Chroma Cluelessness Syndrome

I confess to being a victim of this disease! I think though, that
I want to be more subtle, but I have a hard time actually seeing and distinguishing between the various hues and shades. It is hard for me to see the graying of color, so it is hard for me to paint it. I end up taking pictures of my paintingd, converting them to black and white so as to try to see the intensities. Can you help me?

Dori,

I think the answer is twofold: first, look at a lot of good (and bad) paintings, and decide what you want yours to look like. Which artists do you admire? How do they manage the issue of chroma? Do they use high-chroma colors indiscriminately or are they used with moderation?

If you do want to limit your use of color, you;ll need to be able to both plan how to do that and be able to execute your plan. It helps when planning to do a very small color sketch of any painting you plan to make. Don’t worry about making a detailed, good-looking painting. Just work out the color composition, mixing the colors you want and putting them down in that section of the painting.

You also need to be able to mix the right color. You might want to look at the Articles section of this web site or look at the “color” category. There’s lots of material on how to mix the chroma you want.

Dori—I’ll add that taking pictures of your subjects and converting them to black and white is not at all a bad way to train yourself to see value. (Value cluelessness is actually as big a problem in many artists’ work as chroma cluelessness; in fact, I’d say the two often go hand in hand. )

Alternate tools include setting a digital camera to black and white mode and using the LCD to check value relationships on your subject, or the old standard of looking through a fairly thick piece of red transparent acrylic, which acts as a filter that allows you to see your subject in monochrome. Use these tools for long enough, and eventually you will find that you need them less and less, and eventually you will come to be able to judge chroma and value in your subjects without them. It just takes practice.

Great suggestions, Ben. Thanks.

Great ideas- thank you so much for your quick response!

Dori,

You’re welcome.

I agree that indiscriminate reliance on high chroma leads to discordant, brassy, loud paintings. But the alternative of matching the chroma of nature is not, in my opinion, the best solution. Since paints have such a limited range of value and chroma compared to nature, painters who try to match nature’s colors exactly wind up with a dull, dim picture. This is most evident in a clear blue sky. No paints can mix a blue that is as intense and yet as light in value as that sky. Only by selectively and artfully exaggerating the chroma relationships and value differences observed in nature can a painter approach the color relationships we see in nature. I’m not speaking here of the expressive exaggeration of color for emotional effect, but simply of painting a realistic picture of the scene before you.

I’m trying too figure out the word chroma in the filming industry Chroma key.