Making Space
Making a painting that depicts realistic space—from very
shallow space (a few inches deep) to infinite space (the sky)--demands that you
understand the relatively standard and consistent way color behaves in space,
though there are always exceptions.
There are several principles that should be understood to use color, or
aspects of color, to create the illusion of space. Another thing should also be understood: that
color is purely relative. Something
could look very warm or intense against one color, and relatively cool or
broken against another. What are
important are the color relationships, about which the following principles
speak.
1. Value
contrast tends to diminish as space recedes.
The darkest darks are under the rocks in the foreground, and then tend
to lighten as the space deepens, lowering the contrast between the lights and
darks in the background. However, the
lights in the background don’t get much darker, though they do get duller and
less intense.
2. The cleanest
and most saturated color advances to the foreground, leaving the broken colors
to recede. That means that even the
objects with not very intense local colors can be brought forward by keeping
them clean, even though they aren’t very intense. The trick is to make sure that there are no
complimentary colors mixed into that less chromatic foreground. Complimentary colors are what make muddy
grays and cause whatever they are added to recede. To make an otherwise strong color less
intense but still keep it advancing, match the tone of that color with a mixture of black and white and mix in
that gray. Your color will therefore not
change its hue or value, only its chroma, keeping it clean. Conversely, to make a color recede, dirty it
somewhat by mixing in its complement.
3. Aerial
perspective--As any color gets further into the distance, there is of course
more atmosphere between that color and you, in effect creating an “air
filter”. As we all know, air is
evaporated water, and water tends to have a blue cast. This means that color relationships viewed
through the atmospheric filter get bluer and cooler (as well as less intense)
as they get further and further away.
That’s why the distant tree covered hills look decidedly blue gray
against the much closer fields and trees.
4. Layering--The
layers of paint underneath profoundly affect the appearance of the top layer of
paint. The final color of the paint is
never just the pigments that were mixed together for the top layer, but the sum
of all the color underneath as well.
Obviously, a thin layer of yellow paint will look green if put on a
black under layer, but even “opaque” paint will be affected by what’s
underneath, however subtly. Colors
painted over surfaces that are darker than those colors (however slightly) will
instantly cool down, causing them to recede.
This is the reason that a neutral dark wall demands several coats of
white paint—the first layer always looks blue.
Conversely, colors painted over surfaces that are lighter will tend to
warm up and become more luminous, causing them to advance. Watercolors look so luminous because almost
all of them have the white of the paper showing through. You end up seeing much more than the color of
the paint itself. A painting over an imprematura cannot be matched exactly
over white for this reason.
More notes about layering and luminosity
One of the many things that the Old Masters knew and used
extensively was this notion of layering.
One of the beauties of paint—especially oil paint—is that it can become
so intense and luminous. Squeezing out a
glob of ultramarine blue and spreading it around on white canvas will give you
an immediate sense of what I mean. That
blue that you now see on the canvas cannot be mixed. It cannot be manufactured. Yes, that blue was made from a manufactured
paint, but you are not looking at merely ultramarine blue. Because the nature of ultramarine is so
transparent, you are looking at the blue with the pure white underneath showing
through. You could squeeze color from
that same tube onto a gray or black or even blue ground, but you will not be
able to get a blue of even a similar intensity.
In the same way, any color with white showing through—a clean or broken
color--is not simply the hue from your palette.
It’s a combination of that hue plus the white showing through. Nor can you get the same color by putting
together the hue and white by mixing—you’ll just get an opaque, much grayer
color. A combination of colors by
layering is not the same as a combination by mixing. Layering a transparent darker color over any
lighter color (not just white) will almost invariably produce a more luminous
color than mixing the two together.
One of the best examples is in the color raw umber. By itself over white can produce a very rich,
warm brown. Mixing umber and white
together, however makes an extremely neutral gray. The difference is remarkable. An example of layering over a color other
than white to get a luminous color combo might be to glaze a red over yellow to
get an intense orange. You cannot mix
the resulting orange even with the same pigments. To get a rich gray you might consider
layering transparent compliments instead of mixing them together. This is a great way to create space by
breaking color while keeping things rich and not muddy.
I mentioned that the Old Masters used layering and
luminosity. Examples can be seen in many
of the 17th Century Dutch landscapes. At that time they did not have access to the
many different pigments and hues that we have to work with now, in the early 21st
Century. They might have only had red
earth, green earth, Naples
yellow, possibly azurite (any of the blues tended to be very expensive), black,
and white. To make up for this dearth
of hue options, they had to use all the different aspects of each color to the
greatest extent possible. So in areas
that you (as the painter) might want the foreground to come forward you will
need to keep those areas clean and luminous.
Broken colors will, in turn, recede into space. Some of the Dutch landscapes have used only
red and green earth in the whole foreground, but by varying its transparency,
color intensity, and “chromatic hygiene”(clean color) as well as flawless
drawing these paintings seem to lay down beautifully. Some even made “blue” sky from simply making
a neutral gray from black and white, but since you see it against the warm
luminous colors of the foreground it seems very blue.
