Understanding Color
Summary
TLDRThis video script delves into the art of color usage in art, emphasizing its impact on mood, atmosphere, and storytelling. It outlines three core concepts: the importance of color, understanding saturation and value, and exploring color harmonies. The script educates on how to manipulate colors to guide the viewer's attention, alter scenes' moods, and create compelling color schemes. It also discusses the practical application of six common color harmonies, from monochromatic to double complementary, providing examples and advice on how to avoid common pitfalls. The speaker encourages artists to experiment with colors, learn from practice, and enjoy the creative process.
Takeaways
- 🎨 **Color's Impact**: Colors are crucial in art as they can guide the viewer's attention, set the mood, and enhance storytelling.
- 👀 **Viewer Guidance**: Correct use of color can direct the viewer's eyes to focal points, while incorrect use may cause confusion or discomfort.
- 🖌️ **Saturation and Value**: Saturation (color intensity) and value (color brightness) are key in creating appealing color schemes and should be adjusted for different effects.
- 🌈 **Color Harmony**: Understanding color harmonies helps in creating visually pleasing artwork and can be achieved through various schemes like monochromatic, analogous, and triadic.
- 📈 **Mood Alteration**: Colors can dramatically change the perceived mood of a scene, from joyous and vibrant to sad and desaturated.
- 🌟 **Highlighting Importance**: Bright, saturated colors can be used to highlight important elements or guide the viewer's eye through a composition.
- 🎭 **Storytelling**: Historically, color has been used to signify power or importance, and in modern media, to adjust the narrative's tone.
- 🌌 **Photorealism**: In photorealistic art, color accuracy is vital; a grayscale conversion can reveal how 'real' an image appears.
- 🎭 **Cartoon Usage**: In cartoons, bright and saturated colors are often used to emphasize the unrealistic or surreal nature of the scene.
- 🧩 **Compositional Tool**: Colors can be strategically placed to create a visual path or anchor points within a composition, enhancing its overall impact.
Q & A
What are the three core concepts discussed in the video for understanding color?
-The three core concepts discussed in the video are the importance of color, saturation and value, and color harmonies.
How can color guide the viewer's eyes in an artwork?
-Color can guide the viewer's eyes by highlighting what's important, using color to tell a story, or changing the mood of a scene.
What is the impact of using incorrect colors in a scene?
-Using incorrect colors can make the viewer feel lost, nauseous, or irritated, and it can also make the scene look fake in terms of photorealism.
What is saturation in the context of color theory?
-Saturation is the intensity or purity of a color, and it plays a significant role in creating visually appealing or unappealing color work.
What does value refer to in color theory?
-Value refers to the brightness or darkness of a color, which can be adjusted to create different moods or effects.
How can adjusting saturation and value change the appearance of a color?
-Adjusting saturation and value can create a variety of different shades from a single raw color, affecting the overall look and feel of an artwork.
Why is it important to not overuse highly saturated colors in a scene?
-Overusing highly saturated colors can make an image look fake and provide no resting place for the viewer's eyes, leading to irritation.
How can color be used to tell a story or change the mood in a scene?
-Color can be used to focus attention on a character, signify power, or indicate a change in mood, such as from happiness to sadness.
What are the six popular color harmonies discussed in the video?
-The six color harmonies are monochromatic, analogous, triadic, complementary, split complementary, and double complementary.
What is the monochromatic color harmony and how can it be used?
-Monochromatic harmony involves using only one color, which can be used to focus the viewer on details or create a striking atmospheric effect.
How can color harmonies help in creating a composition?
-Color harmonies can guide the viewer's eyes through a scene, highlight areas of interest, and create a visually pleasing and balanced composition.
Outlines
🎨 Understanding Color in Art
This paragraph introduces the challenges artists face with color usage, emphasizing its impact on mood, atmosphere, and harmony. The video aims to teach effective color application to enhance storytelling and create appealing color schemes. It outlines three core concepts: the importance of color, saturation and value, and color harmonies. The speaker explains how color can direct the viewer's attention, alter a scene's mood, or make a viewer feel lost or irritated if misused. The paragraph also touches on the difficulty of achieving photorealism with color, suggesting that our eyes are exposed to numerous saturations and shades daily, yet we seldom study them, leading to challenges in artistic application.
