Warm and cool defined
 

Yesterday I had the pleasure of leading a group of my students on my semiannual tour of the Met. I call it

Visual Examples?
 

Marvin, would you kindly post photos of paintings which display the skin tones you reference. I am a very visual person and love to see pictures with explanations and am very interested in your topic.

Not a different opinion just a different view
 

I am not sure what you are trying to say here, Marvin. I wonder if this was a post to stir up the colorists among the Forum members. You also sound a bit like the Paris Critics referring to Manet's Olympia.

You wrote:[QUOTE] All cool effects that we evidenced in the skin tones were created optically by the juxtaposition of neutral tones with more chromatic ones. I think this is a salient point due to the numerous recommendations I

Color adjustment
 

Julianne,

I have been searching for reproductions to illustrate my point but since I am talking about very subtle nuances I have been unable to find images that capture the colors faithfully enough to make the point, but I will keep looking. In the meantime here is a little chart I have cooked up. The small neutral (gray) squares are all identical in color and value. However they look different based on the surrounding field. The square against black looks lighter than the one against white. The square in the red field looks cooler than the one against the blue green field which appears warmer by comparison. Hope this helps.

Michael,

I didn

[QUOTE] You mention a number of well-known and very accomplished painters who use a myriad of colors on their palette (which I refer to as the Baskin Robbins Palette). I could counter with Rembrandt and Velasquez each of who used only four colors, with not too shabby results. So I would say the number of colors doesn

Two Rembrandts
 

Here are a couple of what I think are excellent reproductions from the Rijksmuseum website. Not having been there in person I can't say for sure, though.

Marvin, what do you think of these skintones?

Here's the second one, of his wife Saskia:

Michele,

You go girl! Good examples of the use of neutrals to make recession. Many would call these cool tones.

Michele,

Just a clarification, I am not familiar with either work, but while the second painting is clearly a Rembrandt, the first looks more like a Hals, or even a Van Dyke. It makes no difference in the nature of the thread, I am just curious. Wonderful reproductions, I especially like the first painting. I could feast for a month on the first painting.

Peggy

They're both listed as Rembrandts on the Rijksmuseum website.

Check out this link and go to portraits. It's what I feel is THE best art site on the web for high quality reproductions. Click on the zoom icon and you can scroll around to see every tiny brushstroke on many, many masterful paintings. Be prepared to spend hours in awe....

http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/asp/framuk...=bezoekersinfo

To find the portraits, click on Collection at the top of the page. Then click on: 1250 Major Exhibits, then Catalogue, then Paintings, then Portraits, then Female. Scroll to the right. It's part of the second grouping of paintings.

The second painting I showed above is listed as a Rembrandt portrait of a Haesje van Cleyburgh, painted in 1634, one year after the Saskia portrait. They do have a very different feel don't they? I'm guessing Rembrandt felt he needed to work the commissioned piece to a higher level of finish than the one of his wife, which he may have done to suit his own tastes.

Rijks Museum
 

Michele,

What a wonderful site. As you warn, you can lose yourself for hours on this one. And what wonderful scans!

One of the more difficult bits of information that I had trouble absorbing and incorporating into my work during my initial training was the notion that the so-called cool areas of flesh were green, or umber, or violet. I couldn

Well, I will re-word part of my statement. One man's neutral tone is another man's cool tone.

If you open the images and sample these colors out using Photoshop so you can view them independent of any other color reference, they do even appear to be a green tone. But that does not mean that a green pigment was used. Ivory black mixed with Yellow ochre and white makes a greenish tone that is also considered a neutral by some. I do not think Marvin is wrong, I think we are really caught in semantics here. Just what is a cool tone? In comparison to the other skin tones the neutrals are cooler. That does not mean they are blue or green (although they can appear to be.)

I have a question if you had a warm skin tone made from YELLOW OCHRE, LIGHT RED and white, what color would you use to neutralize it? Even if you use a blue black you are using a cool color to make a neutral. That is the crux of this discussion was a cool pigment added to the skin tone to make the neutrals or cool tones in these paintings. If I remember right Rembrandt did not use a blue as we might think of such as ultramarine or cerulean, but he did use ivory black which is a blue black.

So did he mix this cool pigment in the neutral skin tones? I do not know but I sure would think he did, unless someone can tell me what colors would make this greenish neutral other then a Ochre mixed with some bluish color. Raw Umber is a yellow brown and I suppose it could be used in the place of the ochre but I still think that some bluish pigment was used. Of course I do not know for sure; also it could just be the greenish under painting showing though.

What would you call these colors?

I won't get into this color thread except to note that as Michael says, much of what is being discussed is semantics. One man's cool is another man's warm. On your question about the warm skin tone, Michael, I would say that what you have described is a very COOL flesh tone.

My flesh tone is made with cadmium yellow and cadmium scarlet and white. I cool with cadmium red or yellow ochre. But in the transitional edges and shadow I do see a lot of greens, and purples and blues, as well as orange and yellow.


