Friday 15 October 2010




Course work: Did some final work on the first sheet of Project Four, and started painted the squares for the second sheet, on which I shall try to match the tones in the inner and outer squares.

Observations made from studying the first sheet, using indirect daylight as my light source:

(1) The mid-grey appears darker on the yellow than on the dark grey; on cadmium red it appears slightly darker than on dark grey.

(2) The yellow appears about equal on dark grey, mid-grey, and cadmium red.

(3) Cadmium red appears lighter on dark grey than on mid-grey, and darker on yellow than on mid-grey.

(4) Blue appears darkest on dark grey, but darker on light grey than on mid-grey.

(5) In the six squares painted by mixing colors to approximate primary colors, then painting the complement in the small square, red appears a bit darker on yellow than on blue, blue a bit darker on yellow than on red, and yellow about equal on red and blue.

(6) In the six squares painted by mixing secondary colors from the mixed primaries, green appears brighter on violet than on red, violet more intense on orange than on green, and orange brighter on violet than on green.

(7) Re advancing and receding colors: in general, lighter colors on dark backgrounds tend to advance, darker colors on light backgrounds appear to recede. Warm colors tend to advance, cool ones to recede.

(8) Repeating the above observations under incandescent light shows a slight change in relationships, primarily some apparent lightening of the yellows, and a shift in the violets toward brown.

Conclusions: A color appears more intense upon (or adjacent to) a color of markedly different tone than upon (or adjacent to) one of similar tone. A color appears more intense on a color distant from it in the color circle than upon one nearer it. Color relationships are affected to some degree by the color of light in which they are viewed.



Reading and theoretical studies:



E. H. Gombrich Art and Illusion (11th Printing)

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1969

Pp. 22-62



Sketchbook work: A tomato sandwich.

Time today: Two hours 8 minutes