How to key up or intensify Chroma

[Enzie Shahmiri]

I was wondering if anybody can tell me how you go about intensifying the chroma of any given color.

Sorry Moderators, this should have gone under Color and Color Theory!

[Marcus Lim]

Hi Enzie, simply grey the areas around the part where ur chromas need to be enhanced.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Thank you Marcus for responding. Greying down the surrounding areas makes sense.

Since no one else seems to have an answer as of yet, I did some reading and here is what I found.

Source: Problem Solving for Oil Painters
1. A picture gains in impact when you reduce the number of its values.
2. How do we know when s.th is really bright?
a. It is high in the value scale and high in intensity.
b. it burns out the surrounding areas, making dark things brighter. (halo effect)
3. Use pure color - straight out of the tube vividness.
4. Bright Red looks brighter if a red glow emenates from it. Yellow looks more yellow if it permeates the atmosphere around it. The message being that this color is so intense the air is saturated with it.

But what do you do if you have a dark brown or dark blue, dark green etc. If you lighten those with white to bring them up in value they no longer look vibrant or with high intensity.

With brown I usally go for Orange to give it punch, but I just stumbled on that one and I am wondering if there is not some sort of way that applies to all colors when it comes to intensifying chroma.

[Richard Bingham]

Wow. Marcus' answer is certainly correct, fundamentally.

Intensity (chroma, saturation, whatever) is, (like values) an extremely finite range on the palette when one compares it to "nature". Controlling color/value relationships within this compressed range is how the painter is able to create an illusion. That said, mastering that "control" is the sum of the painter's problem, and there are many varied paths to achieving it.

Regarding "problem solving for painters" . . . who's the author? I agree with #1. I think the other "solutions" are nebulously phrased and could cause more problems than they solve.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Gregg Kreutz is the author.

Ok, I am tossing around ideas....

Let's say you have really dark purplish/brownish grapes. Often in paintings you will see that there is this area, besides the highlight, that just seems to glow. The addition of very light value of red mixed with some yellow can give the illusion of luminosity and high chroma.

On green grapes adding an intense yellow does the trick.

What do you add to red? If you dull the surrounding areas with grey, would you add the purest orange?

On an orange goldfish, what do you add to the already high chroma orange to make it shimmer with a even higher chroma?

[Richard Bingham]

Kreutz instructs at the Art Student's League? He has instructional DVDs out, what little I can see of his work is great. (anyone have some links?)

Here's some thoughts that may help, generally.
1. A lot of painters use titanium white, not realizing that it is very opaque, and tends to make "chalky" color mixes. Raising the value of any color decreases intensity, but moreso with tit white than with zinc or flake.
2. Color intensity is a function of value. The "bump" (i.e. that transitional area between light and shade, or "penumbra") is where the local color of any item is most intense.
3. Oddly, intense red easily recedes. This is one reason why the "thin red line" often used by illustrators (and others) to "turn" flesh is a useful "trick".
4. Forcing local complimentary contrasts will work to intensify chroma, e.g., a "red" apple will seem far more intense against a "green" background.
5. Consider Munsell's "5 primary" basic color wheel rather than the traditional red, blue, yellow system. The relationships thus gained often solve your apprehension of local color and its relative intensity more easily.
6. Greys make the picture! (our world is not as colorful as we imagine it . . . that's why we gravitate to items that do have intense coloration, like the iris of the eye, flowers, etc.)

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Richard, thanks! I will have to think about these....

[Enzie Shahmiri]

This worked like a charm...

Keeping all these point in mind, I greyed down adjacent areas first. In this case the adjacent colors are a value1-2 (Munsell) really dark fuchsia/red. Then I added for punch pure high chroma paint "Cad Red "(sorry Marvin ). After that I let the area dry completely and did a wash of the base color over it. This was done to make sure the area harmonizes with the rest and to keep it within a proximate value. If you squint, the punched up area should dissapear more or less into the adjacent areas. It does it nicely on the painting. No white was used and the result is a nice glow.

This glow effect only works well if used very sparingly in very selected areas and I would recommend being very, very selective about where do add this type of punch.