Primary Colors
 

Most of us learned as far back as elementary school that the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.

In art school, it is taught that many of the Masters, such as Rembrandt, substituted black for blue.

But an old printer/photographer friend of mine insists that the primary colors, in pigments, are magenta, yellow, and cyan -- something that the physicists will confirm as the primary "subtractive" colors, which complement the primary "additive" colors, of light (green, blue, and red): Magenta absorbs green, yellow absorbs blue, and cyan absorbs red.

My old printer friend has even given me extensive color charts showing how all the colors of the spectrum can be created with the printer's standard CMYK color scheme (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK -- the latter for definition). According to my eye, the oranges and blues thus created are a bit muddy; but with red, blue, and yellow, the secondary colors (particularly the violets) sometimes are, too (that's why the standard advice is to include a warm and cool hue of each of the primary colors).

My question is, has anyone out there attempted to paint with a cyan, magenta, and yellow palette (in standard pigments, that would be approximately phthalo blue, alizarin crimson, and a mid yellow)?

I've actually tried this and it was, for me, a miserable failure. I wasn't even able to come close to doing the things with paint that you can do with printer's ink. :o

I use ivory black as a substitute for blue in my paintings,. I seldom, if ever, use any blue paint (except for a rare glaze).

I'm not sure why one would like to reduce their palette to three colors and in any case it does not work. Did you try before you asked this question? The physical characteristics of oil paint are quite different than process colors and unless you can anticipate exactly where your whites or near whites will reside and have the patience to paint around these areas you will go mad. I would like to see a decent painting made without white. Although I like to keep my palette limited I also keep a lot of special colors on hand if a specific project calls for them. It's also hard to argue with the broad palette of Nelson Shanks with some exotic (and expensive) colors. If you have ever been fortunate enough to see his work first hand you would understand why CMYK doesn't do his work justice.

I worked for American Greetings years ago (great job) and can tell you that many prints were done with CMYK plus special colors to get better reds for Valentines and Xmas subjects. You should also note that many upper end digital printers will print up to 6 colors. If it were at all practical I would love to have an everlasting supply of the greatist range of colors possible.

Artists like Daniel Green premix a big range of colors normally found on the face and this cuts down on the amount of time you might spend searching and trying to remember what combination of colors you previously employed to arrive at certain shades and reduces the amount of mud created on the way to color we need to do the job.

I am also confused about the use of black to replace blue? I'm doing a painting of a young girl with a patterned dress with red, yellow and blue flowers. How in the world can I do that with black? Not to mention the summer sky above.

Here is a still life that I painted....it appears as if there is blue in it, but there isn't....it is ivory black mixed with white.

I generally do not like to use blue paint and if you check out my website, everything you see that "looks" blue there is really black.

Also, some (Old Master) painters have at times used an extremely limited earth palette of primary colors:

White
Ivory Black (as blue)
Burnt Umber (as red)
Raw Umber (in glaze form, this is yellow)

These four colors really cover quite a range and can make for a lively and interesting painting.

Ivory Black for the blue background?

Yes really. In my portrait of Anna (and James) above, the background is painted with Ivory Black (plus white).

There is NO BLUE PAINT in this painting!

The "secret" here is the use of the "earth" palette (described in detail in another post). The addition of any "chemical" color outside of this palette, (for example, sap green) would blow the whole delicate color balance and I would not be able to pull off this substitution of black for blue.

Sometime, I'll dig out a landscape I recently painted and scan it....it really fools the eye...and I love to do that!

Thanks for all the interesting feedback!
 

Although an artist

I am really impressed by your knowledge of color theory. Frankly, I have always felt deficient in this area. I have spent years researching and testing the little information that I actually do know and making it work for me.

Here's a confession...I am partially color blind in my left eye....and I don't know if it it has helped me or hurt me when it comes to painting.

Karin,

I solved your problem. Don't send money. You don't owe me anything.
http://forum.portraitartist.com/imag...s/wellseye.jpg
Jim

Cute. (As a kid, I had to wear an eye patch and really hated it!)

Thank you, Karin!

When I was in the sciences, my lifelong pre-occupation with the nature of color was considered "weird". Now that I am in the arts, it's nice to have my interests appreciated.

But analyzing is one thing; practicing quite another.

You are obviously extraordinarily gifted when dealing with color (etc.) -- your work is rich, sumptuous, and elegant.

