OUGD 404 Chosen Theories

Complimentary Colours

This theory that I decided to address was the complementary contrasts theory. This was the theory that colours that were opposite in the colour wheel would compliment each other no matter what. For instance red would compliment green or in my case, sandy dollar would compliment luminous blue. There are some theories that even address that different colours can affect our mood and also the way we see things. For instance a red would make people angry and blue would make people quite the opposite of this.

In some cases, if contemplating colours are not used correctly it can cause an optical illusion. If a certain colour was surrounded by another colour which was not contemplating it, the initial colour would be presented either darker or lighter. This can make the initial colour seem unreadable at time. This is because our eyes require those colours to be balanced for us to be able to understand them. Complementary colours must be used with the correct proportions in order to gain a statically fixed image. The stabilization of these complementary colours are specifically important in situations such as mural paintings and and other large publications. It is the key to a clear and concise image. There are illustrative exercises to help define some of the complementary contrasts between some tones such as greys. A gradients would be presented and more and more colour would be added the complementary colour. In the middle of each diagram we would get a grey. If the mixture fails a neutral grey would appear meaning that those two colours were not complimentary.

There are many paintings based upon the complementary colours theory however, these paintings would not baldy use these colours up front. These colours were perhaps be second thought. The compensating tones in between these colours would be used the most to display a complete visual dominance. These mixed tones would naturally fill more space then these pure complementary colours and hues. Two complementary colours can always be used to make some really nice chromatic greys also. The Old Masters would produce these greys by stripping those pure colours back or even by varnishing with thin film. These grey's can be found in old paintings in the movement of pointillism and such. Finally, paintings of nature and florals are very popular with contemplating colours giving their natural glow just so happens to be contemplating.

I wanted to to use my given pantone colour, sand dollar and use its contemplating colour to produce some sort of physical gradient, perhaps with a wide colour range and chromatic greys. To do this I decided to use movement and photograph the colours mid motion to see if they would blend together. I waved the two colours in front of each other and took several photos to see if my idea would work, which it did. I can certainly take apart several different hues from these diagrams. I also wanted to try another form of movement to maybe gain another tone to see what other ways I could create these colours. I attached the colours to a rotating fan and photographed it mid movement once again and I had a very similar outcome to the previous experiment.

Contrast of Hue

This element focuses on contrast of hue. Contrast of hue illustrates a colours different hues within contrast. It demonstrates its different hues within extreme luminosity with light and dark tones. Primary colours such as red for instance, would portray this perfectly given the fact it is quite an extreme colour in this cse compared to others. It would demonstrate this theory perfectly. When this theory is demonstrated it must show at least three separate hues within the form. The intensity of the hue fades away as the contrast is removed from the primary hue. Colours such as green or orange would be weaker in this case in comparison to these primary colours given the fact they are tertiary colours, and previously mixed. To establish these different hues due to the contrast, black or white lines can be applied to show this more clearly. Most of these tertiary colours have a suppressed influence, whereas primary colours pretty much every time have a pure and undiluted affect.

Contrast of hue usually assumes a large number of variation in colour when the chosen colour is varied. However, you could have either an endless amount of alterations or a very few amount in fact. Whether black or white are included as elements of a certain colour palette is usually up to the subject matter. It could either include them or not. You could just display the different variations and end with the warmest or coldest possible variation of the chosen colour.

In this subject matter, whites would usually weaken the luminosity of the adjacent colour and then the opposite for the blacks. They would make the colour adjacent softer. This exercise could be experimented with when using patches of colour and without preassigned shapes. However this may cause the person experimenting to play with shapes instead of colour. To gain maximum results for an experiment such as this, a checkerboard pattern would be used to display this best.

Contrast of hue can be found in many different contexts such as clothing\costumes and pottery. In the middle ages, contrast of hue was used in a lot of decoration. Maybe not for aesthetic pleasure like today but for sheer pleasure in decorative creations and studies.

To embrace this theory in my own work and using my own colour, sand dollar, I decided I wanted to work with a colour most similar to this which in this case was skin tone. I wanted to see if I could explore different contrast in hue within similar skin tones and other people also. My idea was to photograph some skin tone and change its scenario to see how the colour changed. In this case I did such things as put some of my samples in cold places and saw that the tone became colder. I also applied heat to some of the samples and saw how the colour would become warmer also. This has given me a very wide range of contrast in hue within similar and other skin tones.

Light-Dark Contrast

This part focuses on the light-dark contrast theory. This is simply an expression of light and darkness within different hues and colours. This is a fundamental aspect in all of our lives, designer or not. A painters strongest expression of this aspect would obviously be black and white. This theory expresses many greys in between also, and a whole lot of chromatic colours. All of these shades and tone hold great value in all of our work and especially in the painting trade.

The purest black would have to be black velvet and the white equivalent would be baryta white. There is only one possible maximal black and white but an almost never ending number of light and dark greys, forming a continuous scale between black and white. The amount of distinguishable shades of grey is really up to the individual and their perception of colour. Some can even lower their threshold with practice, increasing the amount of tones available to them. A very important part of any painting or drawing is shading and tone. That is why this theory in some cases is so important.

Neutral grey is a very lifeless, achromatic colour which is very influenced by contrasting shades and hues alike. Given the fact is is rather mute, it can hold great purpose. Any colour possible can transform grey for its neutral state, into a complementary colour in correspondence to the chosen colour. This transformations takes place in the subjectively and not objectively in these colours. It can even diminish luminous colours colours to an almost stale state, creating some life of its own.

Certain exercises can be held to test this theory such as selecting certain shades of grey from a scale and rearranging them into a certain sequence to for a composition. Then placing these colours within a checkered sequence, it can test students eye for detail in tone. The main point of the exercise is to cultivate vision and perception of light-dark gradation and their contrasts.

My idea to test this theory in my own form, was to take my given pantone colour, sand dollar, and use that colour to experiment with different shades. I wanted to see what kind of colours I could produce with different lighting and also in darker regions. I decided to use skin tone again as it was the closest thing I could find out my colour. I found that when photographing from a certain angle featuring different shades, I could get a gradient within this produce. My target was to see how many greys I could also find in between these as this would help prove that the light-dark contrast theory was in use here.