On my last post titled 'Compliments of your Computer', I noted that the traditional artists' color complements model does not align with color space in our computers. Using the HSL color space broken into 12 colors evenly divided in the numerical values yielded complements that were not the traditional Red-Green, Blue-Orange, Yellow-Violet. I noted the need for a scientific proof that the new proposed 'normalized' 12 step model did in fact result in neutralization of colors. This afternoon, before picking up my brushes, I decided to use a vector drawing program, Adobe Illustrator, and specifically it's ability to blend two colors in intermediate steps, to prove or disprove the thesis. The result confirmed the thesis, as follows.
Adobe Illustrator doesn't have the HSL model which uses numbers up to 255 for hues. Instead it has HSB which uses a 360 model. So I had to divide the 360 into the 11 intermediate steps to get the same chart -- but the results were the same. To go to the next step and find if the middle blend is in fact neurtral, I then used the blend tool with 7 intermediate steps to oppose complements. For example hue 0 was opposed to hue 180, and this was done for all 12 colors, with Saturation and Brightness dialed up to 100% for all. The resulting middle blend color was in all cases 50% brightness and 0% saturation -- in other words a neutral grey.
If I shifted any colors and opposed them with something other than its 180 degree complement, some non-neutral color was obtained in the middle. Thus the theory is confirmed. Red is neutralized by a turquoise color, not green, for example.
In this HSB 12 color breakdown, however, yellow and orange didn't show up as nodes. So using the RBG controls I dialed in the traditional primaries Yellow, Red, Blue and converted to HSB to chose their complements. The result was the following five opposing sets of colors. As expected, the center colors are also neutral grey. These stripes would fit in the above wheel to the right or left of blends shown. This chart shows more clearly what the complements to your favorite primaries are, according to the computer color space.
So the thesis stands. How this translated to artists color practice remains TBD. I would encourage artists to experiment. Keep in mind that artists colors are not always at the highest brightness and saturation for any given hue. A useful next step is to map commercial artist colors to color nodes based on this model, and then do manual blends to confirm or repudiate the theory with artist colors. We could start with numbering the chart above and finding commercial equivalents. Of course the challenge will be to compare a physical pigment with a computer model because monitors are calibrated differently, so perceived color will vary. In the mean time, it won't hurt to use this chart as your color complements chart. If you want a PDF version, just send me an email (zuniga.roy@gmail.com), and I'll get you a chart.
One final note: I'm not an expert in this area, but we need a way to objectively 'read' a commercial artists' color and correlating that to a value in the above color space.
Happy Painting!
copyright 2010 roy zuniga
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