It is as amazing to me to learn that you are partially color-blind as it was for me to learn that Beethoven was deaf.

If you don't mind my asking, is your one eye "red blind" (red looks green), "blue blind" (blue looks yellow), or "green blind" (green looks tan)? There we go back to the "primary colors"!

As I understand it, you work in the traditional method of glazing colors over a monochrome underpainting. I would imagine that in glazing you rely more upon your "color" eye (even if you don't realize it), while in underpainting you rely more upon your "black and white" eye.

When I have a particularly difficult passage to paint in regards to form, I dim the room lights and/or squint: I then rely more upon the rods than the cones in my eyes, to see the scene more in monochrome.

Incidentally, my technique is like that more common amongst post-Renaissance artists: My underpaintings are also in color. In fact, my overpaintings are typically not transparent glazes, except for patches of water or the like, but rather translucent "velaturas", particularly for the lifelike translucency of skin.

I pre-mix all my colors, as Jim said Daniel Green does and as many if not most of the Old Masters did, for the very reasons Jim noted. However, with unfilled tubes so hard to find, I have learned how to store my "stockpiles" in tiny, inexpensive plastic cups (from restaurant supply companies) -- the trick is not to use the lids that come with the cups but rather to use one cup as a "stopper" for another -- one must exclude air from above the paint to prevent drying, by oxidation (The paints stay workable for quite some time that way).

P.S. Jim, I don't know what that discussion of money was about; but if you have any extra lying around, feel free to send it my way (ha, ha)!

You asked..."If you don't mind my asking, is your one eye "red blind" (red looks green), "blue blind" (blue looks yellow), or "green blind" (green looks tan)?"

Compared to my good eye (the right one), the colors in my left eye register in the following manner: Red looks greyish, very dull, but I can definitely tell that it is in the category of "red." Blues seem to get darker and greyish. And yellow seems to lose a lot of its warmth. When both of my eyes are open, I only register what I see from my right eye.

According to my eye doctor I don't have depth perception...however, I can drive, catch a ball, and I don't stumble over things. I haven't got a clue about what I am probably missing.

Also, I'm not sure that this has anything to do with my pecular vision, but when I am "building light" in a painting, I sometimes work in dim light so I can see the effect. I once read that some Old Master (Titian maybe?) checked his work by candlelight so that he could see if the light in the painting was strong enough.

Doug,

John Sanden used to provide (and may still) premixed paints in flesh tones and neutrals and from him bought a paint box that would store 22 colors in 1" square sections and 8) 3"x1"x1" sections. I will try to find a pic (or check the web site below). The hinged top has a rubber seal and latches tightly. I added several drops of "oil of cloves" to slow drying and this tool served me well when traveling. The additive also suited my wet in wet technique.

I also used it at home because I didn't need to sqeeze out paint each day or watch it harden when not in use. Maybe I'll clean it up and start using it again.

Try: http://www.jhsanden.com/institute/brochures.htm or: [email protected]

Saving Paint
 

I'm not sure how we got into this subject but here's three things that I do when I have a batch of paint pre-mixed that I want to save....

1. If the paint is all oil (no alkyd), I pile the "glob" in the bottom of a ceramic dish and cover it with water. Since oil and water don't mix, the water seals out the air and prevents the paint from drying....I can often keep paint this way for weeks.

2. I cover my palette with "Cling-wrap" and stick it in the freezer. It can keep for months this way.

3. I have some small 2" square Zip-Loc bags that I found on ebay (they are for coin collectors). I put the paint in the baggie and squoosh out all the air before I seal it. When I wish to use the paint again, I poke the bag with a pin and squeeze the paint out on my palette again.

Jim,

Are these the JHS paints to which you refer?

http://www.jhsanden.com/institute/promix.htm

Cynthia,

Yes they are Sanden's Pro Mix and they're still available. I couldn't find the paint box on his site but await an e-mail response regarding same. A small tag on the box indicates it was made by "UM Professional Tools for Artists".

Thank you all very much!
 

I'm definitely printing out all of this and will follow up. Thanks!

Karin, if you can see anything out of each eye, then you have at least some depth perception (even if one eye is dominant). My roommate in college had a glass eye and could still drive etc. very well. And of course, your paintings present a very convincing illusion of depth (You do love a good illusion, don't you?).

