Coloring

“ You may melt your crimson into purple, your purple into blue, and your blue into green, but you must not melt any of them into black. You should, however, try, as I said, to give preciousness to all your colors; and this especially by never using a grain more than will just do the work, and giving each hue the highest value by opposition. All fine coloring, like fine drawing, is delicate; and so delicate that if, at last, you see the color you are putting on, you are putting on too much. ”

“ What significance have these abstract principles of beauty in the combination of colors for representative art? In the choice of objects with a definite local color, of course, these laws will be found operative. A scheme of blues and yellows is likely to be more effective than one of reds and violets. If we analyze the masterpiece of coloring, we shall find that what we at first supposed to be the wonderful single effects of color is really the result of juxtapositions which bring out each color to its highest power. ”

“ The scheme of coloring may be varied to suit the fancy of the scholars, for the preparation of these permanent illustrations may well be intrusted to those of the class who are especially interested in the work, and who are skillful in their use of the paint brush. ”

“ To maintain an even shade of color, it is necessary to slightly stir up the color each time the brush is dipped into the color saucer or palette, especially when the coloring is composed of mixed colors, because the coloring matter is apt to separate from the water and sink to the bottom. ”

“ COLOR (Continued) —VALUES—SUBTLETY SO far in our talk on color we have laid stress on three points: first, that color is light; secondly, that color is affected by light; thirdly, that the painter who is a colorist arranges color in relation to other colors, so as to produce a harmony.
The reason was, that I wished you not to think of color as paint. Paints, or as artists call them, pigments, are only the materials that man has invented to imitate the real thing. The real thing is nature’s color. ”

“ Probably the effects of colour on educated minds are as various as the tints and shades of tones of the many substances which receive them,—reflected from all surrounding objects, blazing in light, or softened by shadow,—fresh and glowing, or permanently faded—shining with modern varnish, or sobered by the dust of ages.
It is the art of the colourist, whether he paints pictures, or dyes textiles, or embroiders them, to reduce the tints of the prism to an endurable and delightful lowness of tone, while preserving as far as possible all their light and purity. ”

“ The inexhaustible and unceasingly varying beauties of art begin to develope themselves most when the study of Light and Shade commences; and the student is amply recompensed for the time he has devoted to obtaining a knowledge of correctness in outline. It is now that he sees Nature with other and improved vision—with clearer conceptions of her character—in her sunny and joyous revellings, as in her vast and awful sublimity.
Drawing gives form; Colour, its visible quality; and Light and Shade, its solidity. ”

“ To stain your paper with a slight reddish or yellowish tint, adds to the harmony of a sketch, yet it is a mere matter of taste; but, when it is desired, it had better be done after the drawing is completed, otherwise the colour risks looking patched from the rubber.6
19. In colouring, the sky gives the ruling tint to the landscape; it is absurd to unite a noonday sky, with a landscape of sunset glow.
20. From the three virgin colours, red, blue, and yellow, all the tints of nature are composed.7 There is not in nature a perfect white, except snow, and the petals of some flowers. ”

“ If you have a good eye for colours, you will soon find out how constantly Nature puts purple and green together, purple and scarlet, green and blue, yellow and neutral grey, and the like; and how she strikes these colour-concords for general tones, and then works into them with innumerable subordinate ones; and you will gradually come to like what she does, and find out new and beautiful chords of colour in her work every day. If you enjoy them, depend upon it you will paint them to a certain point right: or, at least, if you do not enjoy them, you are certain to paint them wrong. ”

“ It is often well to paint in grays a study that you have painted in color. On page 9 is a picture in values of the sunset scene on page 8. While we cannot express the actual color of objects with anything but color, we can show the light and dark effect of color with a gray medium, such as pencil or charcoal, ink or charcoal-gray water-color.
In using a gray medium, we must try to keep our contrasts as well marked as though we were using the actual color itself. Suppose in this wash-drawing of the hyacinth, the flower, the leaves, and the flower-pot had all been of the same value. ”

