.

Perceiving Texture
Texture is perceived through the senses. Tactile texture is the feeling derived out of
touching a specific object or art. In sculptures, for example, you can sense the type of stone
or wood that has been used in developing one. In fact, texture is considered as one of the
most useful cues for knowing the quality of quality of a sculpture.

Texture can be simulated or invented. In simulated textures, they tend to imitate the real
textures of an object. Like a craftsman or carpenter, he can make wood feel like solid ground.
Such as in-house construction, an engineered wood flooring can provide the texture of a
concrete cemented floor. Invented textures do not represent naturally existing surface
qualities, but they are usually those that evoke non-objective patterns.

Texture and Value

Art pieces may maximize the portrayal of texture by using value, that is when the artist
creates texture through light reflection and shadowing.

a. Rough and Smooth Texture

b. Matte and Shiny Texture

A matte surface reflects soft and dull light while the shiny surface tends to reflect
light and project some spark or glow. Matte surfaces are usually apparent in papers,

4
denim, unfinished wood, or human skin. Shiny textures are usually those that have
highlights such as windows, water surface, or some car paints. Usually, when shiny
surfaces are exposed to light, they create glares. These textures can be matte-rough,
matte-smooth, shiny-rough, or shiny-smooth.