Color is one of the most powerful aspects of making art. Almost everyone who loves to create can remember the childhood excitement generated by a brand new box of crayons!

Everyone has a favorite color, artists and non-artists alike.  Our relationship to color is one of the most powerful relationships we have as a species. It is intrinsically connected to how we relate to our world. And so of course it is one of the most powerful aspects to consider when making art.

Color Temperature

 Much of our relationship to color is based on instinct. For example, we see colors as warm or cool based on our physical response to them.

Warm things are warm colors (such as fire, the sun, hot coals, and in this case hot food.)

and cool things are cool colors (such as water and ice, which as blue or bluish).

Interestingly warm and cool colors also create a sense of perspective and depth when we look at an image. Warm colors tend to advance towards us, whereas cool colors tend to recede away from us.

In these two images note how early 20th-century illustrator Edmund DuLac uses this trick. In the first image of The Princess and the Pea he creates a sense of incredible height, as the cold blue-purple recedes from the viewer, effectively raising the height of the bed canopy. And in the second one, A Palace of Wonder, a sense of depth is created between the warmth of the interior space and the cold dark outside.

COLOR AND CULTURE

However, a great deal of our reactions to color are not innate, they are in fact cultural. For example Black and Death are associated in many Western cultures, in many Eastern cultures it is associated with white—its direct opposite.

Take a look at this info-graphic. Note how many color associations change, depending on where you are in the world. However also note how HOT and COLD or Color’s Relationship to Temperature do not.

It is however important to understand your target market and the culture that they come from, because culture has a strong influence on the development of cultural-color associations in childhood building the adults eventual perceptions of color.

Throughout this module and the next we will look at these basic reactions we all have to color and learn to compose in color effectively. We will build on what we have learned regarding composition, concept, point of view, and value and we will see how we can use these reactions to color to aid us in our ultimate goal, telling a great story through narrative illustration.

However, before we can do that lets be sure we have down the basics.

Hello Class!

An additional resource for you…

READ these 2 chapters on Value and Perspective to help you create realistic VALUE STUDIES!

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creative-perspective-ch3

Watercolor is a flexible medium.  It can also be applied directly over a pencil drawing, and can be used thinly as a glaze or opaquely like a traditional gouache. It can accept a variety of media layered on top of it too, such as colored pencil or ink. When dry and treated with a fixative it even allows the artist using it the flexibility of painting or glazing over previously painted areas without fear of disturbing those earlier layers.

GLAZE

When using Watercolor as a glaze, dissolve a small amount of pigment in water until you achieve the transparency level you are looking for, just as you would when working in watercolor. You can use this technique as your first layer of color, directly over your pencils as shown here in this step-by-step creation of the Incredible Wonder Woman portrait by Alex Ross.

Alex Ross Step by Step

As you can see, when in the right hands glazing is a very effective technique!

When glazing, remember:

• Each layer affects previous layers.
• Transparent layers of color add luminescence and depth.
• Glazing gently transitions areas from light to dark.
• Glazing will either dull or brighten previous layers.
• Analogous colors brighten.
• Complementary colors dull.

Helpful Tip

Try this: Make yourself a glazing guide by brushing a stripe of each of your colors as a glaze. Wait for it to dry (or use a hair dryer!). Then brush a second stripe of each color to form a grid. Don’t forget to label your colors for easy reference.

WATERCOLOR & PENCIL LAYERING TECHNIQUE

Once dry, the paint has a matte finish. This allows for additional techniques to be layered right on top. For example, an artist may choose to draw over the top with colored pencils. This technique is easy to see in this illustration of root vegetables by Lizzy Rockwell.

Lizzy Rockwell, illustration of root vegetables

After Rockwell traces her drawing onto the watercolor paper, she fills in, using the gouache as a flat, opaque medium. Afterward, shading and details are added with Berol Prismacolor colored pencil over the painted areas. It is particularly noticeable on the carrot, the radish, the tips of the asparagus and on the lines on the onion.

Here comic book legend Alex Ross, whose process we just looked at, combines Watercolor and Gouache (opaque watercolor) with pencil and India ink. His painterly style is unique in the realm of comics. Ross uses glazes of color over a pencil drawing, which in many places remains visible. Once dry, the blacks and the line work are finished off with a brush and ink.

Alex Ross, illustration of Superman and Lois Lane

Helpful Tip

For the sake of permanency, a quick spray of fixative is recommended if you choose to use any of these layered techniques.

As you can see, you are about to begin working in a very flexible medium! These are by no means the only techniques to try, so feel free to experiment!

Successfully working with Watercolor depends on applying the same principles you used when working with any wet medium. There are habits you can develop and things to set up ahead of time that will make all the difference.

Painting in any water-based medium depends on the interaction among four key factors:

• the absorbency of the paper
• how wet or dry the paper is
• how much pigment you are using
• gravity

Begin by setting up your work area properly before you start.

To account for gravity, set your art board at an angle. The steeper the angle, the stronger the force of gravity will be.

This angle is subject to personal preference. Some people like just 20 degrees (equivalent to a couple of textbooks propping up one end of your work surface) while others have a much steeper angle like this:

• Have everything you need on-hand. Lots of clean water and paper towels are a must.
• Try out your colors first. Don’t just blindly jump in.
• Try your colors at different opacities. See what they look like with different proportions of water to pigment.
• Try making a glazing chart to understand color interactions. (You’ll learn how to do this on the next page.)
• Mix colors you know you want to use beforehand and test them on a test strip of paper.

To prevent your work from buckling and warping you should tape your paper or illustration board down with artist’s tape, or work on a watercolor block. This will let the paper block or work board help the paper maintain its shape through repeated applications of wet paint.

Finally, if you’re working on a watercolor block and want to remove your painting, or you need paper for tests and roughs, you should remove your work by inserting a dull knife blade or a credit card into the opening at the top of the block and running it around the perimeter to break the adhesive bond and remove the page.