Paint Pouring: Color Theory
Fluid art is also the art of experimenting. Luckily, through years of trial and error, curiosity and a good understanding of the products that I work with, I can help you avoid any bumps in the road on your fluid art journey! In a previous blog, Beginner’s guide to acrylic paint pouring, I briefly talked about color Theory. Understanding how hue, saturation, and luminance work together to create an appealing composition can save you both time and money!
From the time we are tots, we recognize color. We know our favorite color, the colors that make us happy and the colors that make us uncomfortable…but what is color? Color is SCIENCE (cue Bill Nye voice).
Color has three important components: hue, saturation, and luminance. Hue is often referred to as “color” but specifically, hue refers to the traditional name given to a specific wavelength of light in the color spectrum. Color is light! Our eyes, with the help of our brain, translate light into color. We can recognize a specific hue, like red, based on how it reflects or emits light. Saturation refers to the purity of that hue. The 3 primary colors, Red, blue, and yellow, are considered fully saturated colors and considered the truest version of color. When white is added to a hue, it becomes a tint, when black is added to a hue, it becomes a shade. The more white added to a hue, the less saturated it becomes and will appear more washed out or faded. Think of an afternoon sky with the sun right above, the sky appears to be a blend of faded pastel colors, mostly violet that our eyes perceive as blue. Now, think of a sunset with a burning horizon that fades into a more intense blue. The colors appear more saturated as sunlight takes a longer path through the atmosphere, the amount of light that hits our eye appears reddened. Further on I will elaborate on cool colors vs warm colors, but both skies are beautiful in their own way.
What is luminance? Most often referred to as value, luminance in lay-mans terms is the perceived brightness of a color. While each color has an individual luminance percentage, every color can be lightened or darkened by adjusting hue and saturation, luminance is dependant on both. Refer back to that beautiful sunset sky, if we were to reduce the hue saturation to 0% we end up with a greyscale photo. The photo still has luminance (value) and most likely, even in greyscale, you can still identify what elements were yellow. Yellow is only a small percentage away from white, and while you may have not known that, you do identify yellow as a bright color!
Blue has the least amount of luminance and will appear less bright with 0% saturation.
Why is luminance important in fluid art? Because knowing luminance values allows you to understand the contrast between two colors, allowing you to create an aesthetic composition.
Moving on….
We understand what color is, briefly, but how does one go about choosing colors that look good together in a paint pour? How does an artist achieve harmony by use of multiple colors? While your brain is spinning, I’m going to introduce the wheel. The color wheel.
There are many expansive color wheels available today but for the sake of easy explanations, let's be simple. Primary colors, mentioned earlier as the most saturated colors, are in the center of our color wheel. Red, blue, and yellow cannot be created by mixing other colors, but when combined in varying amounts, they can produce all of the colors.
Secondary colors, purple, orange, and green are created by mixing equal amounts of primary colors.
Tertiary colors are a combination of primary and secondary colors. Red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet.
Complimentary colors are exactly as they sound, they compliment each other and are found opposite hues on the color wheel. When used in full saturation, these create a high contrast!
What is your favorite color? Why is it your favorite color? Does it make you feel calm and comforted? Does it make you feel energized and free? Colors can evoke emotion and contribute to the composition by creating contrast, movement, and harmony. Depending on which emotion you’re trying to create you might choose warm colors, cool colors, or an intriguing combination of both.
Warm colors are bold, vivid, and advance in space. In interior design, warm colors are often accents as they can make a space seem smaller. Red, yellow, and orange are considered warm colors. In color psychology, red is said to make someone feel excited and loved! Yellow can convey warmth and energy.
Cool colors are soothing, calm, and recede in space. In interior design, cool colors are used to make a space appear larger. Green, blue, and purple are considered cool colors, In color psychology, blue can convey calmness as well as sadness. Purple can make someone feel mysterious and smart.
My favorite color combinations contrast both warm and cool colors. The use of complementary colors encourages the eye to wander while a softer color gradient to create harmony. You can find some of these color combinations below:
Try them out, let me know how they worked for you!
