REALISM AND THE HVC COLOR COMPOSER

The main purpose of our ColorBlog is to examine specific problems in every genre of art and to talk about how the HVC Color Composer can be used to help resolve these issues successfully in a work of art. Here we are going to take a very specific angle on realism with the idea that no matter how complex the work may get, there is no reason to lose control of your colors as the work progresses.

In our previous ColorBlog entry, we introduced Master Colors 7 Progressions, which are essentially HVC contrast scales, each of which provide soft, middle to strong contrasts and should be more than sufficient to successfully complete any work of art. For this exercise we are going to work in the First Progression (5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 80 plus). Our progressions are organized to provide the artist with a harmonic shell that will automatically give the artist a coherent contrast scheme, which will thus provide a beautiful underlying orderliness to the work (just like music).

As soon as we begin to apply colors to a work of art, we are creating numerical contrast relationships whether we wish to or not. You can see how quickly the work can descend into chaos unless these relationships are being controlled by you. In fact, this experience probably isn’t new to you. Every artist has experienced how quickly you can lose control of a complex color composition as a work proceeds. (It is one of the less pleasant experiences an artist can have.) Master Colors is dedicated to eliminating that frustrating experience for artists and to giving the artist absolute control of every color in their works. (It’s not that hard and the rewards of mastering the HVC Color
Composer are profound). It is essential to control these contrast relationships to build powerful, stunning color compositions in your work. The HVC Color Composer allows the artists to take control of these relationships so that every color you add to your work adds to the overall beauty and power of the work.

Our Progressions may make more sense to you if we divide by 10, in which case the First Progression would be: .5 (a half step, 1 (a whole step), 1.5, 2, 3, 4 and 8 steps. Any way we combine those numbers gives us coherent, simple proportional relationships, which is what harmony is. Musical scales are organized along the same idea, and you can imagine what music would sound like without a system of organized scales and harmonics.
Master Colors takes the mystery out of the myriad field of color theory by organizing our approach around the unifying principle of HVC color contrast. That allows us to reduce a relationship to a single number, which is the key to controlling color. With these numbers, we have created harmonic contrast scales whereby we can then easily control the work of art, no matter how complex the color composition may get, from simple 4 to 5 color compositions to compositions involving hundreds and even thousands of color relationships. (HVC stands for Hue, Value and Chroma, which is another work for intensity.)

For this article, we are going to work with a photo of a landscape. We start by tracing the larger areas and using the eyedropper to pick an average color for each of these areas. (See illustrations below.)

Figure 1. Here we start with a detail of a photo and trace out the major shapes, then eyedrop a representative color into that space. At this stage of the work we get something reminiscent of an early Vuillard, a great 20th century French realist. Now we can choose to develop the piece a far as we wish to attain the results we want. Our goal is to keep control of the work as it progresses.


Figure 2. Within the large areas we colored in, we are going to further subdivide the picture by filling in two light patterns on top of the colors representing the larger shapes, one lighter and one darker. These light patterns are one whole step (10 steps on the Composer) from the representative color of the larger shape. For purposes of color composition that large-shape field color now becomes your Target Color. In Figure 2 above, we laid the lighter light pattern down. (Next: See Figure 3 below.)


Figure 3. What the lighter patterns look like on their fields. Now we will lay in the darker patterns, see Figure 4 below). These are all 10 steps apart (one whole HVC Contrast step).

Figure 4. The darker light patterns, which are 10 steps from the field colors they are on.

Figure 5. Now the lighter and darker patterns are revealed as the piece starts to take on a more complete look. Using the HVC Color Composer, we are still in control of everything that is happening in the picture. All of the colors on top of the larger areas of color are 10 steps from the colors they are on. Now we will take the piece one step further as we start to fill in some of the painterly dots, dashes and patches that normally constitute a work of realism (see Figure 6, below).

Figure 6. Here we are starting to fill in some of the smaller dots, dashes etc. that make up the Melody Line that provide some of the sparkle contained in the way the light plays along the foliage. These are relationships from the First Progression and are mostly tens, twenties and forties. See Figure 7, below.

Figure 7. We are going to leave this exercise here, where we have begun to put in the smaller elements that constitute a work of realism. From here the artist could develop the piece in a Wyeth- or Vermeer-style realism emphasizing local color effects or more in a Bonnard-style realism where the direction is more decorative and abstract. The main thing is that you the artist are still in control of the work. Next article: We discuss how to mix paint when using the HVC Color Composer. An artist should be able to mix an accurate color in 20 to 30 seconds, and we will show you how. Stay tuned.