Color wheel tools
 

Here's a really nifty looking web site that offers a variety of color wheels, not only for the artist, by printer and web designer.

When you get there, be sure to click on the black "color wheels" button to see all their products.

http://www.colorwheelco.com

Analogous Color Wheel
 

In addition to the traditional wheels available through the above site, Hal Reed's Analogous Color Wheel is a wonderful studio fundamental.

You identify what you see as the dominant hue in a scene/image/painting, and Hal's wheel shows the full range of analogous color, if this is the type of color harmony you are after. Cut-outs also identify color discords for any given scheme.

Available at www.artvideostore.com or through (888) 513-2187.

Chris

I have a $3 "Gray Scale and Value Finder" that I have found useful in my studio. It is available from http://www.colorwheelco.com/

Here's how I use it: When I need to match a color, I mix a pile of neutral color to get a small quantity of paint that matches the value of the paint I am trying to match. (This "neutral" is usually raw umber + white.)

To this neutral pile of value-matched paint on my palette, I add pure color until I get the match I'm looking for...

These are welcome hints, with click on the address convenience to boot. What more could an artist ask for? Just what I've been needing to learn more about and as usual, here they are on SOG. Thanks Cynthia, Chris and Karin!

-Margaret

Based on a suggestion is Chris's book, I purchased a color wheel with values, color relationships and tones (doesn't have the analogous reference), A "Quiller Wheel" - that I for the life of me, cannot figure out how it helps with pastels and the Michael Wilcox "Color Mixing Workbook", which is a wonderful rainy day exercise, I also like to document each work by journaling the color here.

But is there anything that is just helpful to the pastel artist? Sometimes the simple statement "grayed down" can take on so many applications because of the nature of pastels.

I would really appreciate a "Pastel" tool suggestion.

Thanks!

Hi Beth,

I love the Quiller wheel for pastels, as well as oils. With pastels of course, it is not really possible to ever FIND a stick of a certain color (unless you're VERY organized, like Daniel Green's). However I find its use in really considering the color I am "hunting for" and what I want the end product to be. The analogous wheel is probably a little more useful for pastels, but then, it is specific to an analogous-type scheme.

With regard to the "grayed-down" concept, everything inside the perimieter of the Quiller wheel has some desaturation.

I use the Munsell system of color created by Alfred Munsell in his book A Grammar of Color published in 1924.

An artist mentor told me once, "Never use a color wheel from someone who wants to sell you paint." You will notice that the Grumbacher wheel has about 40 "colors", all conveniently matching their paints, but not very useful for learning color theory.

I actually found a copy of the original 1924 book in my local library! They got it in 1943 and it had been checked out about once every ten or fifteen years since then. The book had most of the color chits still intact and in good shape. A good copy of that 1924 book can go for up to $1,600 today.

Here is the wheel I made using his system:

http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/Pics/Wheel.jpg

Does anyone have any experience with either of these and know whether they are worthwhile?

Pastel Painter's Pocket Palette

Oil Painter's Pocket Palette

Review of "Oil Painter
 

Useful as an introduction to a basic 12-color palette comprised of:
Lemon yellow
Cadmium yellow
Cadmium red
Alizarin crimson
Ultramarine blue
Cobalt blue
Viridian
Sap green
Yellow ocher
Burnt sienna
Raw umber
Ivory black

The book is printed on a heavy card stock that is fairly

Thank you to all your posts. Michael, thanks for showing the wheel you produced, but tell me how it helps you as a tool? I find basic color wheels to be common sense to an artist. For me - my frustration is the subtle differences in color, not the overall scheme, rather complementary or analogous.

But say...using pastels here...I am going to reference Sennelier and Winsor & Newton, they have a slight variation in their (for lack of a better word) stepping of shades (temp). Sennelier N088, N0344, N019, N018, Winsor Tint 1285 AA, Tint 2 076 AA etc. I know there is a subtle difference between cool and warm, but sometimes it is hard to see. Maybe the manufactures put out a chart saying yes this really light color has a tad more yellow...but I missed this. This is my frustration, since the colors are "pre mixed", how the wheel will work for me.

