Hey everyone, Marco Bucci here - so, Proko.com got itself a little upgrade and I’m happy to say,
I’m now part of its community of teachers. I’m thrilled to be joining forces with other
painting teachers like Tiffanie Mang, Court Jones and of course, Mr. Proko himself.
Now, I’m coming out with a new class called The Color Survival Guide. It's a series
of six chapters that feature essential color theories and practices that I use
every day as an artist and illustrator.
What you're about to see is one of those chapters. If you like what you see,
you can find the rest of the class at Proko.com as well as a whole slew of my
other premium content. So, please enjoy the presentation and I’ll see you at Proko.com.
All right, welcome to chapter four - Color Vibration. This is one of my personal favorite
topics. In this chapter we'll gain more insight into how the eye detects
color movement throughout the color wheel - an understanding of how nature treats
flat colors - a system for keeping our colors interesting and alive in our paintings... We'll
build further in our understanding of nature's color theory and we'll develop some simple color
models that we can choose from or combine when assigning these color ideas. So, here we go!
In Chapter 2, I talked about the inherent limitations of identifying colors by their names,
and how we need temperature modifiers like warmer or cooler
to help us figure out which colors to paint.
Armed with that knowledge, a student of mine painted this study of an apple, and it's good,
it works. I think what's working here, as we discussed in chapters two and three,
we're able to say that the reds of this apple are generally on the cooler side
by moving around the wheel this way, as well as in toward the gray, this way.
That was all stuff from chapters two and three.
And this is a functional painting as a result and yet, I would suggest that it's still possible to
squeeze more - let's call it "energy" out of the colors. Maybe something like this.
Now, there's a bit of intentional caricature here,
but knowing how to do this will stretch your color capabilities just that extra little bit.
So, here in chapter 4, let's discuss what that color tweak is all about.
First, a pop quiz - Color Recognition.
I’m about to flash three colors on the screen and you have to identify them.
Are you ready? Yellow, blue and red, right? Well you're right. But let's look a bit closer.
This here would be a flat yellow, blue and red. What you saw was this - which
reads as those colors, but it's clearly not the same.
There's more going on with them. They have color variety within a color.
Now, I would propose that nature works more on this model than it does the top one.
The color of objects and materials in real life is very rarely without movement.
Quite often, things do have a local color identity.
These examples may average out to colors like this - but,
as you can see with these swatches, the variety within that can be surprising.
This apple for instance reads as red at a glance, but there's lots of movement within
that red. And again, I’ve exaggerated this just to show you what's possible.
For example, I don't think this color is actually in the photograph, but because of the trajectory
I’m assigning these colors, you know, the way I’m moving them, I do think that color is appropriate.
So let's look at some quick theory as to how you can move local colors around.
First, we'll just pick an arbitrary color - this blue here. And for this first model,
we just want to wiggle that color picker between
hues. And if I were to actually paint that, it would look something like this.
Notice I’m keeping my edges pretty soft with all these different strokes. Alright, so that's one
model. Another model would be, instead of wiggling between hues, vary the saturation of the swatch.
Painting this model of color movement would look something like this.
We end up with the same overall effect, but it looks different than the last one.
Our third model would be to combine those two, which looks like this on the color wheel and looks
something like this in practice. Now I’m really starting to feel like we're having some fun,
but there's a fourth model - this one creates a little more tension.
Kind of like that blue swatch in the apple.
I’m gonna start with what we just did, but because we're already moving toward gray,
thinking about chapter one's complementary palette, what I’m doing here is essentially
flirting with going to that complement.
So, what I’m gonna do is consummate that by adding this secondary note here.
There's a tension because those two colors don't ever actually touch.
So, you really want to use discretion and pick your spots where you use this
but if you find the right place for it, it can really create something memorable.
Alright, so here's an illustration of mine that I’d like to break down. It has lots of
different local colors and I feel like I was testing the limit of these color vibrations.
