The Artist_s Magazine 2016-03__

20 http://www.artistsmagazine.com

brushing up BY MICHAEL CHESLEY JOHNSON

nickel titanate

yellow

cadmium

chartreuse

cadmium

lemon

cadmium

yellow light

cadmium

yellow medium

cadmium

yellow deep

radiant

yellow

radiant

lemon

Hansa

yellow light

Hansa

yellow medium

Hansa

yellow deep

Indian

yellow

Naples

yellow hue

yellow

ochre

gold

ochre

transparent

earth yellow

WERE SOMEONE TO ASK you to

picture the color yellow, you might

think of the cautionary yellow of

highway hazard signs or of the

happy yellow of smiley face but-

tons. Yellow can be used to warn us

but also to cheer us. It’s a common

color in nature and one of the easiest

colors to see because our eyes are

particularly sensitive to its frequency.

For the painter, a light, rich

yellow can serve as an accent to pull

the eye. A dull yellow can signify a

quiet autumn day, and muted yellows

continue to i ll the landscape as win-

ter approaches. Intense yellows run

the range from a warm, orangey note,

like the almost l uorescent color of a

road stripe, to a cooler, greenish hue

of shallow water shot with light.

As a landscape painter, my work-

horse yellows are the rich, opaque

cadmiums: light, medium and deep.

Another favorite is yellow ochre. It’s

also opaque, but more muted than the

cadmiums. Yellow ochre harmonizes

I Am Curious (About) Yellow

Explore the properties of yellow pigments so you can make the best choices for your paintings.

ABOVE: Masstones and Undertones: Each of these yellow

swatches shows a gradient of the color from thickly applied, at the

top, to thinly applied, at the bottom. The top of the swatch, where the

paint is thickest, shows the masstone or overtone of the paint; the

bottom, where the paint is scraped thin, shows the color applied as a

thin fi lm—its undertone. If the paint is transparent, you’ll see a dark

pencil line through the thin section; if no line can be seen, the paint is

opaque.

LEFT: Yellow Tints:

I added white to some of the

darker yellows to show their tints.

Text continued on page 24

Hansa

yellow deep

cadmium

yellow deep

transparent

earth yellow

gold

ochre

yellow

ochre

Indian

yellow

All paints used for color swatches on this

page are Gamblin Artists Colors.