Chris, I have tried to relate my colors to the "Quiller" but find it so inhibiting because it is such a mixed medium tool. I must just really be missing something here!

Cynthia, thanks for posting those, I checked out the pastel one, but couldn't really find what it was about. Maybe the answer to my problem is to just sit down and do the Wilcox journal.

Chris, is Daniel Greene an artist here or someone you studied under?

Hi Beth,

I wish! (On both counts...Daniel Greene being here, as well as having studied under him!) I haven't found a great deal on him online, although he is prolifically published. Here are a couple of place to get started: http://www.johnpence.com/visuals/painters/greene/
http://www.portraitartist.com/halloffame/greene.htm

Try to get a hold of his Video, "Erica". It will inspire you! Daniel Greene's Book,"Pastel" is out of print, but check here, anyway: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...21546?v=glance

Daniel Greene's wife, Wendy Caporale, has a recently published book, "Painting Children's Portraits in Pastel" , which you would probably also enjoy a great deal. http://www.portraitartist.com/bookst...raitpastel.htm

The color numbers on pastel sticks make me get a twitch in my eye. The easiest way, I think, to determine their temperature is to test them one next to the other. Temperature is ALWAYS relative, so you would want to know, for example if a color you have picked up is warmer or cooler than the color you just put down. In any case temperature needs to work in the context of the painting you have at hand. When you test them, it needs to be done on SAME paper you are painting on, otherwise you won't be able to judge properly. When I am finished with a pastel, there are always 40 or 50 little test marks along one edge (to be blessedly covered with the mat board).

Thanks Chris... having trouble typing since I have a surgical glove on...LOL.http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...0&pagenumber=5

I do have Wendy's book, had no idea they were married. I think her book is good, but pat you on the back, your's is the best.

I do make my little marks, and try and start with a palette on the actual paper, it always ends up changing, then I have all these pastels I never use, so I thought if there was a trick it might be easier to use those provided than creating mixed color. But it sounds like the rule of thumb here is to just learn by doing.

As my favorite quote in your book, by one of your teachers or you, can't remember (para-phrasing here)....." doesn't matter how many classes you take or who teaches you, you have to draw everday!"

Thanks Beth,

Harley Brown: "You have to draw every day just to keep from getting worse!"

Elizabeth had a question in one of her earlier posts in this thread that I was wondering about too. How does having one of these color wheels help you as a tool? What exactly do you do with them?

A little riddle for you all as a way of explaining how color theory helps an artist:

Go to your studio and mix a:

Value-6
Hue-Yellow Red
Chroma-Medium(8)

What color have you mixed?

I did my color wheel as one of my beginning exercises as an artist. It really helps you to understand and classify color. With a good systme like Munsell, you can mix any color with just three notations - like the notations I give above.

No fair if you have read on the other forum and already know what color this is.

Michele,

I use the Analogous color wheel most often now to make decisions about dominant color in an analogous scheme. When I first began I used is as an"Analogous Color Guide for Dummies"; dial in your dominant color. If you don't see, don't use it.

Incidentally, the back cover of the Analogous wheel contains a Munsell wheel.

I use my Steven Quiller color wheel most often to check relative color temperatures, and to mix earth colors (since I don't have them on my palette).

Michael,

Just a note to support your use of objective nomenclature (perhaps this should be a separate thread under "Tips"). I think we should all use descriptors like this, instead of nebulous terms like "sky blue" (!?) or "leaf green". I encourage readers of my book to think color-value-saturation, although I think it is even more useful to describe saturation as a number on a scale, rather than "fully saturated, slightly desaturated", or "extremely desaturated", as I have done to date.

Could you desribe your chroma scale, please?

Michael, your riddle sounds like Burnt Sienna.

Chroma is the relative purity or grayness of a color - tan for instance is a fairly low chroma where as cad orange is a very high chroma. As chroma of a color increases, the color comes closer to its pure hue.

Munsell ascribes a 14 step chroma scale which I use, but I have found it even more useful to group chroma into three categories of High, Medium, and Low. I even created some color charts with each hue expressed in nine values and each value expressed in high, medium, and low chroma. I mixed each value of the hue with 25% gray, 50% gray, and 75% gray - the grays each corresponding in value with the value of the hue - i.e., I mixed a value 6 gray into the value 6 hue to express the muted chroma of the hue at that value.

