Color Matching

[Leslie Bohoss]

Hi!

Has anyone a good tip for matching the colors?

Not only skin, rather all others: animals (actually a leopard) flowers etc...

My prior way: try to analyze the RGB parts and attempt with tube color to match it. The result is always only close (or not so close ). I would to know how professionals do this so perfectly.

Many thanks, Leslie

[Timothy C. Tyler]

Leslie, two hints come to mind:

1. Paint every day so your eye becomes very sensitive;

2. Paint from life and match the colors exactly-artists who work from photos miss much color because photos lose much color. Paint from life lots before using photos (maybe not leopards) -bunnies maybe?

[Michele Rushworth]

The "color" of any object, be it a leopard or a flower, is an ever-changing thing and depends mostly on the color and amount of the light falling on it. The color of paint we use to match what we see also depends on the color and value of the things around the object, as Josef Albers showed in his color studies.

Practice makes perfect in color mixing. As Tony Ryder so precisely explained in his recent workshop, you follow three steps: First determine the value of what you are seeing (the relative lightness/darkness). Then determine hue. (Is this patch of the flower's petal more orange or more pink?) And finally, decide how saturated the color is. (Is this an intense orange or a somewhat muted color?)

Then you must have enough colors of paint on your palette to match what you see. Some colors in nature (especially brightly colored flowers) are very hard to match without a wide range of pigments to work from.

[Timothy C. Tyler]

I get all three aspects at once as several readers here have seen me do in class. I just find no reason to break color down into three separate aspects and reconstruct it to establish the whole color. Every color contains these aspects but an artists can learn to read all 3 at once. With enough practice painters can nail colors precisely in seconds-direct AND accurate painting of color.

[Marvin Mattelson]

The key to color matching is the recreation of the relationships of a color to its surroundings. As Michele stated, perfectly mixed color will appear wrong if what surrounds it is off.

Bouguereau, who painted the most realistic and believable flesh tones ever, made no attempt to match "real skin color." It was his ability to recreate the correct relationships between the color changes within the painting that made his flesh so convincing. Anyone holding their hand up to one of his paintings would be suprised to see the great difference.

Copying a color exactly is a good exercise unto itself but it is far from the ultimate goal of color mixing.

To that end, I also teach my students to consider value first, then hue and lastly chroma. The palette arrangement I use makes this task a very logical one.

[Leslie Bohoss]

Many Thanx!

Practice, practice...
This surrounding effect is a really difficult aspect, but I noticed myself at skintones one time helps another time make it more difficult.

So I understand, you all said: use limited palette (except flowers with bright colors) better to realize the mixing process
do life painting (eye-training)
do painting everyday (practice)

Now I see an advantage of the underpainting process to match colors, it works with the first value then slowly process to the right color.

Chris Saper's book explained very well (for me too) the different of Photo and Live. I see on your works many touches of little different colors in "one place", that make sense. I think that is a secret of living and vibrant colors too.

Do you mix your colors only "partially" on the palette/canvas? Since I see the photo of Tim's palette, a big yes.

My PC attempt with RGB/CMYK works only with acrylic, like the Sirius System from Lascoux (CMYK) but not in oil.(Because of different tinting power and transparency?)

PS: If I see your works... it costs an effort to go on. But I do it, then I see my "tinkers" a year ago and now.

Cheers!