So, the furthest background element should read as blue.
Here's a close-up of one of those sections. It's overall blue,
but all of these colors are in there causing that vibration which I feel helps it stay alive.
In fact, I was using model number three for that, which as you remember looked like this. But
there's also this little tension color, something that's definitely not blue and I didn't put that
color there to describe anything physical, it's just there as a peppering of something unexpected.
Back to the illustration, this area here uses the same idea
but it's a little different because this time the base color is already gray.
You know, these are the stones of a bridge, they don't really have a strong local color.
If I had to pick a local color, I’d put it around here - something very neutral gray. But the same
principle applies. I’ll wiggle this around and this time it's just wiggling throughout the grays.
So, what that leaves me with is different hues that are all close to grey,
which is what you see throughout those stones. And as a little extra twist,
the stones on this side, I kept on the warmer side of neutral because I figured they're closer
to the sunlight and the stones on this side, I kept more or less within the cool neutrals.
I felt that was an appropriate choice here
because that bridge takes up like two-thirds of the picture. It needs to look interesting.
I probably would have cut that color vibration in half if the bridge were, say half the size.
Okay, last thing on this illustration - look at this grassy part here - there's a lot of wild
color in there and some of it's quite illogical - like why are those orangey reds in the grass?
Well, they're there for color vibration, but the reason I’m showing you this is I want to show
you how I painted that section. It's kind of a quick and easy way of getting your colors moving.
Okay, so I’ll paint a green ball there, but instead of starting with green,
I’ll start with something near the opposite of green,
which definitely seems counter-intuitive, like I’m purposely putting the wrong color there.
But now, I’ll build those greens into what is essentially a complementary color.
I’m using a brush that mixes paints as though this were wet oils or something,
and then I’ll just paint it as if it were a regular green ball,
but because I’m mixing into that complement or near complement, those color vibrations happen
for free and then now I’ll just put in some, say, blue or greens using model number one.
Again, combining models, trying to push for interest.
Okay, so here's an illustration where I’m much more subdued with these color vibrations.
They're still there though. Just like our apple here had subtle variations, human skin does, too.
I had a base color in mind like this,
then I just wiggled around that color and found these variations. You know,
they're doing something like this on the color wheel. Essentially model number three, right?
The hair is also model number one, but with an even tighter color wiggle and I felt the hair
was a good spot to put in a tension color. It's these turquoise color notes you see throughout.
Now, that color is pretty far away from the rest of the hair colors
and that's precisely why I kept the rest of the hair colors so close together.
So I had a little - let's call it "breathing room" to zap in that color vibration.
Now, would the hair have worked without that? Sure. Is it better with it? Well,
that's up to you - I think so. Also, why that blue? Why not any other color? Pretty simple
reason - I chose that blue because the throne she's sitting on looks blue, so I figured having
little fragments of that show up in the hair might help unify the piece or glue it together somehow.
Just a quick reminder that color is the most subjective part of art,
and this class is full of principles that work, but it's up to you to use them at your discretion.
All right, so let's do a painting here, and I want to show you how I generally approach this
stuff in a real life situation. This is actually based on a real piece of
commercial illustration I did recently. It'll be a soldier riding on horseback.
He'll be wearing a bright red uniform with some golden embroidery
and a greenish chest plate, too. So, lots of local colors here.
I’m going to start roughing in that red jacket and I’m using this brush in Photoshop that has
color dynamics turned on which makes the hue and saturation change during the brush stroke.
So, I’ll use that a little bit to get some preliminary color vibrations in there for free
and then here I’ve switched to a smudge tool and as you can see,
I’ve kind of gone wild here and I’m getting colors wrong.
I mean, that doesn't look like a red jacket, does it? But I’m doing this on purpose. To show
you on a color wheel what I’m doing right now, I’m kind of playing around in this range here.
Eventually, I want to get to about here with that red jacket. So, as I build from these blocking
colors to that, I’ll be simultaneously managing these color vibrations that I leave behind.
