Color On My Mind

When it comes to developing my art practice, I learn best (and have the most fun) through experimentation. But there are times when I hit a wall and feel the need to search elsewhere for a key that might open up new possibilities.

This was the situation a couple of months ago. I had become sufficiently frustrated with my haphazard approach to color that I was ready for help.

But where to turn? I didn’t want a set of rules, someone else’s “how to” guide, or more dry information on color theory. I wanted help in building my own framework for understanding color and color relationships so that I could become better at using color according to what I want from my work. In short, what I needed was an assist in building a mental model.

What Do Models Have to Do With Color?

People function at their best when they understand the world around them. The way the brain meets this need for understanding is by creating mental models of how things in the world work and fit together. When we don’t have the mental models necessary for navigating the world, frustration – or even rage and helplessness – are sure to follow. One only has to look at the frustration of people trying to book a Covid vaccine appointment to see how difficult it can be to try to do something when it’s not clear how the system works.

Much of the time, our brains build mental models without much conscious effort but other times it’s not so easy. How do you build a solid understanding of how to survive in the wilderness, for example, without dying in the process? Less dramatically, how was I going to build a deep understanding of color without drowning in frustration, blowing my art budget on failed paint mixing experiments, or just resorting to using the same color palettes as artists I admire? In cases like this, it helps to have a guide.

A good teacher can help curate information, suggest exercises and activities that aid exploration and understanding, and give feedback that points in fruitful directions. What they can’t do is pour understanding directly into other people’s brains – I knew that I would have to do the work.

Doing the Work

For me, that work was led by Mark Eanes’s The Language of Color course. Mark’s six-week online course, developed with his partner Marija, is not a “how to” course in the sense that you won’t be steered toward a particular color palette or come out of it painting like Mark. The time and money spent is much more like investing in basic infrastructure – roads aren’t particularly sexy, but they can lead to all kinds of interesting possibilities. In this case, I was investing in my own cognitive infrastructure.

When I first looked at the content of the course, I thought maybe I already knew it all. Hue, value, saturation, complementary colors? I had done a fair amount of reading on color theory over the years and was already familiar with these terms. But I’m very glad that I gave the course a try. Through the many hours of color mixing, playing with color swatches, and paying attention, I have started to build a mental model of colors and color relationships that goes much deeper than the superficial understanding of color theory that I’d gleaned over the years.

Now I have a way to explain that even though color might not appear to be an important factor in my current body of work, it is actually quite important to me. It’s just that I’m choosing not to use the vivid prismatics that epitomize color for many people. Instead, I’m mostly using chromatic greys (these are also colors!) along with some muted colors in order to help communicate particular ideas and emotions.

My new understanding of color also gives me another way to view and analyze artworks. Are these chromatic greys? Muted colors? Prismatics? A mix of saturations? What are the value and color schemes? Why does this piece feel quiet? Why do these colors generate movement or leave me unsettled? How is it that these colors seem to be jumping around? This increased understanding not only deepens my appreciation of what I’m looking at but it also helps me see how I might create some of those same moods in my own work.

The exercises in the course also highlighted and corrected some of my misconceptions. Split complementary color scheme? I thought I knew exactly what that was – using blue and orange, for example, with some red-orange and yellow-orange thrown in. But after spending hours (yes, hours) creating complementary and near-complementary color charts for blue with orange, red-orange, and yellow-orange, I am intimately familiar with the many colors that come from mixing and I know that they are ALL fair game in a split complementary color scheme – including the lovely muted greens, purples, and earth-tones.

This recent piece of mine is actually full of color, it’s just in the form of chromatic greys. Head On Again. Oil, cold wax and collage on paper, 76cm x 56cm. Anne Kearney.

I have much more to learn about color, but I’m already finding that my increased understanding means less trial and error in laying down colors and that I am more easily able to mix the colors I want.

I am still drawn to chromatic greys and muted colors and that probably won’t change any time soon. But I can now also see where my current work is located in the larger color space and I have a map in my head that will help me navigate and explore this color terrain without getting completely lost.

What are you spending time learning?