Michele, on your swatches, I see 4 greens and 1 purple ;)

Peggy

[or woman's, of course]

I guess that's what I wanted to get sorted out, Michael, before we went in too many directions on the basis of our possibly seeing the same thing but giving different names to it. (Lao Tze said it long ago, that once you give something a name and say that it is "this" and not "that", you're down the road to trouble. Of course, he said it in Chinese, and I'm paraphrasing, to boot.) I had the sense that there wasn't really a difference with a distinction, other than in the way we chose to label it.

By the way, point taken that black and yellow make some incredible greens (just as black and white make some wonderful blues). But they're still optically green, when it's over, so whatever the constituents, I would still call them green.

Michele --

I can (and will) try to put a name to those color swatches, but I've been tossed around in Photoshop enough to know that the eyedropper doesn't deal with optical mixes, it just grabs a pixel's worth of color, whereas what we see on the screen is a blend of many pixels. I often have to make a number of selections from the same small area to get the color I'm looking for, and I'm as often very surprised to make a selection from, say, a blue area and see violet, or red, in the swatch window.

In those colorist (and tonalist) schools in which you're first required to say whether an observed color is a red, a yellow, or a blue - this wouldn't be easy. Forced, I would say yellow, then red. But the next question is whether those tend toward one of the other primaries [or put another way, whether they're warm or cool], and they both do - toward blue - so I too see the effect in the painting as green, and then violet.
____

Which brings us full circle. Is there anything intrinsically "wrong" with painting greens (or blues or violets) into skin tones if we see them there, and leaving them out if we don't? For better or worse, that's where I'm at in my progress. It's not a perfect system, but if I don't paint what I see, I'm just makin' it all up anyway.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Hello everyone,

Thought I could share this as one of the examples. It is a portrait by Pietro Annigoni. I really love the graying or greening effect. Enjoy!

I too am loathe to get into this discussion because of my current time constraints, but I will say this.

I don't believe it matters what colors you use in flesh as long as your values are correct. Warm and cool variations add a complexity to flesh that makes it look more real, but how you accomplish those warm/cool relationships is up to individual taste.

I personally see a lot of green in flesh because that cool gray green is actually there in people. Look at your hand and study it a bit. You will see the color of flesh, the color of blood that pools in the fingers and knuckles, and, you will see the veins that sit right under the skin - they are a cool gray-green. So I see all of these colors in flesh, but again, I think that whether you add them in with ultramarine blue mixed with your flesh tone, or adding a cool gray-green to your flesh tone, or with just a complete neutral gray, is, as others have said - semantics and a bit of personal taste.

I am always cautious about using Old Masters as examples.It's the time alteration factor. This is one of those times where I believe only reality works.

Steve the eye dropper has different settings, (Depending on the version of Photoshop you use) They are single pixel which is not that useful most of the time, 3x3 pixel average and 5x5 pixel average. I used the 5x5 pixel sample setting when I did my tests but of course it is still just sampling colors from the scan and if it is not color matched to the original then all color data is false anyway.

It is hard to pick out the exact pigments used when looking at a original painting never mind trying to make a observation from a scan on a computer screen. Conservators go as far as looking at pigment particles through a microscope to determine what the old masters used so I am sure we could find out exactly what colors were used in a area of a painting using such scientific methods if we had access to these paintings and the equipment but since none of us do we are all just speculating based on educated guesses.

Yes, you could say that, since it is an example of a flesh tone as seen under cool north light. Also it is just such an example that shows that warm and cool are relative to the other colors in the painting. I tend to lean toward cool highlights and warm shadows and the midtones are a mix, depending on the amount of blood in the area, or if it is a receding plane or not.

I will go back to a quote from Nelson Shanks when asked how to mix a flesh tone he replied with: "Do you have 2 years? I will tell you." You just can't cover this topic in a single Forum post. So much of this is subjective, and there are so many variations, that there is no short answer. Sure, you can make simple rules or guidelines, but they will be wrong as many times as they will be correct.

A few Examples:

• Shadows are warm under cool light.
  
  Sure that can be true but it can also be completely wrong many things can affect the shadows, like a blue from another object that is affecting the ambient and reflected light in the room.
  
  Sunlight outdoors is warm and the shadows are cool.
  
  Well, the impressionists sure thought that this one was true but is it always? No not all the time.
  
  Cool colors recede, warm colors come forward.
  
  Again this rule works if your background is cool or gets cooler as it recedes as in a atmospheric landscape. But what if your background was a huge fire and things closer to that fire where very effected by that warm light, but the objects in the foreground were lit buy a cool light source? Well, in this case warm colors would recede, In other words, objects with a greater amount of the background color tend to recede into that background. It does not matter if it is warm or cool.

So can you really paint following rules blindly? No.

Try to paint what you see. The rest it just technique.

Scientific study of color
 

My brother is an applied mathemetician, doing color analysis and standards for Quadgraphics here in Wisconsin. He is the one who uses and develops the computer programs to define color in the printing industry. Even with all his knowledge of the "science" of color, he is amazed by color in ART. He reduces it to mathematical equations and pages of computer language, yet when standing in front of a painting with incredible blues, deep black, luscious skin tones he says, "How did you do that"!