Jim and Cynthia, Mr. Sanden's palette -- with its blues and greens, for neutralizing warm tones -- reminds me of that of Van Dyck (who, however, achieved his translucent fleshtones only by glazing, not with completely pre-mixed paints): Lead white, Naples yellow, yellow ochre, vermillion, red lake, Titian green, ultramarine, raw sienna, charcoal black, and -- of course -- Van Dyck brown.

Which brings us back to the "primary colors" (Imagine that!).

For shadows, I have been using a mixture of ivory black and burnt umber -- in effect, Van Dyck brown (I'm about to try using the Old Holland synthetic version, which unlike the original is permanent).

One of my biggest objections to considering black as truly neutral is that all too many portraits created with a black-and-white underpainting and then glazed very thinly over the shadow areas produce very bluish shadows in the fleshtones: I cringe every time I see a Rubens or a Gainsborough lady with a "five-o'clock shadow" in battleship gray (although I'm sure they're not turning over in their graves in response to my reactions).

Black is surely in the blue family; a true neutral is the deepest, darkest brown one can possibly imagine -- the blue, yellow, and red pigments absorbing every wavelength of the incident spectrum.

By the way, my prejudice towards portraits with black backgrounds may come from my name, "Douglas", which means "out of the black depths".

But you can call me Doug (or Mister Schnook).

P.S. (from Mr. Schnook)
 

My apologies to disciples of Rubens and Gainsborough.

Anyone who can paint a blacksmith's son to be "The Blue Boy" is a supreme portraitist -- my hat's always off to Gainsborough.

And as long as we are on the topic of color, I must acknowledge Rubens as unsurpassed -- perhaps unequalled -- as a colorist.

On topic, Rubens succeeded magnificently with a black, red, and yellow palette oftentimes set against a vivid blue sky -- satisfying both the critics and the public.

I just don't care for the "blue bearded" women in SOME old portraits (by them and others).

Indeed, in many museums around the world I have noticed many unfortunate portraits with a "five-o'clock shadow" on unlikely subjects. I can think of two possible explanations for this:

Firstly, some artists unwittingly may have used a "fugitive" red pigment, i.e., a red that turns black with age.

Secondly, the artist may have made the underpainting too dark and/or didn't put enough of a paint layer over it. Oil paint is translucent in nature...not opaque as many people assume. As a painting ages, more and more of the underlayer begins to visually emerge. Mostly this interesting characteristic of oil paint enhances the painting, but sometimes it makes something goofy happen, i.e., an extra arm emerges, a "five-o'clock-shadow", etc.

Fascinating!

Doug,

The other possibility is that the artist intended to have blue or green shades. Take a look at Bouguereau's Portrait of Miss Elizabeth Gardner and the two paintings that follow on page 3 of this website: http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2...ouguereau2.asp It might also be possible that the artist you noticed were attempting to do the same and had the results suffer from the possibilities that Karin noted.

With all due respect to Mssr. Bouguereau (who is obviously very talented), his Miss Gardner looks green, goulish, and ghastly to me.

I understand that if there are cool colored surfaces in the environment, highlights will tend to be cool colored; but any green will be brought out in contrast with the reds of the fleshtones.

Miss Gardener's green almost looks like a yellowing of the oil over a bluish shadow (although the white is pretty white and not yellowed, so that's probably not the case).

"Maternal Adoration", on page 3 of the Bougereau site, and "Seated Bather", on page 2 of the site, show blue shadows of the type I don't like -- the bather looks positively corpselike.

The example that always comes to mind is the neck of Helen in the classic work "The Abduction of Helen" by Guido Reni...

http://www.calliope.free-online.co.uk/abduct/pic20.htm

...I've got an even better picture at home, in my little book "Treasures of the Louvre", and the neck looks like it is made of steel, compared to the alabaster face and rosy cheeks of the lady.

I've seen paintings by Masters that were not completed; and in the unglazed areas, the underpaintings show through the same -- blue-black-gray shadows -- not an effect of an under layer becoming more visible as an upper layer becomes more transparent over time ("Pentimento", Italian for "repentance").

Fortunately, many underpaintings were done with white and burnt umber, for more "organic" shadows. The only bluish shadows I've seen on actual human beings have been in black beards of men or in rooms with blue walls.

To me, blue shadows on flesh are the realm of abstract art -- in which primary colors, not subtle tints, tones, and shades, are more the rule.