Does that help?

Michele: Burnt Sienna is about a value 3 to 4. Value 6 will be lighter. I made this color by starting with pure cad orange (value 6-7) and decreasing its chroma with a value 6 gray and tinting it with just a bit of yellow ochre (value 7) to hit the right color. Perhaps I should have described the hue as closer to Yellow-Yellow-Red.

It may be a bit hard for folks to get the exact color, but everyone who understands hue, value, and chroma will come quite close. The important thing is that we now have a grammar or language we can use to talk about color that we can all understand. Further, I can look at a color and say - "hey, that is a purple-blue hue, about a value 8, and pretty pure in chroma" when I look at a blue sky out my window, or the sky from an old master painting, or a photo I took. It takes a lot of the guessing about color out of the equation and gives the artist a solid spot to begin.

Michael, if a value 6 is lighter than a 3 to 4 you must be working with a scale that is opposite the one that I use to teach my students.

I use a value scale where 1 is white and 9 is black.

Michele:

The Munsell value scale is indeed the opposite of that - value 1 is dark and value 9 is light with black and white bracketing them.

Glad you asked that question, Michele, and that Michael was on board to answer quickly. I did one of those neurotic "Darn, everybody but me knows what a Value 6 is, whether it's toward the light or toward the dark" worries, and kept quiet. Michael's formula described for me at least two colors, depending on which value was meant, and had he not said that "Chroma 8" was "medium", I'd have assumed that it was either extremely intense or quite gray, so I'd have been guessing four different answers to the formula.

It's possible, too, that some readers may not understand the reference to the Munsell color wheel or "hue circuit" used in the Analogous Color Wheel being discussed, with its five primary colors rather than the three most of us learned in our earliest art studies. I'm only beginning to explore this myself, and not without difficulty (having to unlearn a lot about the triadic scheme), so I'll leave it to others to explain its use and value in practice.

Steven:

Good call. If I get the time today, I will do a post on the Munsell System and try to nail it down for those that may not be familiar with it. :)

I guess I just don't get the value (pun intended) of using a printed color wheel at all as a tool in the studio.

I know all about hue, saturation, value, analogous color schemes, split complementaries and that sort of thing. But when I want a certain color, I just mix it. If I see a color (let's say the dull grey sky outside my Seattle window right now) I know that I'll need a lot of white, a bit of Ultramarine blue, and oh, maybe some Venetian Red and Yellow Ochre to desaturate the blue.

I'm very interested in seeing Michael's explanation of where the printed color wheel would come in.

Michele:

I believe that for beginning artists, or artists who don't feel they have an understanding of color or value, then the Munsell system is a great place to get that knowledge.

If they were to study the Munsell system, then create for themselves, a Munsell color wheel, a value chart from black to white, and then if they were to take the extra steps of taking each hue, and creating charts that express that hue in its value scale, and express each value of that hue in three chromatic intensities from high to low, then by the time they were finished, they would have a very good understanding of hue, value, and chroma and would be able to apply it to their painting and reap a lot of benefit.

These are tools to learn basics and many people are still lacking basics.

My color wheel is pinned to the south wall of my studio. It belongs in my studio because I created it myself as a tool to understand color.

I don't recommend a color wheel that you did not create yourself because color wheels are typically created by companies who want to sell you paint and not teach you about color.

Blue and yellow don't make green
 

Has anyone had experience with this color mixing book, Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green, by Michael Wilcox? I picked it up and have been having much success so far using his color theory. He explains that there are no pure pigments that capture the true color created by light and the light rays that are reflected. His mixing is based on only six colors with six more added simply because this is all you need to mix any color found in nature. I hope I'm explaining this correctly. There is no pure red, only orange-red and violet-red, no pure blue, no pure yellow etc. Anyway, I'm having a good time with the book and anyone interested in his understanding of color should visit www.schoolofcolor.com .

