Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Color Theory 7 - Temperature

Now that we’ve gone through the color systems and I have explained to you why I believe that the Munsell system is the best on for me as a fiber artist, let’s start talking about some of the characteristics of color. Today we will start with temperature and in future posts we will talk about iridescence, intensity and luminosity.

Throughout the rest of these posts you will start to see the term “hue”. In simple terms, the hue is the name of a color. I’m pretty loose about using either and hopefully it will not be confusing.

When I first started reading about the temperature of color I was confused. I had no idea that color had a temperature! But, it turns out that color does give us a sensation of temperature.  In The Elements of Color, Johannes Itten says that experiments have shown that the color on your walls can make you feel up to 7 degrees warmer or cooler. In a blue-green room the occupants felt that 59F was cold but on a red-orange room the same people only felt cold when the temperature fell to 52 – 54F. This may explain why my husband always wants to crank down the AC to about 65F in our red bedroom.

 

Warm Colors

 

Cool Colors

In general the warm colors/hues range from yellow to orange to red-orange to red. The cool colors/hues range from yellow-green to blue green to blue to blue-violet. “In general” is the key phrase here because mixing white and black to any hue alters it’s temperature. Add white to any hue and the resulting color will be cooler. Add black to any hue and the resulting color will be warmer.

There are also warmer and cooler tones of black, gray and white. We may get into that later but for now let’s stay with the pure hues.

In want to talk about temperature in terms of relativity which is more important to us quilters. Every hue, while primarily warm or cool, can change temperature relative to the other colors in your quilt. In other words, while red is a warm color, there are warm reds and cool reds.

 

Take a look at these reds. Can you tell that the 2 on the left are “cooler” than the 2 on the right? Cooler colors recede; warmer colors advance. So compared to the more orange reds on the right, the violet reds are cooler and move to the background.

 

But take those same “cool” reds and put them in a quilt with blue and blue-violet and they warm up and march right to the front!

Let’s do an exercise with our color palette this month.

 

Basically we have a Violet-Red, Red-Orange, Green and Yellow and 2 values of each. Let’s look at some options.

 

In each of these I have the cooler version of the color on the left and the warmer color is on the right. They are all “right”! It doesn’t matter what you pick for your palette but if you feel a color isn’t working it may be that you need to either warm or cool the hue.

 

Here are 2 versions of the palette and either will work just fine. But I think, for example, that if you switched the greens that neither palette would work well. Both versions of the palette have a nice balance.

Now I need to figure out exactly what I will make with one of these palettes!

 

 

 

Color Theory 7 - Color Systems

Today I want to talk about color wheels and color systems. Edith Anderson Feisner, in her books Colour and Color Studies has some of the best information on color systems. Most of today’s information comes from her books.

There are 3 types of color systems:

•  Subtractive systems represent the process of mixing colors together – as in the Pigment wheel and the Process (Ives) wheel. In a subtractive system you are absorbing light. The more color added the less light reflected. All of the colors mixed together make black. You will recognize the difference between the two. The Pigment wheel uses red blue and yellow as the primaries. This is the one you were probably using in high school art classes. The Process wheel uses Cyan, Magenta and Yellow as the primaries. If you have any of Joen Wolfrom’s materials then you use the Ives Wheel, a Process wheel.

Pigment Wheel

•  Additive systems represent the process of mixing colored light. The more light added the lighter the color. The primaries are red, green and blue. Mixing all of the colors together makes white. This is the system that is used in theater lighting and on your TV screen.

Additive Color System

•        The Partitive system is based on colors relationships to each other. This is system a new concept to me but in studying this, I believe that it might actually be the most applicable to quilting and fiber art. The first color system in this classification was created by DaVinci but the one used today is the Munsell system.

