Research Point: Chevreul’s Colour Theory
“Through Chevruel’s research and our own experiences, we know that colors are not static. Colors are similar to people – their personalities change and they can be influenced by close associations.” — Joen Wolfrom, ‘The Magic Effects of Color’
Although I had heard of colour theorist Michel Eugène Chevreul (31 August 1786 – 9 April 1889), what I wasn’t aware of was the fact he was a chemist first and foremost, and had undertaken important research into animal fats. I can see how this would give him a clear advantage when researching colours, especially those used in painting mediums.
It appears that his colour theories came about once becoming a director of a dye company, and dealing with complaints from dissatisfied customers who had purchased luxurious, coloured tapestries. Apparently the customers were not pleased with some of the colours, which led Chevreul to ascertain that certain colour combinations were to blame. Of course today – thanks to the work of Chevreul and other highly acclaimed theorists such as Johannes Itten – we know more about complimentary and harmonious colours, however many years ago these theories had not been published and it was probably more of an intuitive decision when deciding what colours to use. In other words, people had to rely on their eyes (and brain, to some extent) to tell them what colours worked favourably together. Chevreul invented the colour wheel, and I personally do not know where I’d be today without it.
I find the work based on optical illusions fascinating; the fact that a colour can be so distinctly influenced by another placed beside it i.e. become darker, or lighter, or even ‘pulsate’ in the case of red and green together. This was termed simultaneous contrast by Chevreul, which is rather apt in that the colours are having either a positive or negative effect on the other colour at the same time, due to being within close proximity of each other.
- Simultaneous contrast
The concept of optical mixing was also advocated by Chevreul, whereby two individual colours seem to blend together to create a third colour. In terms of artists who were influenced by this, Post-Impressionist painter Georges-Pierre Seurat (2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) is perhaps the most well-known in using the ‘pointillist’ technique, using small dots of colours placed closely together so that they blend on the canvas to create an entirely new colour. In the case of Seurat’s Sunday on the Island of Grande Jatte, the dots are carefully considered and laid with such precision of size and space that the result is astounding when one steps further back from the piece, being presented with large areas of seemingly consistent colour.
Other artists under the influence of Chevreul’s theories were American landscape painter Winslow Homer (February 24 1836 – September 29 1910) and French Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863). In Homer’s After The Hurricane, you can clearly see his considered use of complimentary colours – blue and orange – that creates a pleasing composition with no troublesome ‘clashes’ of unsuitable colour pairings. Similarly, Delacroix’s stunning The Abduction of Rebecca takes advantage of the principles of complimentary colours – again with orange and blue – to create an atmospheric piece that glows with richness against a cool, smoky background.
- Winslow Homer: After the Hurricane, 1899, watercolour
Exercise 1: Mixing greys – anachromatic scale
I was desperate to get stuck in with pure colour after excitedly reading the project title (I am a big fan of colour), however I do understand just how important it is to get to grips with an anachromatic scale in order to establish successful tonal values in one’s work. Quite cleverly, another OCA student whose blog I follow had converted her colour scales to anachromatic to see if they work without the distraction of colour – this is a technique I will utilise myself further down in this post.
The fact I could apply the tones next to eachother – rather than blending them – did help me to create quite a successful scale in terms of a gradual progression of tones. Once I had applied the scale with a brush, I decided to experiment with laying down the colour on a bigger scale, and with a different tool; I opted for a palette knife, which offered a much quicker way of producing the scale as I was able to mix and apply the paint with the same tool.
After painting my scraps with the neutral grey from my scale, i set them one at each end and flicked my eyes back and forth rapidly. What I discovered was that against the white, the grey was extremely dark, almost black, but next to the black it appeared much lighter. Obviously this is a case of another colour/tone having an influence on another due to its close proximity, as per Chevreul’s research on simultaneous contrast.
Exercise 2: Primary and Secondary colour mixing
My first task here was to rummage through my art box and identify the many reds, yellows and blues that I have. These were: Cadmium Red Hue, Crimson and Brilliant Red (red); Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Medium Yellow and Yellow Ochre (yellows); and Ultramarine, Blue Lake, Pthalo Blue and Cobalt Blue (blues).
