Eliza Anderson's Color Journal

A World Without Color the visual brain processes tonal information separately from color information humans are trichromats, meaning they have three kinds of color receptors Is Moonlight Blue? moonlight is actually reddish (according to science) our visual system plays tricks on us when we look at things in dim light artists known for painting moonlight include: JMW Turner, James Whistler, Fredric Remington, and Maxfield Parrish paint some swatches and compare their shades in the moonlight they become more monochromatic red looks darker in the moonlight while greens look lighter Edges and Depth edges: refer to the painterly control of blurriness, especially along the boundary of a form can help communicate depth/dim illumination depth of field; one plane of distance is in focus at a time blur increases as objects get farther from the plane of focus sharp edges are harder to see in the dark Color Oppositions complements suggest an...

Monochromatic Schemes Monochromatic Schemes composed of any single hue taken through a range of value or chroma a drawing tool such as a pencil or pastel automatically creates a monochromatic image Grisaille painting was most often used as a preliminary step to plan the tonal values before the colors were overlaid in transparent glazes Warm and Cool Warm and Cool Cool colors suggest quietness, restfulness, and calm Warm colors connote energy and passion develop interest in a painting by placing warm colors and cool colors adjacent to one another Colored Light Interactions Colored Light Interactions Additive color mixing: blending color in the eye rather than pigments; one light is added to another complementary shadow colors; if you have two light sources of different colors shining on the same form, the cast shadow from each light source will be the color of the other source Triads Triads composed of any three basic colors (does not have t...

solid objects with a matte finish behave predictably in strong light, but other materials such as clouds respond to light differently  clouds transmit a greater quantity of light to the shadow side through internal scattering than the volume of light they pick up from secondary sources if you try to make clouds follow the form principle, they risk looking like lumps of plaster

Three Quarter Lighting Three Quarter Lighting the light reaches most of the visible form, leaving only a fraction of the form in shadow can also be called "broad lighting" used in most portraits "Rembrandt Lighting:" when short lighting is arranged so the nose shadow merges with the shaded side of the face Frontal Lighting Frontal Lighting light that shines directly toward a model from the viewer's perspective light can be hard and direct, or soft and diffused very little of the shadow is visible occurs when you are sketching something with your back to the light source emphasizes two dimensional design instead of sculptural form one of the few times when an outline will appear in real life (the outline is really the thin fringe of shadow that appears on the edge of the form) Edge Lighting Edge Lighting lighting comes from behind to touch all sides of the form, separating it from the background  usually requires a strong sourc...