Munsell Color System

The Primary and Process wheels are subtractive systems. The Munsell wheel is Partitive and the Light and Visual wheels are Additive.  Feisner makes the point that just one system or wheel may not satisfy all needs. Joen Wolfrom says that the Process wheel is the right wheel for textile artists because it is the wheel used by manufacturers that print fabrics. Feisner says that painters and dyers use the Subtractive wheels (Primary and Process) to create colors (paints, inks an dyes) but that they use a Partitive wheel to create color reactions in the design. She contends that all art media use Partitive color in the media but that the materials used can be either additive or subtractive. She also says that specifically the Munsell partitive wheel is used in fabric manufacturing and interior design.

That makes sense to me!  I’ve never been able to reconcile that putting fabrics next to each other is the same as mixing dye colors. I’ve also found that in the dyeing and fabric painting that I have done that I really need the primaries from both the Process (yellow, cyan, magenta) and Primary wheels (red, yellow, blue) to mix the target colors that I want.

The Munsell wheel is a ten to twenty step wheel with 5 primaries: yellow, red, green, blue and purple. Looking at the wheel it appears to be a merger of the Process and Primary wheels and that makes sense to me too.  Munsell also built a color tree that represents value (lightness or darkness) and relative purity of the colors, something not really addressed in the Pigment and Process systems. He developed a code for each color on the tree. His color system was the one adopted by the US Bureau of Standards as the acceptable language of color.

I’m not going to talk much about the Additive systems but I do think it’s important to understand them. After all, once you photograph your work you need to be able to accurately edit those photos for publication. You have to know to change the red and green colors to alter the yellow image. But that’s a photo editing class and a possible topic for later.  Just understand that color works very differently when dealing with additive systems and your fabric or dyeing color wheel isn’t going to help at all there.

Since I am approaching this study more as a user of materials that are already colored, I determined that the Munsell system is the best for my purposes. I knew that there was a student's guide to the Munsell system out there somewhere so I began a search for it. What a surprise to discover that the author, Jim Long, resides right here in Richmond, VA at that time. He is the retired Chair of the Film and Photography Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. I found his email address to ask where to find his book (Amazon.com). That led to a few email exchanges. I eventually had to explain why this random person was so interested in color theory - a topic that he says most artists aren't interested in at all! I told him about my background and the root of my interest (proclamations about there being only one right color system) and my conclusion that there are several that are right for different uses but that for fiber artists I felt that the Munsell system was most appropriate. Here's what he had to say on that:

"Color theory can get a bit sticky because there are several systems. Regarding color wheels it is important to recognize that there are different types. The Munsell color wheel is based on human perception, NOT paint mixing. Artist color wheels generally are based on paint mixing, although pigments of the same color but different chemical composition will mix differently. "

In my mind, that validated my own research and that’s why I primarily use the Munsell color system when I am making quilts. I use the Process and Pigment systems primarily in my dye studio.

Next time we will talk more specifically about the Munsell system.

 

 

Color Theory 6 - Color Perception 2

Last time I talked about how colors interact with each other and how that presents challenges (and opportunities) for us when selecting fabrics for our quilts. Well, along that same vein, is gray. Gray is magical as any of the modern quilters will tell you. I think they all buy Kona gray by the bolt and use it in half the quilts that they make.

So today we are going to talk about gray....with a brief intro by black and white. Let's look at how colors interact with these 3 special color.

While it's nice to think about one color apart from all other colors, in our world we can't do that. Every color is perceived in relation to the colors around it. In fact, just this week my husband painted a room white for a customer because she was having too much trouble selecting new fabrics with the room in it's original color. She needed the white to be able to see the colors in the fabrics more clearly.

But even white and black will affect color. Look at these 2 examples. On the white background. Specifically look at the yellow and violet. On the white background the violet advances while the yellow becomes almost a background color. On the black background the reverse is true.  They function the same in our quilts. That bright acid green that you like is really going to pop on your dark quilt but you might as well save it from your light quilt because it's going to just blend into the background. 

