Since pure colors are laid next to each to create this effect, the intensity of the perceived color is arguably stronger than what would result from mixing those colors with paint or another colored medium. Of course, some artistic control of the resulting perceived color is sacrificed for the stronger intensity.
The Importance of Color Mixing for Interesting Paintings
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You can achieve perfect (and creative) color mixing every time with help from artist Nancy Reyner. Nancy’s number one tool for painting is color matching. It can add not only resolve issues, but can help add visual interest to a painting. Why is mixing and matching color so important?
Color mixing and matching eliminates repetition and creates a sense of space and readability.
Look at all these flowers in the foreground on the left. They are repetitive, and as such, uninteresting in shape or color. To improve the composition, we can mix and match the colors in the background behind the flower, and apply it into the composition, as if a magic wand simply removed the flower and it was no longer there.
When you know how to mix color you can create variety and visual interest.
Green is a great color, but why use is straight from the tube. Make it lighter, warmer, cooler, bluer, yellower, duller, all by mixing color on your palette with the original tube green.
Here is a painting by Gaugin. The foreground of this grassy hill has a variety of interesting geens that help lead the viewer into the painting. In the image on the right, Nancy changed the foreground to a green straight out of the tube, and the painting becomes boring with uniform color.
Here’s How Optical Color Mixing Works…
A combination of yellow and blue dots can be found in the image below. When these dots are enlarged, we clearly see each dot as yellow or blue.
But, if we take this pattern, make it smaller, and repeat it – then we see this arrangement as green. Green, of course is what color we would get if we were to mix yellow and blue pigments together. However, in the image below, the colors are not mixed. They are simply laid next each other in close proximity to one another.
The white spaces between the colors also play a role in the perceived value of the color. So, it is clear that optical mixing can also affect not only the color, but also the value that is perceived by the viewer.
Optical Mixing Affects Value
Black and white lines, when applied with controlled spacing, can be perceived as gray. This type of optical color mixing is exploited frequently by pen and ink artists. Controlling the amount of negative space between black lines allow the pen and ink artist to create gradations or gradual changes in value in drawings.
Here’s how it works…
In the image below, a series of black lines are drawn on a surface. Each black line is the same width, but the amount of negative or white space between the lines increases from left to right. When enlarged, there is little to no gradation of value perceived from left to right.
However, when this same grouping of lines is reduced and repeated, a gradation of value is easily perceived by the viewer.
Pointillism
Pointillism refers to a painting methodology in which small dots of color are added to the support with the intent of relying on optical color mixing for color translation. In other words, pure color is added on the painting surface in a manner so that adjacent colors will affect how that color is perceived by the viewer.
Perhaps the most well-known artist that used this technique was the French Post-Impressionist painter, Georges-Pierre Seurat. His most famous painting that utilizes this technique is entitled, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. The painting is quite large measuring 81.7″ by 121.25″. It took him two years to complete it (1884-86).