The other thing that can help, just in terms of calibrating your
mindset for this sort of color use is try starting without a line drawing. Instead,
figure out your drawing at the same time you're figuring out your color.
Now, that's definitely harder to do, so this might be a more advanced level tip.
But from my overall experience, you'll find yourself much more free with color,
for some reason, when you're not restricted to a line drawing.
Line drawings can inspire a little bit of the color fill mentality, which is totally fine.
But in this particular chapter, what we want to do is exercise kind of the opposite of that.
Here I’m laying in some of the golden embroidery and frills along the coat,
and you notice my color picker there is pretty much in the middle of the saturation spectrum.
I find myself doing that often as kind of a tactical approach because if I’m in the middle,
I have the choice of either going more saturated or less saturated.
So, if I’m thinking about model number two for generating these color vibrations,
starting in the middle as opposed to one extreme side of the spectrum can really help.
So, up to this point in the painting, I’ve been mainly looking at color - it's now time to get
that essential value in there. You know, light versus shadow and along with that, making sure
my shapes are okay - all the stuff that comprises the rest of the fundamentals of painting.
That's why I’ve kind of slowed down just recently here to put in all the little bits of drawing that
I can't really do quickly; little details in the costume and checking proportions and perspective,
knowing that I have the color in my back pocket.
All of this more technical stuff can happen now. So,
if you look at what I’m doing in the light side right here, that jacket is
slowly but surely moving out toward the more saturated reds that I want to end up with.
But even here, I’m not just choosing one red, I’m playing around using model number
one with some warmer reds, some cooler reds you know, violets, things like that.
Now, this brings up something pretty important. In chapter two, we talked all about how the light
source influences color temperature - how it's the main driver of color temperature, in fact.
The color shifts I’m doing here though are only partially responding to the light.
I’m allowing the light to dictate some overall direction. For example,
this person's being hit by sunlight - which means that in general,
the reds in the light will be overall warmer than the reds in the shadow.
But even within those two categories, I’m still gonna play with warm and cool reds in the light
and warm and cool reds in the shadow. It might look something like this on a color
wheel - those would be the reds in the light and those would be the reds in the shadow.
A little overlap is totally okay,
but you can also see the general direction of the color inspired by the light source
as in chapter two. And when I describe those colors, I really shouldn't be saying "red",
should I? Those are the color temperatures that contribute to something that reads as "red".
Alright, something interesting is about to happen here - I’m working on making
that chest plate read as green. And look at how quickly this is falling into place.
I mean, the video is sped up, but it happens quickly in real life, too. Anyway, the reason
I think this is so cool is that it lends insight into how our eyes actually perceive color.
You might think that for something to look green, it needs to be green. But that's not the case.
Here are some swatches of what look like green on the painting.
Looking at them isolated like that, you're probably thinking like "That doesn't look
green at all". But check this out - move them onto the painting and they magically become green okay,
so what's the explanation for that? Well, my path from red to green looks something like this.
Now, I don't actually have to get to the end of that path just for the color to look green.
I could stop somewhere in the middle, like anywhere in here and that's the thing - the
eye reads the direction of the color - it's movement, more so than it reads the color itself.
So, once you start plotting a few points along that path, the eye says "Hey, you started here,
pretty sure you're going here. Take a load off. Let me do some of the work for you".
Now, based on my teaching experience and as a student, myself, I know that
this is counter-intuitive to what many people think when they get into painting.
Most students are very rigid with color. So, understanding and getting good at color usually
requires a bit of a lateral shift in your thinking. And again, I designed this entire
class to kind of hit the high points - those aha moments that I had along my journey with color.
So, this demo is looking good. It's not a completely finished illustration yet, but
it does demonstrate a good workflow to use when you want to incorporate these color vibrations.
All right, let's move on to chapter 5 where we'll
discuss how different palettes influence the mood of your work.