“ People who are less refined admire deeper tones; yet want absolute harmony, while coarse individuals are satisfied with bright gaudy colors. Color is a sensation produced on the retina of the eye, by the action of one or more of the elements of light. Exact proportion by parts are not given in the following in order to let you be the judge of the exact shade. Follow the simple rule of using a little more of the dark colors of each color combination if a deeper shade is wanted and vice versa for a lighter one. ”

“ In the first place we have the abstract basis of all colour in light and dark. When we posit this contrast and its transitions by themselves without further distinctions of colour effect, we get thereby simply the contrasts supplied us by white as light and black as shadow together with their transitional grades and nuances, contrasts which offer to the art of drawing its integrating quality, appertaining as they do to the real plastic character of form, and producing the prominence, retreat, rondure, and distance of objects. ”

“ I am beginning to say with conviction that color-schemes are the mark of a narrow and rigid taste—that they are born of convention and are meant not for living things but for wall-papers and portià ̈res and clothes. Moreover, I am really growing callous—or is it, rather, broad? Colors in my garden that would once have made my teeth ache now leave them feeling perfectly comfortable. I find myself looking with unmoved flesh—no creeps nor withdrawals—upon a bed of mixed magentas, scarlets, rose-pinks, and yellow-pinks. I even look with pleasure. ”

“ If your taste inclines to more delicate shades, do not be discouraged because by that choice you are told you haven't much sense of colour. That you know in your heart of hearts is not true. The beauty of twilight, or the delicacy of a misty landscape, or the sombreness of the grey old woman in her dark frock have fully as much 'colour' as the gorgeous sunset, or the meadows rioting with gold and crimson blossoms. ”

“ The beauty lies in the colouring. What a feast these ruins afford to the eye by their colour, what a revel of blues, greens, and low-toned reds in their unfaded paintings! Taken as bits of colour only, without dwelling too much on the forms, all in such light, the shadows filled with golden reflections—taken thus, or deeply tinged with the lustrous after-glow, or the golden moonlight, they are all-satisfying. ”

“ These six bright colours, when used in conjunction with black and white, with each other, or with their complementaries, will strengthen, intensify and enrich each other without altering their true value—when such vivid effects and sharp contrasts offend the taste of the worker, when they appear too crude, too conspicuous and too obtrusive—which they are apt to do—they may be harmonised quite simply, either by modifying the complementaries or by using a tint or a shade, that is, a lighter or a darker tone of the same colour. ”

“ Marny. Paint is not color. Color is an essence, a rhythm, a blending of tones as exquisite as the blending of sounds in the fall of a mountain brook. Match each sound and you have its melody. Match each tone and you have light. ”

“ For I should be sorry if, when you were led by the course of your study to observe closely such things as are beautiful in colour, you had not longed to paint them, and felt considerable difficulty in complying with your restriction to the use of black, or blue, or grey. You ought to love colour, and to think nothing quite beautiful or perfect without it; and if you really do love it, for its own sake, and are not merely desirous to colour because you think painting a finer thing than drawing, there is some chance you may colour well. ”

“ The Palette.—You try to attain nature's effects of light with pigment. Pigment is less pure than light. You cannot have the same scale, the same range, but you must do the best you can, and the arrangement of your palette will help you. As you have not a perfect blue, a perfect red, and a perfect yellow, you must have two colors for one. ”

“ Hence the judicious artist purveys for his palette at least two pigments of each colour, one eminent for delicate beauty, the other for richness and depth.
Truth of hue is a relative quality in all colours, except the extreme primaries, in the relations of which, blue, being of nearest affinity to black or shade, has properly but one other relation, in which it inclines to red and becomes purple-blue: it is, therefore, faulty or false, when, tending to yellow, it becomes of a green hue. ”