This is a good time to talk about afterimage. We will get into this more when we start talking about color wheels and complimentary colors. But, in a nutshell, an afterimage is what you see when you stare at an object for several seconds and them look away. You see a glowing "negative" of the image. The color you see is the opposite of the color of the object and is the complimentary, or opposite, color.  Try it with the quilt image with the white background. Stare at it for several seconds and then look away at a white surface. The green square turns reddish, the violet turns yellowish and so on. After images work only on these type of pure hues. 

The point of bringing this up is that no matter what you are looking at, your eye needs that compliment and if it's not in the image you eye will impose it on the image. 

Each of these blocks has the same gray as the center. But the colors are affecting the gray that we perceive. Why is this important to us? Because there are lots of grays and if the one we are trying to use isn't working, you might need another one.

Here are yellow and blue with 3 different grays. The one at the top looks greenish on the blue and almost brown on the yellow while the one on the bottom looks almost pale blue on the blue and very blue on the yellow.

Here are the 3 grays that I used. The one on the left is the bottom gray and the one on the right is the top gray. Interesting, huh?

Before we leave this topic, we have to be reminded of proportion. In the previous example we were looking at how color affects gray. But when the proportion is reversed, gray can affect color. Unlike white or black, gray makes all the colors more vibrant and that's why we love the modern quilts with their light gray backgrounds. If' you've never considered using gray in a quilt, maybe it's time.

Next we will start talking about different color systems and color wheels.

Color Theory 5 - Color Perception 1

In the last issue I introduced you to some of the important theorists in the field of color. This week it's time to stop talking and start showing and I want to start with some color perception exercises.

Faber Birren wrote a book in 1976 called Color Perception in Art. It built on the work of Josef Albers 1963 book Interaction of Color....among other works. In these books they explore color beyond the physics of light waves and light reflection and delve into what happens to color in our eyes and in our brain.

I want to start this topic by showing you a few examples and I encourage you to do these at home with your own fabrics. I remember when I was first shown this exercise and I suddenly understood some of the problems I encounter when selecting fabrics for a quilt. This particular exercise had to do with the effect of one color on an adjacent color.

Take these 2 pink swatches. They are from the same fabric so are identical in color.

I placed one on a blue background and one on a yellow background. Now, looking at these swatches side by side, it looks like the pink are two different shades. The interaction of the pink with the blue makes the pink look lighter and redder while on the yellow the pink looks more purple, like a light magenta.

That has nothing to do with the actual colors but everything to do with how we perceive them.

Let's try another exercise. I picked 2 fabrics from the yellow family. One is a light buttery yellow and the other is more of a gold.

With the gold placed on a purple fabric and the yellow placed on a light green I am able to make the two yellows look like they are almost identical in color. By placing the gold on a dark and dull background I have made it look lighter and brighter. By placing the yellow on a very light, bright green background I have made the yellow look darker and duller.

I remember one of the very few times that I made a mystery quilt. I picked out a focus fabric and then picked several other fabrics that looked like they would work perfectly. The mystery project gave us very little information up front to determine proportions of any of the fabrics. It turned out that the focus fabric was used in larger chunks than I expected and once in the quilt, looked horrible. The fabrics that I picked as accents made the focus fabric look horribly dull. In the end I kept all of the fabrics except the focus fabric. 

Let's do one more exercise because this principle of perception also applies to value. 

Here are 2 swatches of a medium value red.

Here are those same swatches placed on a light vale and a dark value. Now the medium on the light looks darker than the medium on the dark. 

You see, it's all relative! What do you think? Give it a try with your own fabrics, post about it and add a link in the comments. I'd love to see how these exercises work for you.

Color Theory 4 - The Color Theorists

I realize that many of you will not find this post the least bit interesting but before jumping into color theory I think it’s interesting to know a little about how modern color theory developed and how the understanding of color had changed over time. Here are just a few of the contributors to the science of color study.

Earliest Known Studies

Many of us know about the modern theorists such as Itten and Albers but color study goes back to the ancient Greeks. The first known color theorist was the Greek philosopher Empedocles (490–430 BC). He is knows for defining the 4 elements of earth (fire, air, water and earth). He was the first to put forth theories of light and perception and concluded that color is a property of the observer, not the object being viewed. Democritus (460–370 BC) and Plato (428–347 BC) expanded on his work.