The Old Masters understood that shadows are meant to be warm - and they painted them that way. I suspect that you are talking about the halftone (where light meets shadow) that is cool and the "blueish" or cool underpainting is allowed to show through. Quite frankly, I love that look when it is gently done....

In the example I cited...

http://www.calliope.free-online.co.uk/abduct/pic20.htm

...the halftones on the neck are gray, turning into the black of the shadows -- an interesting effect, but not a realistic rendering of living flesh.

In fact, gray halftones have often been used in contrast with reddish to indicate dead bodies, typically that of Christ, as in this work by Rubens...

http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o1047.html

...note how the red blood of life has spilled from his wounds (and how the trauma is killing his mother, her face being drained of blood vis a vis her companions).

Art, of course, is always a matter of personal taste -- and I, too, also appreciate even grayish halftones when not taken to extremes -- but to my mind some of the most beautiful fleshtones were rendered by Boucher, as in his "Diana Leaving Her Bath" (unfortunately yellowed over time).

I have attached a detail scanned (in Fair Use, for comment and criticism) from a book -- the magnification is so great that you can begin to see the individual dots of (CMYK) ink (as I saw once at enormous magnification on a banner at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art): Boucher's hallmark "peaches and cream" complexions made use of almost the entire spectrum, with yellow predominating in the (sunny) highlights, red in the (rosy) halftones, and -- yes -- blue in the (relatively cool) shadows.

The primary colors again!

Although of course, still in mixtures -- even the warmest of brown shadows contain some blue, or else they'd be orange; and so forth.

And as you pointed out, Karin, by subsituting blacks for blues, the effects of colors are relative, so very dependent upon their surrounding colors.

But that's why I started this "primary colors" thread (now fairly "tattered"): I wanted to know if I was "off base" by staying with the old "red, blue, yellow" mindset -- if we don't know the elements, we can't compose good designs.

P.S. A Trick
 

If you'd like to see how old paintings looked when they were created, before their oil and varnish yellowed, try looking at them through a light blue filter (such as an 80A photographic filter, used on cameras with standard daylight film when taking pictures under incandescent lights).

I tried it with my book of Rembrandts and voila! The fleshtones became just that much fleshier!

But poor old Mona Lisa: She's so cracked and yellowed now that even that trick didn't work for me -- his contemporaries said that Da Vinci painted her fleshtones so realistically that it looked like you could just reach out and touch her.

Color -- the artist's best friend and worst enemy.

Aaaaaargh! This is getting complicated, but on your example of Guido Reni's work (1575-1642) "The Abduction of Helen"....the blue on the neck is part of an old system of color bands that they used in those days. Here is how it works:

When rendering skin tones of the face, only the color of Yellow Ochre appeared above the eyebrows.

From the eyebrows to the chin, only the color Vermillion appeared.

From the chin line on down over the neck and chest, Blue was the color used.

If any of these colors get mixed up, (i.e., Red on the forehead looks "lobsterish", Blue in the face looks like illness, Yellow on the neck looks "cadaverish"....or whatever) the result is a visual disaster.

If you go to a museum, look at the Italian renaissance masters and you can detect the use of these color bands.

Some painters, like Reni, may have pushed the envelope...

As far as primary colors go, my palette consists of a warm and a cool red, a warm and a cool yellow and a warm and a cool blue (glazes only on blues) plus black and white.

I personally think that if any one of the primary colors (Red, Yellow, Blue) plus Black and White are missing from a painting, the eye will "hunger" and the painting will look as if something is missing.

For example, if you look at each and every one of Vermeer's paintings, you will see the following represented:
Red
Yellow
Blue
Black
White

As far as the Mona Lisa goes, I suspect that you are looking at a poor reproduction...when I saw her two years ago, she was like a little jewel. I was surprised at how much better she looked than I expected her to - she wasn't yellow.

Brilliant analyses, Karin -- utterly illuminating!

Yes, the "bands" of color -- I see it in Helen, I saw something like it in Diana, and I remember seeing it in various Italian Renaissance paintings at the Norton Simon Museum as well.

My palette is very similar to yours (although I dropped a cool yellow, since the only greens I've painted are for foliage, which in nature is almost always of a low to moderate chroma -- any red in my warm yellow only serves to subdue the green)...

http://www.douglasdrenkow.com/page17.html

In addition, with earth shades, I feel like Jim does for all specialized colors -- the wider variety at hand the happier I am.