One of the tests he was required to "pass" before being offered the job consisted of being able to see the hues in color samples. Evidently the vast majority of the human race can only see half of the pigments in a particular color sample. (If anyone is interested I can get the actual statistics).

As artists, we are blessed with the ability to experience as much color as our rods and cones will allow us. I am eternally grateful for the gift of being able to see the differences. I'd like to see this thread continued with examples of the wonderful color in art.

Anyone interested in the finite and microscopic analysis of color can e-mail me and I'll refer them to John, he loves to ponder and is quite verbose. ;)

Jean

The type of microscopic tests I was referring to do not even look at the color of the particles but the molecular structure and size of particles to identify specific pigments. These are also sometimes combined with chemical spectrum analysis. So, if say, a lead white was mixed with a chrome oxide, they would look for those pigments and chemical compounds and try to determine the amounts of each. They also would try and determine the binder or type of oil used, and if there was a varnish applied what type. This is a very scientific process that has more to do with molecular chemistry then color theory. You could even be color blind and do these tests.

Now this is different than a paint chip analysis, where they try to look at the different layers to find the hue and shade that a mix of pigments produced. For the same color hue and shade and value can be made from different pigments. It is important that conservators know the exact pigment used and the exact type of oil or other mediums used to bind those pigments. Also they need only a very small sample (small like the size of a pin point or the point of a dental tool) The microscopes they use are like an electron microscope that can see the molecular structure of a particle.

But even with all these advanced tools, they still have to make educated guesses as to the painting process. These tests have been used to try to determine the authenticity of paintings, and even with all of this, experts still can't always agree. As you might imagine, a painting that has been around for a few hundred years would have plenty of exposure to all kinds of contaminants that could disrupt the findings or cause enough doubt to make them inconclusive.

Analysis
 

Hi Michael, I was gently teasing about my brother. He loves to pontificate. I generally tune him out after about 15 minutes. I'd rather do it than understand his mathematical analysis of pixel formation.

The point is that no amount of scientific study can actually define how artists use color. What remains is very simple. In order to experience we have to do it. Add violet, green, blue, or any other color and see what happens. And there will always be paradoxes. We define warm colors as those most like the warmth of the sun, and cool tones as standing in the shade of a tree. Yet the hottest flame burns a blue- white. And with this I have to stop pontificating and go do it!

Jean

I haven't read every bit of this thread, but I think that no one has brought up the fact that a neutral color, when placed next to a color like red or yellow, will appear to be its opposite.

If you stare at a patch of red, then look quickly to a piece of white paper, you will see the shape of the red patch, but it will be green.

The same thing happens when you are painting red in a face, and then put gray next to it, the gray will appear green. If the face is orange, the gray will appear blue, etc. etc.. Andrew Loomis talks about this in the color section of his book.

For years I tried to put blue and green in portraits, because I can see it there. Then I realized that gray will look just like blue and green, and purple, if you are using red, orange and yellow.

Karin Wells knows this. Black is our blue, our purple and our green.

Inconclusion
 

Linda,

Thanks for not reading the entire thread. I am not being facetious since you have reiterated my original supposition that the illusion of most complexion hue variations is an optical and should be FIRST attempted using neutrals in a painting. However you may in the future want to check in after reviewing the previous twists and turns.

My original purpose was to point out that artists trying to get a grasp on the complexities of painting complexion colors are far better served by taking a simpler approach as opposed to trying to load up their skin tones with lots of color. This can easily result in muddy and garish color. Also I was talking about seeing relationships versus going by formulas.

I feel too much minutia is analyzed and focused on without addressing the big issues that underlay the painting experience, getting unity and form to name two. A three dimensional egg is more valid expression than a flat juxtaposition of features, if you want to tell the truth about a head.

I also mentioned that my original premise was prompted by my recent field trip to the Met and that my observations were based on actual portraits such as Rembrandt's portrait of Herman Doomer. I applauded the portrait of Rembrandt's wife posted by Michele because it clearly demonstrated his use of neutrals versus more chromatic hues similarly to the Herman Doomer painting. However, the neutrals at the Met didn

Full circle
 

Yes, this thread did take some twists and turns but great conclusion Marvin. I think you did make your point and it was a good one. I think I might have misunderstood some of your initial post, but as the discussion went on it became more clear to me. As it turns out, I do not think we are that different in our methods. I may lean a bit more towards a impressionist influence but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate your view. And after all, who is going to argue with Rembrandt :)

Full color circle
 

Michael,

I'm glad you came full circle as well. I know you are very sincere and your questions are never self-serving and always come out of a genuine desire to expand yourself.

One of my favorite painters is William McGregor Paxton, a painter who successfully combined Impressionistic color notes and academic values. He achieved incredibly luminous skin tones and exquisite color notes using a rather limited palette.

My goal is to incorporate both sensibilities in my work as well.

Linda,

I was going to suggest the Mysterious Fayum Portraits. The colours used were white, earth yellow, earth red and an organic black (which functioned as an imperfect blue), this was the standard for a very long time.

I also wanted to ask, just from how far,were the painters responding to this discussion viewing the faces they were painting. From life?

This thread moved off-track, was edited, and will remain closed for now.