The first known book, De Coloribus (On Color),  about color was written by Aristotle (384–322 BC).  In addition to explaining the effect of blending of light to create color, he identified the “primary” hues were white, black, red, yellow, brown, violet, green and blue. All other colors could be created by blending some amount of these hues.

As you can see, although the thoughts at this point aren’t totally accurate there was already an acceptance of color being a property of light and an almost correct list of colors for our modern color wheel.

The Renaissance

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) identified yellow, green, blue, red, white and black as the primary colors in his Treatise on Painting that was published in 1651. More importantly, he was the first to explore the relationship of colors when placed next to each other. What we call complimentary colors, he called direct contraries, and he noticed that when placed side by side intensify each other.

Age of Enlightenment

It was during the Age of Enlightenment that Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) studied the physics of color and developed the first color wheel. I talked about that in the last post. But it was Moses Harris (1730-1788) who first identified red, yellow and blue as the true primaries. Harris’ color wheel had 18 different hues.

Modern Era

In 1810 the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) published his Theory of Colors. It was the most comprehensive book on color theory written and he considered it more important than his poetry. He defined the characteristic of luminosity to colors and rated the colors in order of luminosity (white, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, violet, black) and he built the work of Newton to explore the effect of light on color.

The next step in the development of modern color theory came through Michael Eugene Chevreul (1786-1889), a French Chemist. In his early career he was known for his research of animal fats that all of us home soap makers can be greatly appreciative. Later in life he became the dye master at a tapestry-weaving studio. Here is where our knowledge of simultaneous contrast (the effect of colors on each other) took a giant leap.

American Ogden Rood (1831-1902) introduced the concept of the three properties of color: hue, luminosity/value, saturation/purity. As with all of the other color scientists, he developed a color wheel. The complimentary colors were based on afterimages rather than pigment mixing. He also expanded the study of simultaneous contrast and optical mixing such as occurs in pointillism.

Around the same time the American color theorist Albert Munsell (1858-1918) developed a color system that was adopted by the US Bureau of Standards as the acceptable language of color. He defines color in terms of hue, value and saturation. This is the way we still define color today. Munsell’s system defines 5 primaries (red, yellow, blue, green and purple) and the complimentary colors are determined by afterimages.

In 1931 the first standardized notation for colors was developed at the International Commission on Illumination. Through the work of this committee is that colors can be accurately and consistently matched.

Much if our modern understanding of color and color interaction comes from the work of Johannes Itten (1888-1967)and, his student,  Josef Albers (1888-1976) at the Bauhaus School. Through the independent work of these men art students began to study the interaction of color. Their color wheel and color triangle identified red, yellow and blue as the primary colors. Itten's wheel is shown on the right.

In the 20^th century there came a need for color work in the printing industry. It was German painter Alfred Hickethier (1903-1967) who developed what we now know as the process wheel that has yellow, cyan and magenta as primaries. The process wheel is specific to the printing industry because of the inks used in printing techniques. It was through his work that printers could now standardize and precisely reproduce colors.

Current Work

The most recent work on color theory has been done by American Faber Birren(1900-1988) and Dutch artist, Frans Gerritsen.  Both of these theorists based their work on the perception of color. Birren published his work in the 1930’s and Gerritsen in the 1970’s – 80’s. They go beyond theories that color is a property of light and specifically define it as a property of perception.  The best example of this is dreams. We dream in color and we see color in those dreams and yet there is no “light” present.

One thing that you might notice if you research further into any of these theorists is that each developed their own color system.  Any of these system may or may not be valid for the work you are doing. One thing is for sure, this is no one right color system for all purposes. Unfortunately, in many of the books and materials available fiber artists we are taught that one or another is the “right” system. That’s not really true and we will see why in a later post.

Next we are going to spend some time talking about color perception so that we can finally get down to playing with fabrics and colors.