And I envy your visiting La Gioconda in person -- I've only seen reproductions, invariably yellowed.

Thank you for sharing so much with me (and for putting up with my being so very opinionated, by nature)! It was an honor exchanging views with someone as accomplished as you and Jim.

I must retreat to the easel -- a gallery beckons!

I have one more point to clarify here...

The terms warm and cool are relative to the surrounding color, i.e., a daub of "yellow x" might appear cool and the very same color placed in another spot may be seen as "warm."

In my palette, "Winsor-Newton's yellow ochre pale" is my warm yellow. And "Winsor-Newton's yellow ochre" is my cool color.

I don't buy green paint, I mix it to get natural greens...these are the two that I use most often: Cad. Orange mixed with Prussian Blue, and Yellow Ochre Pale mixed with Ivory Black."

Thanks again, Karin!

Excellent point about "warm" and "cool".

A Winsor-Newton lemon yellow had been my "cool" yellow.

I, too, like to mix my own greens. I've used viridian only once (but am looking forward to using that beautiful color again somewhere); and for foliage I've either started with a Hooker's green or mixed my own, like you, from a yellow ochre and ivory black.

Come to think of it, that's not too far from what I found works best for the indigo denim of "blue jeans": Ultramarine plus raw umber (and, of course, white and black as need be).

I've enjoyed our "colorful" talks. Be well!

I was in Brazil when this thread started, but to answer your original question, Dawn Whitelaw, an outstanding artist, uses a limited palette in her plein air and portrait work. Her colors are:

Utrecht Cadmium Yellow light
Winton #6
Cadmium Red Deep Hue (Napthal Red)
Ultramarine Blue
Titanium White.

You can see examples of her landscape limited palette paintings at:

http://www.brazierfineart.com/whitelaw.shtml

Her Best of Show prize winning portrait (also limited palette) from the Portrait Society of America Conference, 2001:

http://www.portraitsociety.org/2001winners/whitelaw.htm

Stunning work.

Peggy

I am really intrigued by such a limited palette...and I agree that Dawn's work is really wonderful....

...but what sort of color is "Winton #6" :?

Ms. Whitelaw's wonderful work has a great clarity to it, a clean feel like that often rendered in watercolor -- something of a dreamy quality, where your imagination or recollections are stimulated by visual clues (like the power of scents).

Some might say that such "purity" works particularly well for "innocent" subjects, like nature or children. But it can also for the portraits of powerful adults, as in this limited palette...

http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=46245+0+none

I'll bet Ms. Whitelaw's #6 is a black (as in the boy's hair or the tree trunk in the landscape on her homepage).

I'd worry, of course, about the permanence of a napthol red (but not a cadmium).

Limited palettes usually work well on one side of each primary -- for her choice of colors, one would expect the cool side of yellow; the cool side of red; and the warm side of blue -- although you don't get the feeling of any "omissions" from her work. I think that's the play of the mental "cues" she gives you, as I mentioned -- your imagination or recollections fill in the rest (as I believe Karin put it, your mind seeks out balance in the colors of a composition) -- color is, as we've said, a psychological as well as a physical phenomenon.

Here are some other rather interesting palettes (take a look at the bottom of the page)...

http://gamblincolors.com/howtp.html

I've "fallen in love" with their transparent earth shades -- more like the Old Masters' earth pigments than modern siennas etc.

Incidentally, the original question I had was about the limited palette used by printers and photographers (who ultimately "hold all our works hostage") -- cyan, magenta, and yellow -- that's blue on the cool side, red on the cool side, and yellow on (I believe) the cool side. I don't know what all that means, but it's interesting all the same.

After sleeping on it...
 

I realize better why Ms. Whitelaw's palette works so well, with a "dreamlike" quality (to my mind), and why it contrasts so much with the limited palette in that Picasso I referenced.

Ms. Whitelaw's limited palette plays against the inherent nature of the colors: She chooses a warm version of the cool primary (ultramarine blue), and the cool versions of the warm primaries (red and yellow). She thus keeps things "toned down", in a sense.

By contrast, the Picasso plays to the "strengths" if you will of the colors (not that Ms. Whitelaw's paintings are in any way "weak" -- they are more subtle): His reds and yellows are fiery, his black (once again used to represent the blue family) relatively cool.