Jean

Jean:

To me, there are two schools of painting and color - the complementary analogous (CA) way, and the chromatic value (CV) way.

The CA system deals ok with hue and less well with chroma and not at all with value. The hues are based on the three primary system and chroma is dealt with by neutralizing with opposites. the problem with this is that invariably, you contaminate your hue.

The CV system starts with more accurate hues, and addresses them within a value scale. To ensure that hues are not contaminated, you neutralize with an equal value gray.

The Wilcox system seems to be a differing way of looking at the CA system, but still does nothing to address value and his chroma system depends on mixing specific brands (namely his) of paint to achieve clean neutralizations. What about hue variations within brands of Hansa Yellow? What if they stop making Hansa Yellow? This guy trying to sell you something as part of his system - what happens when he goes out of business? Further, what quality level are his paints? It seems that he has taken the tertiaries out of the Munsell color scale and dumped the primaries.

I am not saying that his system cannot work, just that I would be cautious about systems that are dependent on specific products, colors, etc. And be wary if someone is trying to "sell you a system" with "products" and especially paints.

Color theory and use should be free. Yes, you do need paint, but you should choose the type and brand yourself and know the quality of the product from its reputation on the market - again, my opinion.

I hope that helps! :)

I picked up the Wilcox book some time ago -- the sticker indicates I didn't pay full price for it. I must have thought it interesting at the time, but I can't discern the country of purchase. I actually found it quite fascinating, but I never settled it down enough to use it in practice.

I suppose that was because even the title was counter-intuitive. Whatever the submolecular physics suggest, when you mix a blue and a yellow on your palette, you DO in fact get green, and there's no practical use in being told that you're being tricked by optics and that the green you're seeing isn't green. Wilcox reminds us that yellow is optically emitted from elements that reject, not elements that absorb, yellow. Okay, but ... But mix a red and yellow and you DO get orange. [Michael just described in his formula something he called yellow-red, and then said it was cad orange, and I wondered why he hadn't said orange in the first place -- then he posted his Munsell color wheel and I saw that the "Orange" label isn't on it. It does get complicated.] Maybe you don't get the green or orange you want straightaway, depending on which blue and yellow, which red and yellow, you started with. But I can discern little practical use when painting in saying that what I'm seeing isn't what I'm seeing. "It's a worry."

Finally, I felt like I was trying to apply Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" to a drive in Taipei traffic. It may work in the lab, but try to explain it in Chinese to Taipei police at the scene of the accident. Wilcox's explication began to feel like I had asked a physicist to help me with my golf swing. It could be done, I suppose -- but surely there's gotta be something else. (Sure, I want Tiger's winnings, if not his golf swing. Okay, the swing, too, but not without the dough.)

I'm not at all familiar with the Wilcox paints. In fact, I've been in a lot of venues throughout the world, over a long time, and I've never even seen those paints offered, so maybe they didn't take off, or maybe they're only available from the website. But it doesn't necessarily bother me that an advocate of a system is also selling a product that meets the needs of that system.

I know that I'm ultimately responsible for doing the homework. I just found Wilcox's class to be one I tended to skip more than others.

What a hoot!
 

Steven, you can always make me laugh till I cry. I can visualize the Taipai traffic accident, and resulting chaos. But the title appealed to my rebel nature.

Michael, I didn't buy the paint or any other products, just the book. I bought it because it did make sense, when I went to mix a color I always did it intuitively, never bought a color wheel, no special palette, and did not own one art technique book. This Forum has been the single greatest motivator for buying products than any marketing scam on the web. Here I was introduced to the subtle variations and breathtaking beauty of color in art. So I bought paint, brushes, canvas and two books. I'm learning.

I have good paint, and have been playing with the mixtures. So far so good. (I also like physics.) This makes sense to me. I always thought red and green made mud. Not exactly true, it depends on the qualities of the initial colors. Mud can have beauty and subtlety.

Chris Saper's book on skin tones opened my eyes to all the color found in flesh. This book takes theory down to small details found in any color. Hubby just came home and wants the computer, so I'll be back later.

Jean

Making Mud
 

What is "mud"? I think it's simply the wrong color in the wrong place. Otherwise it is "a beautiful neutral".