Having already prepared my neutral grey ground, I began to arrange my primary colours into groups, and rearranged them each time so that the variious hues of each colour group sat between or next to a different hue each time, to judge the impact on its intensity. Of the yellows, Medium Yellow immediately stood out as the most intense, with no other colour undertones present. Lemon Yellow was too pale, Cadmium Yellow Medium was too orange-toned and Yellow Ochre…well, I’m not sure why I included this one in the first place, as it is clearly too brown to be suitable for the task! I found Lemon Yellow to be noticeably lighter when next to Yellow Ochre, but not so much when next to Cadmium Yellow Medium.
Of the reds, Cadmium Red Hue appeared to be the most vibrant to me; it is a strong hue independent of any other underlying colours, whereas Crimson is too pink and Brilliant Red has an almost purple/magenta undertone. When Crimson is placed next to Cadmium Red Hue, it is noticeable darker than when placed next to Brilliant Red, where it seems lighter. Of the blues, Ultramarine stood out as the strongest; it doesn’t need to be lightened with white for its intensity to show. Although Blue Lake and Cobalt Blue are beautifully vibrant blues, they are too light to produce consistency in the colour wheel, and posses green and violet undertones respectively. It was only until after sequencing the blues that I realised I hadn’t placed Ultramarine next to all of the other hues to see its effects, namely the other darker blue Pthalo Blue. I experiments on a small scrap of paper and realised Ultramarine appears to have a slightly red undertone, with Pthalo Blue having a green undertone. Blue Lake appears to have more of a green undertone and looks darker next to Cobalt Blue, but lighter next to Ultramarine or Pthalo Blue; the strength of these two darks obviously overpower the lighter hues into submission.
With my three primaries established – Cadmium Red Hue, Medium Yellow and Ultramarine – I set about mixing the required scales. I made enough mix of each colour so that I could move onto the white-tinted scales with ease afterwards. The Medium Yellow to Cadmium Red Hue scale was most pleasing to do, as I feel I attained an even addition of red each time so that the colour transition was gradual with no glaring inconsistencies (see greyscale pic). The oranges midway along the scale were deep and warm whilst retaining their vibrancy. However, upon adding white to this scale, the oranges took on a pinky hue whilst approaching red – almost a salmon pink – and seems ‘cooler’ that those in the previous scale.
In the Medium Yellow to Ultramarine scale, the yellow needed only a little blue in order to present a lime green hue, and this distinct colour stayed present until a little over halfway where it lost most of its yellow undertones and took on an emerald hue. When these colours were mixed with white, the yellow seemed to be lost a lot quicker and the greens were of a more natural, subdued range that you might expect to see in a landscape painting. I did find that my tones jumped considerably towards the end, going from a pale to dark teal rather too quickly before becoming completely blue.
In the Cadmium Red Hue to Ultramarine scale, only a small amount of blue was needed to ‘muddy’ the red; continuing with this, I found the red going from a brick red to deep maroon quite quickly, with rich berry and brown-based hues in-between. The violet hues towards the darker, blue end are almost indistinguishable from one another. Upon adding white to the scale, one can clearly see the impact it has on the violets; there are progressive hues here, with much more intensity and clarity. There is clear distinction between violets, purples and indigo before settling on blue.
Exercise 3: Broken or Tertiary colours
Although I did as instructed – chose an orange-red and a green-blue – I wasn’t sure I had achieved what should have been grey halfway on the scale. I guess grey can be perceived in different ways, and I was probably at first expecting the kind of mid-grey you might get from mixing pure black and white. When I looked closer, I could see that the midway colour was in fact grey, and one that could obviously be attributed to the two original colours that were mixed together. So, rather than being a flat grey, it was a ‘violet’ grey that could be used to great effect possibly when painting shadows in a predominantly yellow piece (taking into account complementary colours). The same effect could be seen in the second scale I painted using Cadmium Orange and Violet; the grey here was warmer thanks to the two mixed colours, and produced a brown-grey with slight purple undertones. Looking at the greyscale photo, it is clear that my tones jumped considerably towards the violet end of the second scale.