Now back to sleep...

Re: Thanks for all the interesting feedback!
 

What a fascinating topic: perception of colour. I doubt that I could add any profound knowledge to what has been already said. But, should we not keep in mind that when Karin is speaking of "blue" she means (if I may put words into your mouth, Karin, sorry): when something is to appear blue? That is, when we painters talk about colour, do we not usually mean the effect of the pigment(s) we choose, within a specific visual context? The black and white mixture would not look very blue if it were set against the wrong colours surrounding it, or if it were at the wrong value for the surround, or perhaps, if it were made up of Mars black and white. Of course, a blue swimming pool or a bright blue summer sky is impossible to paint without a blue pigment. But, when juxtaposing colours within the context of a dark, earth tone surrounds, it is often overkill to use a blue pigment--it can look too blue and thereby steal the thunder from the main theme. In the case of Karin's portrait example, that main theme--the portrait's subject--might be overshadowed by the use of a blue pigment. Blues are often a high chroma and have to be greyed-down if they are to be subservient to the main themes of a painting.

In the old days (Renaissance, say) blue was the third most expensive pigment after gold and royal purple. (The only blue available at the time was made of lapis lazuli.) So patrons would usually only ask the artist to use it sparingly--such as in the Madonna's drapery only--and the rest of the time, the artist had to use artifice to achieve the visual effect of a blue. If a patron were to be ostentatious, he would break the bank on blue and gold, just to show how wealthy and powerful he is. Everyone looking at the picture would get the message, because everyone knew these were very, very costly colours. They understood the language of painting much better than the average person does today. But, that's a different topic.

Good painting to all.

Juan

Juan, your paintings are stunning.

http://www.juanmartinez.com

Stunning!

Dear Mike and Doug

You are now two of my favourite people. Thanks for the unlooked-for compliments. Such are always appreciated and inspiring.

It seems that when I posted my note earlier, I had not read through the entire thread. I didn't realize that it was four pages long! We have been through a lot of territory, too.

In general, I would agree with the use of a limited palette.

However, on the subject of primary colours, is there not a qualitative difference between different media? This has already been touched upon by the use of terms such as "additive" and "subractive" colours. The cyan-magenta-yellow-black "primary" system uses the white of the paper for its white. Oil painters use white paint. This probably makes for a big distinction as to what is "primary". Also, which specific hues should be considered as primary? Not all reds are created equal, nor yellows, nor blues, nor blacks, nor whites, nor anythings, right? In the end, there are no pigments, nor combinations of pigments, that can match the full range of colours as we are able to perceive them in nature. So, we must use artifice or, in other words; the painter's craft. (Hooray for artifice!)

Anyway, for those who are extra keen on using colour theory to help in their picture-making, I would recommend finding a copy of Denman Ross's books. Is anyone aware of them? I have "The Painter's Palette: A Theory of Tone Relations; An Instrument of Expression". I won't go into explaining it because it is hugely complicated, but ultimately, fascinating. I have yet to attempt a picture based on his very precise instructions, but it is on my "someday-to-do" list.

Juan

"Hurray for Artifice!" (but keep it natural)
 

I believe you've seized the core issue, Juan: The difference between color in theory and color in application (the former offering us guidance for the latter).

Here is a wonderful site exploring both, from a painter's perspective...

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color10.html

And don't miss the link on that page to the wonderful "Artist's Color Wheel" (although the site is written for watercolorists, the pigments used are the same as those in oils etc.)...

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/wheel.html

You'll note the author's contention that value is more important than hue (both, as well as chroma, are all necessary components of color), in which he refers to the grayscale of Denman Ross.

By the way, you can find one of Mr. Ross's books at...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...strokeofgenius

As for me, I must get back to my palette -- my masstones are confusing my glazetones (This color business is deeper than meets the eye)!

Dear Doug,

Well put.

Also, thanks for the link to the fascinating "handprint" site. That is a well thought out and informative page. I guess that I've been using the Denman Ross value scale all along without knowing it, too. Once I read his book, I realised that it was the same, but he doesn't use numbers for the values in his book, just names. And there I was, thinking I was using a "European" system. (It's a similar situation to that purse I carry around with me sometimes: I keep insisting that it's European, and therefore not a purse, but . . .)

All the best.

Juan