Color and Pigment in Art (1967)

[Music] this red is a color produced by a pigment we put pigment to use in many ways colors produced by pigments take on symbolic meanings in maps to show boundaries of land areas or differences in elevation of the land in packaging colors are used psychologically to attract your attention and make you interested in a product colors may have another function traffic signs for for instance often have this color combination to indicate a warning but more often pigment is used by artists to produce the colors and forms of objects they are representing pigment is simply the name given to the colored materials they use the same pigment can be found in many forms temper chalk watercolor oil we are able to see colors only because of light any colored object reflects one or more of the separate colors which make up white light without light there are no colors white light is actually a combination of Many Colors if we shine a beam of white light through a prism the light is defract into the colors of the spectrum red orange yellow green green blue and violet we can imitate many of the colors of the light spectrum with pigment colors we call red yellow and blue the primary colors with these three colors we can make the rest of our pigment color spectrum red and yellow make orange yellow and blue combined to form green and red and blue make violet so from combinations of red yellow and blue the primary colors we have made the secondary colors orange green and violet Now by mixing primary colors with the secondary colors that are next to them we get intermediate colors the primary red and the secondary orange form the intermediate red orange in the same way orange and yellow form yellow orange from yellow and green we get yellow green green and blue make blue green we mix blue and violet to get blue violet and violet and red to get red violet sometimes these primary secondary and intermediate colors are arranged in the form of a wheel this color wheel is based on 12 colors colors that lie opposite one another are called complimentary colors so on this color wheel the primary color red is the complement of green yellow is the complement of violet and blue is the complement of orange of course you know that there are not just 12 colors but hundreds of colors how do we describe them perhaps you have described colors as being light or pale light green grapes light golden brown wheat pale yellow chicks pale blonde hair or sometimes you may have described colors as being dark or deep a dark blue dish and goblet a dark brown horse deep red green and purple fruits and vegetables or perhaps you've described colors as having different tints or Shades or tones of a single color but there is a more precise way to describe colors in terms of Dimension this color solid is one of several systems for arranging colors in three dimensions the leaves of the solid are arranged by Hue the Hues are arranged vertically by value and horizontally by intensity now what do these terms mean Hue is simply the name we give a color red red orange orange yellow orange yellow and so on in this color solid the Hues have the same circular Arrangement as they did in the color wheel we saw before Hues are simply different colors to see what we mean by value let's look at just two leaves from the color solid blue and and yellow value simply refers to how light or how dark a color is when it's compared to a gray scale ranging from white to black each color chip shows a different value of blue and yellow the lower the value the darker the color we can get a better idea of values of different colors by comparing them to the same gray scale when photographed in black and white the values of the colors can be matched more easily this way now that we've matched the values let's see the colors or Hues again you can see that this yellow is high in value the blue and violet low in value and the red and green are middle value colors our third dimension of color is intensity intensity refers to the purity of a color here is orange at its highest intensity a pure orange but as we move along this horizontal scale the orange Hue decreases in intensity the color becomes less pure more neutral so this Arrangement shows change in intensity for different values of orange we can reduce the intensity of a color such as Blue by mixing it with various amounts of its complement Orange in this case the blue becomes less intense more neutral the same thing is happening to the orange we can also change intensity by mixing a color with neutrals orange with black orange with gray orange with white we get a wide range of Variations by mixing a color with different amounts of these neutrals here is the effect of mixing orange with increasing amounts of black orange with gray and orange with white this arrangement of the color solid then shows us Orange in many different intensities now let's describe a color in our dimensions of hue value and intensity you can see that the Hue of this color is yellow the value is near the middle of the scale it is a middle value color this color is about half in intensity artists and designers have long known that colors can affect our moods and feelings variations of yellow here give a bright cheerful feeling variations of blue suggest a feeling of coldness the artist painted this picture using mainly warm colors what do we mean by warm and cool colors from Red through yellow green are the warm colors these are the colors you see in fire the rising and Setting Sun new leaves in spring from blue green through blue violet are the cool colors these are the colors you see in distant mountains the Sea and the sky and on rainy days violet and green share properties of both warm and cool colors another way of suggesting mood is by control of values the use of high value Val colors in this painting help suggest a bright Happy scene while in this scene the low value colors add to a sense of depression or for boing colors can be disturbing or unpleasant if they do not harmonize that's why in what we wear we try to select colors that go together colors that please our senses when seen next to each other there are various kinds of color harmonies the simplest Harmony is a monochrome an arrangement of different values and intensities of the same Hue this painting is mainly a monochrome of blue another simple Harmony uses adjacent or analogous Hues in this painting most of the colors are found next to each other on the color wheel color harmonies can also be based upon color complements and the near or split complement here the dominant color blue is harmonized with its complement orange and split complement colors we can see various color harmonies carried out in room interiors this is the Red Room in the White House where a monochrome Harmony is used variations in value and intensity of the same Hue similar Harmony is used in two other famous rooms in the White House The Green Room and the blue room this modern interior uses a monochrome Harmony accented with neutrals this is an arrangement of compliments and split compliments and in this room analogous colors are used so you've learned something about pigment and [Music] color you've learned to describe color in three dimensions in terms of hue the name we give a color [Music] value how light or dark a color [Music] is and intensity the purity of a [Music] color what you've learned will help you understand how color in art and interior design can be used in various values and intensities to create certain moods and enrich our surroundings [Music] what you've learned can help you put color and pigment to more effective use [Music]