Applying Colours in Oil Painting

Colors are a greatly crucial factor that can affect an oil painting. The proper use of colors is able to beautify a painting. The lack of knowledge on its proper usage, however, would bring a painting to its ruin. Colors can mean different things to different people who work in different fields, but in the field of oil painting, it is a fairly intricate subject. It is important to deeply understand and analyze the use of colors while painting an artwork. A painter who does not want to ruin his or her own painting would have to be knowledgeable in this field. The color theory is therefore important as it will help painters better understand the usage of colors and assist them in the process of painting an artwork.

The color theory essentially helps one achieve a few things. Firstly, it will help one understand the complementing and mismatching of colors. Next, it will help one better understand the process of designing an oil painting. Also, it will equip artists with the skill of mixing colors in a broad scale since pigments all hold distinct and individual properties.

The prime thing in understanding the color theory is to know the properties of colors. There are three core properties that colors are classified into which are purity, hue and value. These terms are very commonly misunderstood, but this misunderstanding could be cleared by experimenting colors on a graphics designing computer program. One should however, be aware of the difference of the colors mixed on the computer screen as the effects slightly vary from those in real life. Hues are natural colors prior to brightening or darkening adjustments. They divide into three groups which are primary hues, secondary hues and tertiary hues. Purity is the absence of the mixing of other colors, and its adjustments are called saturation and Chroma. Saturation refers to the degree of purity of a color whereas Chroma refers to the relationship between the purity of a color and the color gray. Value refers to a hue\’s luminance, on the scale of brightness and dullness. These three properties can greatly affect an oil painting\’s quality. Through the proper mix of these three properties, the proper tone can be achieved.

The color theory is merely a simple guide to the mixing of paints. In truly practicing painting, one would have to experiment with colors and learn the individual attributes of pigments and the possible outcomes of the color mixtures. Furthermore, one would have to attempt at creating different shades through colors apart from black and white in order to be smarter at color mixing. Also, one should consider buying pigments for secondary and tertiary colors because mixing merely primary colors may cause a muddy hue to occur.

The best way is still to experiment the colors for oneself. A good way would be to do a study on works done by masterful artists and trying out their selected of color schemes to understand the underlying reason and process of the creation of their artworks.

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