Primary Colors

[Douglas Drenkow]

Most of us learned as far back as elementary school that the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.

In art school, it is taught that many of the Masters, such as Rembrandt, substituted black for blue.

But an old printer/photographer friend of mine insists that the primary colors, in pigments, are magenta, yellow, and cyan -- something that the physicists will confirm as the primary "subtractive" colors, which complement the primary "additive" colors, of light (green, blue, and red): Magenta absorbs green, yellow absorbs blue, and cyan absorbs red.

My old printer friend has even given me extensive color charts showing how all the colors of the spectrum can be created with the printer's standard CMYK color scheme (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK -- the latter for definition). According to my eye, the oranges and blues thus created are a bit muddy; but with red, blue, and yellow, the secondary colors (particularly the violets) sometimes are, too (that's why the standard advice is to include a warm and cool hue of each of the primary colors).

My question is, has anyone out there attempted to paint with a cyan, magenta, and yellow palette (in standard pigments, that would be approximately phthalo blue, alizarin crimson, and a mid yellow)?

[Karin Wells]

I've actually tried this and it was, for me, a miserable failure. I wasn't even able to come close to doing the things with paint that you can do with printer's ink.

I use ivory black as a substitute for blue in my paintings,. I seldom, if ever, use any blue paint (except for a rare glaze).

[Jim Riley]

I'm not sure why one would like to reduce their palette to three colors and in any case it does not work. Did you try before you asked this question? The physical characteristics of oil paint are quite different than process colors and unless you can anticipate exactly where your whites or near whites will reside and have the patience to paint around these areas you will go mad. I would like to see a decent painting made without white. Although I like to keep my palette limited I also keep a lot of special colors on hand if a specific project calls for them. It's also hard to argue with the broad palette of Nelson Shanks with some exotic (and expensive) colors. If you have ever been fortunate enough to see his work first hand you would understand why CMYK doesn't do his work justice.

I worked for American Greetings years ago (great job) and can tell you that many prints were done with CMYK plus special colors to get better reds for Valentines and Xmas subjects. You should also note that many upper end digital printers will print up to 6 colors. If it were at all practical I would love to have an everlasting supply of the greatist range of colors possible.

Artists like Daniel Green premix a big range of colors normally found on the face and this cuts down on the amount of time you might spend searching and trying to remember what combination of colors you previously employed to arrive at certain shades and reduces the amount of mud created on the way to color we need to do the job.

I am also confused about the use of black to replace blue? I'm doing a painting of a young girl with a patterned dress with red, yellow and blue flowers. How in the world can I do that with black? Not to mention the summer sky above.

[Karin Wells]

Here is a still life that I painted....it appears as if there is blue in it, but there isn't....it is ivory black mixed with white.

I generally do not like to use blue paint and if you check out my website, everything you see that "looks" blue there is really black.

[Karin Wells]

Also, some (Old Master) painters have at times used an extremely limited earth palette of primary colors:

White
Ivory Black (as blue)
Burnt Umber (as red)
Raw Umber (in glaze form, this is yellow)

These four colors really cover quite a range and can make for a lively and interesting painting.

[Jim Riley]

Ivory Black for the blue background?

[Karin Wells]

Yes really. In my portrait of Anna (and James) above, the background is painted with Ivory Black (plus white).

There is NO BLUE PAINT in this painting!

The "secret" here is the use of the "earth" palette (described in detail in another post). The addition of any "chemical" color outside of this palette, (for example, sap green) would blow the whole delicate color balance and I would not be able to pull off this substitution of black for blue.

Sometime, I'll dig out a landscape I recently painted and scan it....it really fools the eye...and I love to do that!

[Douglas Drenkow]

Although an artist

[Karin Wells]

I am really impressed by your knowledge of color theory. Frankly, I have always felt deficient in this area. I have spent years researching and testing the little information that I actually do know and making it work for me.

Here's a confession...I am partially color blind in my left eye....and I don't know if it it has helped me or hurt me when it comes to painting.

[Jim Riley]

Karin,

I solved your problem. Don't send money. You don't owe me anything.
http://forum.portraitartist.com/imag...s/wellseye.jpg
Jim