“ THE APPRECIATION OF COLOUR.
Most people understand each other sufficiently to agree in their ideas about various colours. Thus every one agrees in saying that poppies are red, that the sky is blue, and the leaves green; but if any one were to assert that the sky was red, that the leaves were blue, and poppies green, who could possibly contradict him? ”

“ When you have got the whole well into shape, proceed to lay on the stains and spots with great care, quite as much as you gave to the forms. Very often, spots or bars of local colour do more to express form than even the light and shade, and they are always interesting as the means by which Nature carries light into her shadows, and shade into her lights, an art of which we shall have more to say hereafter, in speaking of composition. ”

“ When I come to treat of colouring, I shall particularly shew in what manner the gradating of prime tints serve to the making a beautiful complexion; in this place we shall only observe how nature hath by these gradating shades ornamented the surfaces of animals; fish generally have this kind of shade from their backs downward; birds have their feathers enriched with it; and many flowers, particularly the rose, shew it by the gradually-increasing colours of their leaves. ”

“ When all is said and done, tone is the result of color relations, so arranged that they produce a rhythmic harmony.
. . . . . .
An artist, when he paints a tonal picture, has in mind the relative dark and light of colors, and their relative coolness and warmth. Let me explain. First the relative coolness or warmth of colors. The artist regards blue as the coolest hue. As a matter of fact violet reflects even less light than blue; still, for his practical purposes, an artist says that the cool hue is blue, and he associates with it violet and green. ”

“ Colouring is a distinct and subsequent branch, and is only to be learnt by long and minute observation of the diversified tints and hues of Nature. The principle of Light and Shade, on the contrary, is established by theory. ”

“ Suppose a picture, composed of one part shade and the other light—the light being warm, and the shadow composed of cold colours—a red or warm-coloured figure laid against the shadowed side, and a blue one brought out from the light, would, in addition to possessing the greatest force of colour, have a spirited and imposing effect. ”

“ To return a moment to the problem of color: illusion is frequently lost through a failure to adjust the shade of the high-light and shadow to the tone of the foundation grease paint, or natural complexion. The commonest offence is the use of an unmixed, unblended slate for shadows, and white, and high-lights, whether the underlying color be florid, sallow, pink, or pale flesh. ”

“ Dark colours are best calculated for varnishing; the lighter colours, such as sky-blue, apple-green, rose-colour, delicate yellow, &c., will not bear varnishing so well, and in spite of the greatest care are liable to get dirty. ”

“ But though you cannot produce finished coloured drawings of any value, you may give yourself much pleasure, and be of great use to other people, by occasionally sketching with a view to colour only; and preserving distinct statements of certain colour facts—as that the harvest-moon at rising was of such and such a red, and surrounded by clouds of such and such a rosy grey; that the mountains at evening were in truth so deep in purple ”

“ It is also well worthy of remark that the brightest colours are often used in broad masses, and when so, are always arranged chromatically, in the sequence of the rainbow’s hues, and are hence never displeasing to the eye. The hues, though bright, are subdued by the imperfect light: the countenances of the images are all calm, and their expression solemn. Whichever way you turn, the eye is met by some beautiful specimen of colouring or carving, or some object of veneration. ”

“ The general tone of the work is warm;—the blues, greys and greens are used as a foil to give value to the warm colours, the shadows and middle tints: the greys are glazed warm, to preserve the richness of the general effect throughout. The reds and blues are combined of colours possessing the properties of each. The quantity of warm and cold colours are to be principally observed—the union of one part with another—preservation of the breadth, and the general harmony. ”

“ Two artists will use the same colours, and yet one with an eye for colour will give us beautiful harmonies, and the other one wanting this delicacy of perception will give us crudity. Form in your mind some tone of colour suggested, say, by the warm mellow colours of autumn, the soberer russet and greys of the winter, or the light, fresh, delicate tints of spring, and carry these suggestions out in your decoration. The corner cupboard, Fig. 1, we might tint in the russet tones, and you will find that such colours as raw sienna, raw umber, yellow ochre, terra verte, burnt sienna, chromes Nos. ”