The Path of Least Re-Distance
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Color Theory Tangents
This month, we’re exploring the lesser known bits of color theory. The stuff that doesn’t make it into 99.999% of color theory articles and videos.
Yes, the same influencers who love color theory so much and swear you need to learn it…
Somehow they never really seem to do more than repeat the kindergarten parts.
Last week, I covered the blue argument and I touched on how temperature relates to distance.
I’d like to stay on distance this week, so let’s talk about how much color is in your color.
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COLOR = DISTANCE… BUT WHICH COLOR?
Last week, I mentioned near colors and far colors which is something you’ve kind’a heard whispers about before.
Cool colors recede while warm colors advance.
Most people assume this means colors from either the warm or cool half of the color wheel.
But last week with the blue sky/blue water photo, I hinted that it’s more about warm and cool versions of the same color which imply distance.
Which may have blown a few mental circuits for you.
Oh, grasshopper; there’s more to the push method than you realized.
When I teach Push & Pull in classes and courses, I teach a simplified version which is directly applicable to the type of coloring you’re most likely to do.
If one leaf overlaps another, we push the bottom leaf deeper with a darker color and we pull the top leaf towards us with a lighter color.
You think of this as “shading” and “highlighting” although it’s not actually shade or highlight. We’re simply adding a bit of darkness to indicate something is farther away or adding a hint of lightness along an edge to bring it forward.
Most students accept the push/pull concept and never question it.
But every once in a while, I get a deep thinker who asks the right question.
Because if Push & Pull was as simple as making distant things darker…
Hang on a minute… to see what I’m talking about, let me show you the trees from the top of this newsletter again.
If the secret to depth is to make every tree a little darker as we move back along the path…
Then why aren’t the farthest trees here black?
The problem is that you’re thinking of a push as “shading”.
But you’ll hear me use a special word for it— desaturate.
And desaturating is not shading.
Shade pushing works with stuff that’s relatively close.
But you can’t go through life pushing one mountain behind another with a darker marker.
When you’re pushing something back more than about 12 inches— like if you’re pushing it to the end of the driveway or pushing it back towards Wyoming…
To do big pushes, you need a different kind of desaturation.
Because shade can’t go the distance.
Now colorists? You’ve been brainwashed into thinking of a push as “more color”.
You’ve got your green and then there’s a greener green, and then a greenier greener green.
You shade green with more green, right?
But desaturation isn’t more color, it’s less color.
Think of desaturation as the “After 12 weeks on MegaSlim!” photo in a diet advertisement. The after photo is the same person but there’s less of them standing there.
Look at my silly row of Christmas trees again. Now let me explain, I’m not doing the usual Copic thing where you grab a darker and darker marker— G12, G05, G17, G28, G99, etc.
Instead, I’m mixing green with black up there. With each tree, I’m changing the ratio of green to black. The tree in front is the most green and the tree in the back is the least green and the most black.
This is green on a diet.
Green. Green with a little black. Green with more black. Then the ratio flips and somewhere in the middle and the color becomes black with less and less green.
I desaturated green with black.
This is actually called shading!!! I know you say “shading” all the time but you’re been using that word wrong for years.
Real shading is to desaturate a color with black.
But shading isn’t the only way to desaturate a color.
Here, I’m desaturating with gray. This is called “toning” and each green along the way is a “tone” of green.
“Tone”— there’s another word you’ve been using wrong, eh?
Here, I’ve desaturated the trees with white. This is called “tinting”.
Colored pencils are tinted.
70% gray is not a color, it’s a recipe. 70% gray is a 70/30 mixture of black and white pigments. “Light Sap Green” doesn’t tell us the percentage of the tint but we know the white is there by the word “Light”.
In watercolor and Copic, we tint with clear solvent— a process also called “dilution”. The Copic numbering system is entirely based on tints. G19 is progressively diluted into tints. G19’s tints are called G17, G16, G14, and G12.
Now let’s desaturate using the opposite color on the color wheel, the complement.
This is called “neutralizing”. The direct complement of this green is purple. See how purple slowly neutralizes the green? The weirdo colors in the middle are what we call “neutral mud”.
And I know you’ve heard me talk about mud before. I love working with muddy colors!
Okay, let’s play with temperature.
Indirect complements are colors just a few spaces away from the direct complement. If you find purple on the color wheel and move 2 spaces cooler, you can cool-desaturate with blue.
Now think about all my classes which use B23 or B34 under YG17/YG03. Then we use Prismacolor Indigo Blue on top.
I teach beginners to desaturate with blue because most of you would implode if I asked you to use anything weird.
But let’s get weird anyway.
Now let’s warm-desaturate using the warm indirect compliment— red. From purple move 2 spaces warmer and we land on true red, something similar to Copic’s R-Twenty family.
The unpleasant “yucky mud” in the middle is created when you mix indirect complements which also clash in temperature.
And for you deep thinkers— YES! Warm mud is exactly where the Earth family of markers is born.
Thomas Cole, “The View from Mt. Holyoke…”
Asher Durand, “Catskill Clove, NY”
Albert Bierstadt, “Valley of the Yosemite”
Okay Amy, this is fun but what does any of this have to do with coloring trees or mountains in the distance?
Let’s look again at the Hudson Valley School of artists. Thomas Cole is a popular example, Asher Durand is another. But Albert Bierstadt? He’s my favorite.
Now remember, distance is an optical illusion created using desaturation.
But which kind of desaturation?
Shading? Toning? Tinting? Neutralizing? Or neutralizing slightly cool or warm?
Which kind of desaturation makes the best distance?
The best realism artists always use MORE THAN ONE type of desaturation to color distance.
How many kinds can you see in Durand, Bierstadt, or Cole?
And how many do you see in these photos from Pixabay.com?
As we move into the distance, there’s less color in the color.
Sometimes the color is shaded, sometimes the color is a tone, sometimes it’s a tint or neutralized… And I don’t just mean the farthest mountains or the space at the end of the trail. Every object in all the paintings and photos has a different kind of desaturation to simulate depth.
When an object is close, we see the color clearly. As the object recedes, the artist must decide how to desaturate, how much, and which combination to use.
Now let me ask you:
When have you ever heard this in a coloring class?
When have you read it in a color theory article online? When have you seen this in a Color for Colorers video?
Nooooo, they’re too busy dinking around with a color wheel. They never get around to the actual Art of Color Theory.
Folks, THIS is color theory.
It’s not about color triangles or perky complimentary palettes, or any of the other numbskull games you can play with a color wheel.
Color theory is about how we change, mix, and modify the markers and pencils in your hand to create special effects and optical illusions.
You have the tools. 358 of them.
There’s a better way to use them.
Color theory is how.
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