The psychology of color
This painting I did for the 'Bounty' series is a
composition in blue and orange. Blue will
naturally fight the orange if adjacent so here I
separated them as much as possible. Even
though the sea line appears blue meeting gold
it is a neutral grey-black instead. The hat and
coat are separated from the orange clouds by
a neutral white. The notion blue alwaysreceeds is disproved here.
Like a play in a theatre or an opera a painting is the creation of an illusion - of a painter's
particular reality. The dominant hue in the painting below (blue-white) suggests a mid-morningscene.
Here again, in this
demonstration
piece, it may appear
blue is against the
yellow - orange of
the boat. But where
they are strongest
they are also
furthest apart. This
makes the painting
easy on the eye andmore 'melodic'.
Stained glass windows, the paintings of Mondrian and Roualt are modern examples of strong
colors being separated by (black) neutrals. If you feel strongly that poetry should not be
element in the style of painting you want to attempt then you can use this information to
introduce jarring and suddenly surprising passages to your paintings. I call this the 'Hawaiian
shirt effect'. To understand the mechanics of color means that whatever effect you desire canhttp://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/advanced/color_psychology.htm (2 of 3)1/13/2004 3:43:05 AM