Exercise 4: Complementary Colours
My attempt at Chevreul’s colour wheel was a very satisfying exercise, if a little untidyl I am usually one for staying ‘in the line’ but found I couldn’t get a perfect finish on this. Never mind. The process overall was highly enjoyable, especially when applying the primaries straight from the tubes. I made enough mixes of each colour so that I could add white and apply the tints to the middle of the wheel. I began by laying down the primaries, and then the three secondaries orange, green and violet mixed from equal amounts of the primaries. I then ‘filled in the gaps’ with the tertiary colours, adjusting the amount of each required colour accordingly. I was rather disappointed in the green and violet that I produced; the green was not as intense as I would have liked, if a little muddy, and the violet was more of a maroon-brown. I understand that these results may have been a little different if I had chosen different hues for my primary colours. Aside from this, I was satisfied with my colour wheel – the first I have produced in almost 10 years.
I prepared another A2 sheet with mid-grey paint for my complementary colour mixes. Beginning with red and green, I placed them next to eachother in the original state, then again but with added white. I then mixed the tow together and laid this colour down, followed by the same mixture with added white. Finally, I made a scale from one complementary colour to another. Below are the observations I made for each set of complementaries:
Red and Green – There is a very noticeable optical effect when placed together, the red almost seems to ‘pulsate’. When mixed, they create a warm mid-brown. Mixing this scale produced an even, consistent gradual shift in tone through a range of muddy, khaki-brown hues.
Red-Orange and Blue-Green – Blue-green makes the Red-orange appear vibrant and helps it to advance from the grey ground. Adding white to the pair creates a salmon pink and duck-egg green. Mixing the two results in a neutral brown-grey that is on the cool side; for some reason, this colour appeared closer to the blue-green end of the scale, rather than in the middle.
Orange and Blue – My personal favourite when it comes to complementaries; the differences in temperature make a fascinating combination i.e. one warm, one cool. A cool, dark grey mid-tone is produced upon mixing the two. I was pleased with the flow of this scale, possibly because one colour was straight from the tube (Ultramarine) and needed no prior mixing. Again, I had trouble replicating the previously mixed neutral grey at the midpoint of the scale; this made me question the quantities of paint I was using. This scale featured an impressive range of mossy, khaki greens.
Yellow-Orange and Blue-Violet – Produced a brown-green neutral when mixed. This scale also showed a range of khaki-greens, which quickly progressed to deep purple-greys towards the blue-violet end of the scale. This was my least favourite scale to produce, as the colours – to me – appeared just a little flat and lacked intensity.
Yellow and Violet – A real contrast in light and dark when placed together. Produce a lemon yellow and pale lilac when mixed with white. The neutrals they result in when mixed are warm and would be suited to producing a range of skin tones in portrait painting. The yellow was quickly obliterated by the smallest amount of violet; the scale quickly progressed through a range of rich, dark chocolate browns.
Yellow-Green and Red-Violet – As before, these two mixed together resulted in neutrals that would lend themselves well to portrait painting. When progressing through the scale, the murky greens gave way to some beautifully rich berry hues. This was my second favourite scale, as the progression of hues seemed consistent to me.
Conclusion
This now has been my favourite project so far in the Painting 1 course. I love colour. I have purchased many books on the subject and have sat and read instructional manuals cover to cover like a novel. That’s not to say, however, that I didn’t have anything more to learn; I’d read about where the original pigments came from for the colour of our paints today, and also about complementary colours and the effects some colours have on others. But what I learnt here that was most valuable to me was how to mix certain colours to achieve neutrals.
I am excited at the prospect of mixing a huge range of colours from just three tubes of primary colours, and white. I feel I have been spoilt with the array of colours on offer in art stores, and want to start making a concerted effort to mix more colours from just these three primaries. I am astounded at the mixes I produced from the complementary colours, namely all the interesting neutrals – greys and browns – that have never really made their way into my paintings.
Therefore, from here onwards, I will be making use of my colour mixing sheets to help me bring some of these colours into my future work.
My BA (Hons) Creative Arts Journey with the OCA 