I am back! Happy New Year!
And in typical fashion I have a New Years’ resolution: Paint, and then market the shit out of my paintings. Sounds pretty simple right?
So on the advice of a friend and marketing guru, in the first week of January one thing I decided to do was to seriously dive into Instagram. Posting every few days. Responding to comments and staying on top of the interactions. And posting reels. (ugg… not my strength)
But my strength is pastels and understanding color, so I figured I would start by making simple reels that showed the complexity of color when it comes to pastel sticks. I teach about color, and everyone loves lessons on color, right? So I took a pastel stick in “grey” and ran it across a bunch of different-colored surfaces, showing how that seemingly “neutral” color will change and shift and show its underlying true colors. Any artist that has worked with any kind of color mixing knows color can be shifty.
I named the reel “Grey is not a Color.” (because it is not) and it was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
My daughter says having “haters” lets you know you are successful. Well, I felt very successful last week.
My little reel has been viewed almost 1.4 million times and has over 75,000 likes. (and still growing) Color theorists, artists, armchair commenters, trolls and the colorblind have all chimed in. Many have compared my reel to the “is the dress blue or white” scandal from the 90’s.
Well, if I wanted to increase the number of people following my account, it worked.
Then I added more “Grey is not a Color” reels with Part 2 and Part 3….it is actually cool stuff.
And it has let me realize that most people don’t understand color. Or see the nuances. But what helps when an artist is standing in front of a blank canvas?
One physicist argued, (rudely, with a lot of name-calling) that all colors combined produce white, and that of course grey is a color ……Well, that is great when it comes to light and color theory and additive color- where different-colored light beams added together create white light. True. But I am talking about the struggle of every artist which is subtractive color– pigments being added together to create certain mixtures. Any 5-year-old knows that if you mix every paint color in the art room together in a bowl the resulting mixture is anything but white.
Theory vs Application.
And I have learned through this little experiment that color nuance is hard to explain. And that being an artist and truly understanding color is difficult.
But I love it.
So as I move forward with my resolution this year, I will be adding new reels every week on color perception and nuance. (I am a sucker for punishment. Plus, I am a Taurus and very stubborn, so I am not backing down now- because grey is definitely not a color) If you follow along, you may be surprised by some of the videos- Mother Nature does some cool things with color. You may also be surprised at how crazy and mean people can be as well.
That’s ok. I am going to reach a new level of success this year.
Here is the link to the first reel, “Grey is not a color” and if you can leave a kind comment I would appreciate it. I could use it.
More to come. Life is funny and you never know where it will lead ya….Let me know your thoughts on the reel. See ya next week.
Love Instagram and have shared your reels.
Happy New Year👍
Yay! Thanks so much! Happy New Year.
I just have to comment on the blue dress white dress thing. I know it seems like we’ve lived a hundred years in just the last few years but “the dress’ wasn’t from the 90s, it was from 2015. I know, seems like it was ages ago!
Ha! I guess everything from before Covid seems like decades ago. Lol.
Thanks a bunch for this one. I remember what a confoggle I was in the first time you posted a similiar. This and others. It got me studying color more closely. Light and color. A never ending study. Thanks again.
You bet! Confoggle is my middle name! ❤️
Christine, Your blog post came at a great time for my brain to soak it all in. Last week I saw the Bonnard exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Published book photos fade in comparison after seeing the actual paintings. He understood color so well and used similar values in such close proximity that sometimes an object would suddenly appear in a space that looked solid just a moment earlier. A quote from Bonnard popped into my head while I watched you draw a grey line through colored paper on your little reel. I had to look up the statement to get all the words right. “The painter’s only solid ground is the palette and colors, but as soon as the colors achieve an illusion, they are no longer judged.” Pierre Bonnard. I have a glass jar in which I pour in my pastel dust after each painting.. Every color I used is in there and any white specs negligible among every other color imaginable . I see a beautiful deep grey forming from the reds, greens, blues, purples and yellows. The grey cast may be an illusion but so is art. Maybe someday I’ll make some sticks from my pastel dust. Thank you so much for a wonderful thought provoking blog. I’ll have to get on instagram so I can watch more little reels from you. Keep up your powerful work. Controversy means people are paying attention.
Thanks for the quote Gloria! Yes I’ve seen some master artists that have such control over impossible tight tolerances of color. And the photos never do it justice because it comes in between how we view the art the way the artist intended. So glad uou are along for the ride.
Thankyou for the email notice so I can watch the reels without joining Instagram. I can still see it even with all the blockers!
Christine– all joking aside (CS and I know each other and have “argued” about this, in person), do you think that black is a color? What we call “black” is not black. It is an extremely dark grey. What we call “white,” is not white. It is an extremely light grey. To illustrate this, I tell students that there are areas of outer space, and deep in the ocean, where you can put your hand in front of your eyes and you can not see it due to the lack of light. There are fish who become invisible when they turn sideways. Due to technology, we can now go so deep into the ocean where there are areas that never experienced light. And think of outer space. That is BLACK. On the other end, welders do not where helmets and with a glass piece to protect their eyes from the sparks, although it does, the prime concern is not to BURN their eye due to the white light being so bright. That is WHITE. Further, grab two pieces of “white paper” from different sources. Both are called, “white.” Lie one partly on top of the other. You will now see that one is lighter. This helps to understand that if placed alongside the white flash from welding, that neither is white, but extremely light grey, as I said earlier. Like yourself, I have always been baffled by “the presence of all color will produce white.” However, with art materials we are not really using the extremes, as one would with true light in a science lab or nature. Maybe it does. Same goes for the “lack of all color produces black.” Again, we can not really run and experiment with art materials along these lines. Putting aside the scientists infantile means of commenting, he could be on to something. I do not know. Beyond all of this, you can do the demo in your video with any color, as you know, as a way of illustrating that a color looks differently depending which color it is alongside of. You may recall that in Dan Greene’s classes, he mentions that if someone has grey hair, or greying, and wants to look older, to wear light clothes. Comparatively, the hair will not look as light. Conversely, to look older and more distinguished and seasoned, to wear dark clothes, and the hair will look lighter. To repeat my question, do you think that the black we can achieve with art materials is a color? Thanks. (ps. Your daughter is correct…I love it!)
