Element of Color

Additive color or the primaries are the first step to understanding light and how it reacts when reflected. Subtractive color is created when white light is reflected off a pigmented surface and I found it interesting that it is variations of these colors that are used in mass production printing. I found the color interaction section helpful in talking about how colors influence each other. I think this has relevence to modern field paintings. I did not know that this effect was called simultaneous contrast and that cones in our eyes can only regestier one complementary color at a time. It is mind blowing that the hue or wavelength of a color determines what it actually is identifed as and that the value refers to the color minus the color. Luckilly I could relate to most of the discussion regarding value and tint in painting because I have been reading Hawthorne: A book on painting which talks a lot about color. I also found split complementary ver intriguing and the example of Francis Bacon's bluegreen and red orange self-portraits as an example. Although I had already known of symbolic color, I found the expressive color section more important because the same color with a differenet value makes a big difference in a painting.

I found some really colorful Jasper Johns field paintings. Check it out!