Dorothy Gauvin
by Dorothy Gauvin
Art Gallery Gauvin
To contact Dorothy, click on her photo, which will take you to her web site and e-mail
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Dorothy Gauvin |
Articles of Interest for Artists by Dorothy Gauvin Art Gallery Gauvin To contact Dorothy, click on her photo, which will take you to her web site and e-mail |
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The Colour Wheel Getting It Right
We've all experienced this when we were starting out...
You're well along with a new painting when you realize that Something's Wrong! The problem will be due to one or both of two things: An unbalanced
composition or a lack of colour harmony. In Issue # 3, I showed you how using what I call "The Star" can help you avoid design mistakes from the
outset. Now, I'd like to show you the very best tool you will ever find for getting your colour composition right, every time.
I don't know who invented The Colour Wheel but s/he sure was a friend to every artist who has followed. Models of The Wheel are included with
this article. You can print and copy them as many times as you wish. Use them to experiment while you become familiar with the principles behind
the theory.
You already know there are only three Primary Hues: Red, Yellow, Blue. Where they merge, they create the Secondary colours: Orange, Green, Purple.
These are the major colours we see when light is projected through a prism, separating into its different wavelengths. A strip of these colours can be
joined to make a circle: The Colour Wheel. Looking at a rainbow, or at a scene in nature, you'll notice that many more colours than these are
discernible.
And so, the basic principle of The Colour Wheel has been expanded to include the Tertiary colours: Red Purple, Blue Purple, Blue Green, Yellow Green.
Using this advanced model, you can make far more accurate colour matches.
Take a ruler and pencil a line joining any colour with the one opposite it on the Wheel. Each is the Complement of the other. For instance, the
complement of Red is not Green, but Blue Green. The colours Adjacent, or next to, Red are Orange and Red Purple. If you pencil a wedge shape -
or "slice of the pie" - to include the Adjacent and the Dominant hues at the wide end, with the Complement at the pointy end, you'll have the basis
for a sound colour composition.
If you were to analyse any successful painting you see - in a museum or gallery or art journal - you would find the artist has used colours that fit
into this wedge shape on the Wheel. But wait, there's more! No, not a set of steak knives...
Taking that pencil again, draw an equal-sided triangle starting from the Dominant hue. The bottom corners of the triangle will be over the two
Discord hues. Used sparingly, these colours will give your painting a pleasing contrast that enlivens the work. The final, and very important,
element of your colour composition is made up of the Neutral hues. They are made by mixing a colour with varying amounts of its Complement.
Experiment by drawing a line between two colours, adding just a little more of the Complement to each as you work towards the centre of the Wheel.
You'll see how lively are the greys you can mix this way. Because they are made from the colours you're using in your painting, they'll give the work a satisfying cohesiveness, while letting the eye rest from the dominant hues. A grey made by mixing White with Black is dead, artificial, and does nothing for your artwork.
So here's your "recipe" for a colour-balanced painting:
Let's take a famous painting and see how this system works in practice. Because the French Impressionists were the masters of colour,
I've chosen as our example a painting by Claude Monet: Poppies: near Argenteuil. (See a reproduction of it on this page.)
The painting shows a sunny day in the countryside where two women and their children wander through an open field. A summery sky filled with
fluffy white clouds is bordered by a row of dark trees that almost hide a distant farmhouse. The grassy field, scattered with wild poppies, fills the
entire foreground. What do we see in terms of this painting's colour scheme?
Dominant hue: Yellow-Green. As the Impressionists were well aware, a bright landscape looks mainly yellow. So, the Yellow-Green grass nearly fills
the canvas.
To check how this works, study both models of The Colour Wheel.
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Earlier, I mentioned Chroma. This is the intensity of a colour, which can be altered - lowered - by adding small amounts of the colour's Complement. Value refers to the darkness or lightness of a colour. Some hues can never be as deep in Value as others. Looking at the Wheel, you'll see that for instance, Yellow can never be as deep in Value as is Purple, even at its greatest intensity, or Chroma. So, how do you use this knowledge to match a particular colour? Let's say you need to match a strong, greyish-blue of storm clouds in a landscape. Squeeze from the tube a bit of the blue closest to what you see in the clouds, probably Cobalt Blue. You'll modify this with a bit of its complement, which you know is orange. (If you must, you can use Cadmium Orange, but why not mix it yourself from Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Red?) It won't look quite right yet. When comparing your mixture with those clouds, try to see whether the difference lies in chroma or value. If the chroma is too intense, add a little more orange. If the value is too dark, add some white. When you've gone overboard with the white, don't be tempted to add black to darken the mixture. Add a bit more Cobalt Blue instead. Keep adjusting until your match is right. At first, you'll need a lot of stick-at-it-ness but believe me, it'll soon seem easy as pie when the principles have become second nature to you. When you make it a habit to plan your work by choosing that "slice of pie" from The Colour Wheel before you start painting, you'll never have another failure caused by a poor colour scheme. This was demonstrated to me in quite a dramatic way some eighteen years ago. At that time, I still exhibited with various galleries and was content to accept their assessment on pricing. One day, a new salesman working at one of these galleries asked for a meeting with me. Having noted how quickly my work sold, he proposed "floating" my prices.
"What does that mean?" I asked, having never heard the term. "Well, what I'll do is hang one of your new pieces without any price posted. When a visitor shows interest, I'll say: 'What would you pay to own that painting?' And we'll see what happens."
What happened was a real surprise to me. The canvas size which up until then had sold at around $600 was sold in the first week for $7,500. About a week later, a piece the same size sold for $12,500. And it just went on from there. I was actually shocked - wouldn't you have felt the same? Then I realised that in fact this is the most realistic way to find the proper price for an artwork. Simply ask the customer. It's quite a different thing from winning a prize in an Art Competition. Since I won my first significant prize at age twelve, I had long been aware that winning did not mean my piece was "the best," anymore than the contestant who wins a beauty quest is the most "beautiful." It simply means that, in either case, this was what the judges were looking for on the day. But when collectors know they must live with a painting for some years (before it is worthwhile to re-sell) and are willing to back their choice with hard-earned cash, you get a result beyond dispute or qualification. Please don't misunderstand me; I'm not suggesting the new chum try this on. That'd be asking for a raise before proving yourself on the job. But if you've put in the hard years of establishing your style, and have shown consistent sales in a reasonable time frame, now is the time to politely talk it over with a few of your gallery directors. If they are amenable to testing a float of your prices, it might well mean "goodbye" to the day job.
My heart-felt advice to artists, borne out by the experience I've just shared with you and my observations of the careers of the many artists I've been honoured to represent in my own galleries, is this: Don't worry about the money.
I mean it. Pay your bills and feed your family with a day job, for as long as it takes. It may take forever, because relatively few ever become able to live on the income from their art alone. What does that matter? In the modern world, many excellent artists still rely on the day job. They can express their art freely, without pressure to make it pay a living wage. And here's a "secret" Truth:
If you work at making yourself the best artist that you can be; if you focus on making your own art - not trying to "cash in" on whatever is the latest fashion; if you never compromise your art by exhibiting something not up to your (current) standard just to get a sale - something wonderful will happen.
Not only will you like and respect the person you see in the mirror, but also "it must follow, as the night the day," that the money will come. Don't believe it? Please just try it anyway and see if you can prove me wrong.
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