So there is ADDITIVE color and SUBTRACTIVE color. What keeps coming up is people are saying that colored lights added together produce white light. True. But that is additive color and is physics in regards to light. I am talking about subtractive color -that is what all artists deal with because every 5-year old knows that mixing all the colors together IN PAINT does not equal white. Here we are dealing with how light bounces off pigments. Because a red object is not red. We only see it as red from the reflection. So in reality a red apple is all colors BUT red. But again, that does not help the artist in front of a white canvas. Yes, there are extremes of white and black. Again, you are talking about light and additive color. So the deeps of the ocean has no light and the light in the flame is, again, light.
As for pigments, most black paint has a blue base and most white paints have a cool or blue base as well. Yes, everything is relative. As for your example of different “whites” being lighter or darker etc…that is also true but they are not grey. There are 12 colors visible to the human eye. Only 12 hue families and grey is not one of them. “Grey” is created from mixtures. Even at that very light and tinted state in the paper. There is no grey on the color wheel. It is a broad term for mixtures of other colors. Once you realize that, you can see how insignificant saying “grey” really is. If we are talking about master artists then Richard Schmid said there is no such thing as a neutral color. He is correct. There is only NEUTRALIZED COLORS- THE 12- and grey is not a separate color. Daniel Greene did talk about the fact that ALL COLORS go toward blue or yellow. Even all mixtures. (what most artists call grey) This really opened my eyes to, again, that there is no neutral color and no color that does not have some dominance to it. It is an impossibility of nature. We have just been taught to use the term “grey” as a child and I will call things “grey” myself, but I will always know that inside that color is a dominance. If you mix equal parts red and green paint together people say this is grey. But that mixture on a red background will appear green and on a green background will appear red. You can’t stop it. It will NEVER be neutral. And that mixture can be called “grey” but it is actually red and green even if you add white or black (which is blue pigment) to it. Hope that helps! Because when it comes to light I know my shit and it is time other artists understood it too. 😊
Chris–The big problem is that most people can’t see these nuances, even artists, which is sad. Why? Because the vast majority of artists these days have spent very little time painting on site, whether portraiture or landscape/seascape. It’s all from photographs. I recall the thrill of my brain exploding once I began painting outside–didn’t take long to understand that my visual vocabulary expanded dramatically and rapidly. That’s where the action is! Of course, the same happened when I started attending figure studies way back when. I saw more and more. The extremes, and subtleties in nature are incomprehensible. A great way to understand this, even for non-artists, is to go somewhere that has exotic birds. You are startled the first time you see these in person. And I tell people to just relax and look at them for minutes, and you will see more and more. Same for a rainbow–at first, people think it is a bunch of stripes, but if you keep relaxing and watching, it’ shocking to see there are no sharp edges, even on the outsides. On values, I told you my description of true white and true black. Yes, Dan Greene’s observation about colors moving only in a bluish or yellowish direction was another revelation. I think his point relates a lot to your point about gray. Dan also points out that the only color that can be warm or cool is purple, being composed of red and blue. More red, it eventually becomes warm. More blue, eventually cool. I’m on board with most of what you say–it’s just that on the point about gray is something I need to remind myself. I do not think that way naturally when I am painting. I tend to think “how much warmer or cooler” and which “local color” and I dealing with to get there? For folks who only paint from photos, you really need to get into life drawing, whether from a model, still life, or outside on location. Remember, a cityscape is simply a LARGE still life. Every so often, I fall away from painting outside, as happened in 2023. Consequently, I did around 12 small paintings over a couple months to bring all of these concepts to the forefront of my mind again. Why? Doing this develops the eye and makes it for efficient, the artists sees more in a brief time and hence, he or she paints better–more accurately. Painting was invented a very long time before cameras. How did they do it? This is one of the ways. I have a close friend who has been a full-time photographer for 40 years and is into all of this–how light affects color and so on. I am going to use your response as a springboard to study this concept of subtracting light. And yes, we are seeing a reflection. I like Schmid’s point about “no neutral color.” That’s always bothered me–but sometimes it’s just semantics, like you saying, “gray.” But one can argue that there is, indeed, “gray” on a color wheel. Have you ever seen one where colors are mixed across from each other? One can argue there is no “orange” on a color wheel, because it is really yellowish red, as in bluish purple or reddish purple. There’s no real purple. In other words, they are all a mix of primaries, and black and white. Lastly, I will need to review with my photographer the whole CYMK vs RMK thing. When he’s explained it before, the concept of reflected light, etc. came into play. Seeing color on a back lit computer screen versus on a printed image of the same thing are entirely different, as you know. Thank you…! ps. A Copley Master friend told me, a master painter he know told him, “All paintings are of only one subject–light.” True.