Bill Perkins Color Notes

Several years ago Bill Perkins from Disney came to Provo and gave a small workshop. These are the notes I took from his workshop.

Elements of Color, Chapter 4

Grey and Brown

-more paintings fail because of too much intense color rather than too much gray

        -”better gray than garish.” Ingres

-one must resist the tendency to see grays or browns as dirty, they are not: they are the “chef’s sauce” of the picture

-cure for the “fruit salad disease” in a painting (to much pure color) is good value organization. Plan before the final colors are mixed. Try a simple color scheme with one strong chromatic color supported by a range of neutrals and complements. All well placed grey makes pure color sing.

Handling Green

    -banish green pigments from palette, mix them from yellows and blues

        -resulting mixtures will be weaker and more varied, both qualities that you want

    -avoid monotony

-vary your mixtures at both the small scale (leaf to leaf) and large scale (tree to tree)

-mix up a supply of pink or reddish grey on your palette and weave it in and out of the greens

-prime canvas with pinks or reds, and allow it to show through at times to enliven the greens

Color Relationships

Light and Form Chapter 3

Form 

    -the terminator (bedbug line)- form transitions from light into shadow

-light rays from the source are tangent to the edge of the form

-soft indirect light the transition from light to shadow at the terminator will be more gradual

    -form shadow begins just beyond the terminator

-outdoor light usually modifies the shadow planes, depending on how much they face upward

    -reflected light often raises the tone of the shadow

-light bouncing up off the ground surface or from other surfaces

-shadows upfacing planes are cool and downfacing planes are warm

-reflected light falls off quickly as you get farther away from the source, unless it’s large

-color of the shadow is the sum of all sources of reflected illumination, combined with the local color of the object

-on a sunny day, vertical surfaces in shadow usually receive two sources of illumination: warm ground light and blue sky light

-darkest parts of the shadow are at the points of contact, occlusion shadow

    -another dark part is the area just beyond the terminator, core shadow

-core shadow only forms if the secondary source of light doesn’t overlap too much with the main light

        -painting it even if you can’t see it can give the form more impact

    Cast Shadows

        -suggest depth or tie together elements inside and outside of a composition

        -parallel pattern of light and shadow is an effective device to create depth

        -sunny days cast shadows tend to be blue, because they look up to the sky

-partly cloudy days, the light is more white and sometimes the blue is small, other sources are more dominant

        -cast shadow is closely related to the light source

        -soft light will cast a shadow with blurry lines

        -hard light will cast a shadow with a sharp edge

        -two side by side lights will cast side by side shadows

-the edge of every shadow gets softer as the distance increases from the object 

Half shadow

-to create drama, especially with a vertical form, light the top half and leave the rest in shadow

    Highlight

-highlight on any glossy form is not a pure white, but a combination of the color of the source and the local color of the object

    -grouping planes can simplify complex scenes

        -top planes

        -side planes in lighter halftones

        -front planes in darker halftones

        -side planes in shadow

-common mistake in painting textural form in sunlight is to make it equally prominent throughout the form (light and dark areas)

-texture in shadow should not be just a darker version of the texture in light, that is not how the eye sees it

-texture difficult to see in the shadow region, more visible in the fully lit areas especially in the darker halftone just before the terminator - half-light

-soft or diffuse light gives no distinct light side, shadow side, terminator or core. All upward-facing planes tend to be lighter since they receive more of the diffused light from the cloudy ceiling

Light and Shadow

-in sunlight the light and dark side of a form can be separated by as many as 5 steps of the tonal scale

        -in sunlight a white newspaper in shadow is darker than a black shirt in the light

Color and Light, chapter 2

High altitudes or clear air

• the sky is more blue-violet
• shadows are darker and bluer relative to the sun

As clouds appear

• shadows become grayer

With haze/smog

• shadows appear relatively closer to the tonal value of the sunlight

Types of light

-direct sunlight

    -shadows are darker and bluer relative to the sun

    -with more clouds the shadows become greyer

    -with smog or haze shadows appear relatively closer to the tonal value of the sunlight

-overcast light

    -ideal for complicated outdoor scenes

    -allows to paint forms in their true colors without dramatic contrasts of light and shade

    -colors appear brighter and purer than in direct sunlight

    -overcast light doesn’t change throughout the day so it is a stable light source

    -north light (windows) come close but still have directional lighting

-window light

    -assuming the light is not shining directly the light will be bluish

-on a sunny day often a second source of light caused by bouncing light upward into window from ground outside (green or orange depending on ground)

-room lit by north light will bluish cast but note the ceiling has green or orange cast reflected from ground outside

    -shadows are soft and warm

-candlelight and firelight

    -halo of warm orange color

    -smoke scatters the light leaving no deep darks in the vicinity of the light sources

    -photographs of night scenes make darks appear profoundly black

    -glowing appearance with soft edges

    -brightness of any point-source illumination diminishes rapidly with distance

        -definition of fall-off

-inverse square law- effect of a light shining on a surface weakens at a rate comparable to the square of the distance between source and surface (show example)

-indoor electric light

    -more of a orange light

    -3 qualities of indoor electric lights (brightness, hardness or softness, color cast)

-relative brightness depends on wattage, type of lamp, distance of subject to the light and how bright the lights are

    -hard light comes from a sharp, small point. The sun or spotlight is a hard light source.

        -hard light is more directional and dramatic

        -casts crisper shadows

        -brings out more surface texture and highlights

    -soft light emanates from wider area, like fluorescent panels

        -soft light is flattering and reassuring

        -better for task lighting because it reduces the confusion of cast shadows

        -tonal transitions from light to shade are more gradual, compared to hard light

    -color cast is the dominant wavelength of a light source

        -hard to judge by looking at the light source

        -regular incandescent lights are strongest in orange and red, weak in blue

            -why red colors look good and blue colors look dead

        -standard warm white and cool white fluorescents emphasize yellow-green

            -light has yellow green cast

-streetlights and night

    -moonlight appears grey or blue

    -sodium lamp (orange light) gives off narrow set of wavelengths, sickly look

-mercury light (cool light) has a wider spectral output, drains the warmth out of flesh tones

-luminescence

    -when hot or flaming objects give off light it is called incandescence

    -when something gives off a cool light it is luminescence

        -can come from living and non-living things

    -bioluminescence

-organisms that produce light live, mostly in the ocean (squid, jellyfish, bacteria, algae)

        -land animals emitting light (fireflies, millipedes, centipedes)

        -some mushrooms that grow on rotting wood emit dim light called foxfire

    -fluorescence

-light produced by object that converts electromagnetic energy, ultraviolet radiation, into a visible wavelength

        - amber and calcite will give off colorful light when lit by ultraviolet light

    -luminescent colors often gradate from one hue to another

-blue-green colors are most common in the ocean because those wavelengths travel the farthest through water

    -paint a luminescent scene first in darker tones then add the glowing effects last

Color and Light, chapter 1

-Colors can only be understood in relation to each other and that no color exists in isolation. - Michel-Eugene Chevreul (Professor of Chemistry)

-Pre-raphaelites applied colors in transparent glazes over semidry white ground to achieve a depth of color

-Hiremy-Hirschl restricted his palette in Ahasuerus at the End of the World 1888 to blue, gray, black, white, little warmth for skin tones and touches of gold

Variation

”Nature will not have one line nor color, nor one portion nor atom of space without a change in it. There is not one of her shadows, tints, or lines that is not in a state of perpetual variation.”
 -John Ruskin