Michael, if I understand this correctly/ this would be the best system to apply to pastels since your colors are in a sense "pre mixed" in different sticks. This was always the question I had regarding the use of cool shadows. For example, pertaining to pastels, if you find your local skin color, then you want your shadows cool, do you cross hatch with a blue color or do you pick a darker hue (stick) of your local color that is already mixed?

I am not sure if you work in pastels, but hopefully that question made some sense and another person might be able to help me there.

Beth:

For shadow areas on flesh, I usually prefer a warm tone.

Per your question, I don't do pastels, but I believe the concept is the same for both oils and pastels. Neutralizing colors can be done in two ways - the CA way of blending the color with its opposite on the color wheel, or the CV way of blending the color with a gray of the same chromatic value as the color. Again, I don't work in pastels, so I don't know how well this might work as you would apply one to the other and blend them together.

Jean: I just wanted you to be cautious. There are many ways of painting. :)

Throw caution to the wind
 

Michael, thank you for the concern, you're like a guardian angel. Not to worry much though, I don't have enough disposable income to throw much money away. I've got to save for a decent easel next. Mine is a $30.00 wonder, if I sneeze it wobbles!

Michele, I agree totally, mud is simply the wrong neutral in the wrong place. Having a tool to help maintain some consistency in color choice, or creating your neutral tones is what I was looking for. I struggled with Josh's new haircut (the last portrait I did) because my color choice for the figure was not consistent with my background scheme. As soon as I changed it, all the pieces fell together. But that meant a lot of time spent agonizing over why, why, why. Now I get it. As a beginner, I like some rules, then when I break them later it will be through choice and not error. :D Maybe this is one of the reasons and applications for color tools. So you can break the rules and fly!

Jean

The Bottom Line on Color Theory
 

Whatever system you choose or use, the bottom line on color is this:

HUE
You need to understand color hues enough to identify them and apply what you know about them to your painting - this includes color selection and mixing.

VALUE
You need to understand the value scale enough to be able to build a convincing 3d impression on a 2d surface. Further, you need enough understanding of chromatic value (values of specific colors) to enable you to effectively mix and apply color to achieve visual effects in your paintings.

CHROMA
You need to have a system to effectively neutralize colors without contaminating your base value or hue. Further, you need to understand how to effectively represent reality using neutrals contrasted with color.

This is a mouthful and I am still working my way through all this stuff and likely will until I am 80! :)

Color Wheel
 

Hi, This is a different color wheel than most use. I also like Paula White's Watercolor colorwheel.

http://www.mauigateway.com/~donjusko...colorwheel.htm

But I find this one fascinating also:
http://www.lebeau-jp.com/2002color_lec01.html

Sincerely,
Celeste McCall

Beth,

You wrote To "cool" off flesh tones, you could either combine a cooler color with the flesh tones already there, or select the proper color if you happen to have it in your box. Cool doesn't necessarily mean blue; it can be green, violet or blue, and of varying intensity, from strong chroma, to virtually neutral hues. Or if you are going for the direct color, a cooler version of what's going on in the light.

Colors in shadow are never going to be just darker versions of the local color in light; they will always be different in temperature and saturation.

So Chris, when pastel makers provide a series of values for the same color it is more for transitions than shadow and lights?

I have never used them for the shadows, but wondered if I should be, now I see I shouldn't have been all along! :)

Hmmm. I've never used a color wheel. We made one in grammer school. But that is my last experience with them. Usually I just make a big mess on my palette until I have the right mix. Although one thing I was taught is that the color of the subject should reflect or be mixed with the surrounding colors.

Point of departure
 

Like Rochelle, I have not used one since grade school. I think the delicate colors that we are concerned with have little to do with such rudiments. Many of the colors we deal with take place near the middle of the famous color wheel-in the tans and browns. It's the right greenish grey or slightly pink off-white colors that make the big differences. Color wheels don't help with that. Painters must "burn these concepts upon their hearts" and not keep them in a drawer in a taboret.

Karin?
 

Could you post the list of colors you use that are transparent? They were on this Forum long ago, I would like to see them again.

Thanks in advance.