When you’re selecting your palette, you choose the basic colors you’ll be using to create your painting.
However, once you get started putting paint on your paper or canvas, it gets a lot more complex.
How bright is that red? How gray is that shadow? These are questions you may be asking yourself as you stand back to take an overall look at your work. So, not only are there the colors you squeezed onto your palette, but you have to do things like add white, black or neutralize the color with its complementary color. Boy, and you thought you were just going to paint a picture!
Since there’s all these things you need to do to your paint before you fling it on the canvas, you might as well start off by knowing what the terminology means.
Hue
Hues are the basic building block colors that you’ll find on a complete color wheel. These colors consist of three Primary Colors, three Secondary Colors and six Tertiary Colors.
With these 12 hues, white and black, you’ll be able to create an infinite spectrum of colors. The basic 12 hues do not have the addition of white or black. They are color in an unadulterated state. Pure colors aren’t used that often in paintings.
Generally, an artist will add something to modify pure color, as those pure hues are not common in nature. Of course, if the artist is painting abstracts, pure color may be in keeping with the subject. However, shadows, highlights and making objects appear to recede or come forward in the plane all require other colors to accomplish those tasks.
Each color on the color wheel can be modified with tinting, toning or shading, as well as altered by the addition of another hue on the color wheel.
Spend some time with a color chart and learn about the differences and similarities of the 12 members that make up the color wheel.
Tint
Typically, a tint is considered a pastel shade of a hue, as it is the addition of white to your basic color. White paint lightens and lessens the saturation of a color. This desaturation makes the color less intense and vibrant.
The spectrum of tinting can range from white with a hint of the base color to an almost pure hue with just a touch of white. A tinted color scheme is usually soft and relaxed, if used in developing the entire picture. If you want drama and tension in your piece, tinted hues won’t be your best choice to create a feeling of angst.
Shade
To create a shade of your basic hue, add black. This intensifies and darkens the color. Just like tinting with white, you can add just a touch of the basic color to black, or you can add just a touch of black to your hue.
However, for many artists, black does not have a place in their tabourets. In the natural world, black seldom exists. Artists are schooled to develop their own formulations for intense darks, and they wouldn’t dream of squirting a big glob of black paint on their palette. But, we’re explaining the meaning of shading, and the use of black to alter a color is the accepted definition of the term.
Working with black or your own formulation of appropriate darks is a lot more problematic than working with white. There are several different commercial compounds of black that include Ivory, Lamp, Mars and Vine Black. Black can make a change to a hue that may be unwanted. The color may appear dead and lifeless, or it can change the hue into a muddy mess.
You’ll spend a lot more time experimenting with blacks than you will with white. Don’t be afraid to try commercial black in your work. When you finally come to your senses, learn how to make lustrous and vibrant darks to replace those vapid and uninspiring commercial black paints. You should develop several darks, as some mixtures work with warm colors while others work best with cool hues.
Tone
A tone is a color that has the addition of both black and white. Of course, black and white make gray, so you are essentially adding gray to your basic color. Whether you add light gray or dark gray to your paint is your choice and depends on how muted you wish the segment of your painting to appear. Your tone can be lighter or darker than your base color and will appear less intense. Tones are what we typically see in the real world where very few objects are pure color.
Learn these four concepts and you’ll be on the fast track for creating paintings with a more professional appearance. Your knowledge and understanding of how colors work with each other and how you can create realistic, convincing subjects and backgrounds is every bit as important as learning perspective and proportion.