🌈 The Role of Saturation and Value
This section delves into the specifics of saturation and value in color theory. Saturation refers to a color's intensity or purity, while value indicates its brightness or darkness. The speaker illustrates how adjusting these properties can drastically change a color's appearance and impact. Using examples, they show how high saturation can be jarring, and how reducing it can create more pleasing tones. Similarly, adjusting value from 100% brightness to 20% can turn a color nearly invisible, illustrating the importance of these adjustments in creating depth and variety in artwork. The paragraph also discusses the overuse of saturation in digital art and how it can lead to a lack of visual rest, advocating for strategic desaturation to enhance composition and storytelling.
🖼️ Color Harmonies and Schemes
The speaker transitions to discussing color harmonies, which are about colors that work well together, also known as color schemes or complementaries. Six popular color harmonies are introduced: monochromatic (single color), analogous (adjacent colors), triadic (equally distant colors), complementary (opposing colors), split complementary (one color and the two adjacent to its complement), and double complementary (two pairs of complementary colors). Each harmony is explained with examples of how they can be used to create focus, mood, and atmospheric effects in art, with a special emphasis on how they can be applied in various artistic contexts, from traditional painting to digital art and animation.
🌟 Advanced Color Harmonies in Practice
This paragraph provides detailed examples of how advanced color harmonies, such as split complementary and double complementary, can be effectively used in artwork. It discusses how these schemes can create lively and joyous compositions, and how they can be used to balance and highlight different elements within a scene. The speaker illustrates these concepts with images that show how the careful use of color can lead to striking and pleasing visual results. The importance of not using colors equally and instead focusing on one dominant color with accents of others is also emphasized.
📚 Conclusion and Encouragement
In the final paragraph, the speaker summarizes the key points of the video, reminding viewers of the importance of understanding and applying color harmonies effectively. They reiterate the importance of saturation and value, and encourage viewers to practice and have fun with color experimentation. The speaker also provides resources for further learning and thanks the artists whose work was featured in the presentation. The video concludes with a reminder to enjoy the learning process and not to stress about mastering color use.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Color
💡Saturation
💡Value
💡Color Harmonies
💡Monochromatic
💡Analogous
💡Triadic
💡Complementary
💡Split Complementary
💡Double Complementary
Highlights
Colors are crucial for guiding the viewer's attention and altering the mood or atmosphere of a scene.
Using colors incorrectly can lead to a scene that feels off, lost, or irritating.
Saturation and value are key factors in creating appealing color schemes.
High saturation can make an image look fake and uncomfortable to view.
Desaturating parts of a scene can help guide the viewer's eyes and provide visual rest.
Color can be used to tell a story or highlight the importance of certain elements within a scene.
Colors can significantly impact the mood of a scene, as demonstrated in the movie 'Up'.
Monochromatic color schemes involve using only one color and are great for focusing on details.
Analogous color schemes use colors next to each other on the color wheel and are soothing to the eye.
Triatic color harmony involves using colors equally distant from each other on the wheel and is playful.
Complimentary color schemes use colors opposite each other on the wheel for a naturally pleasing effect.
Split complimentary color schemes offer more creative freedom by using three colors instead of two.
Double complimentary color schemes involve using two pairs of opposite colors for a balanced look.
Practicing with colors is essential to develop an eye for creating effective color schemes.
Resources and tools are available to help artists develop their color skills and understanding.
Artists should enjoy the process of learning about colors and not stress about getting it perfect right away.
Transcripts
using colors is probably one of the
biggest hurdles that artists face
knowing how to use colors effectively to
adjust the mood or the atmosphere or to
even pick colors that actually go well
together it's really hard for a lot of
people to uh to make it work so that's
what this video is all about
understanding color by the end of this
video you'll discover how to use colors
effectively to alter the story or to
create pleasing color schemes so I'm
going to break it down into three core
Concepts starting with why color is so
important then saturation and value and
finally color harmonies so starting with
the Y colors when used correctly can
guide the viewer's eyes to what's
important like in this scene your eyes
are immediately drawn to this nice green
cylinder in the center of the screen uh
it could also be used to uh tell the
story or completely change the mood of
the scene entirely however when used
incorrectly like in my terrible scene
here from 2007 it can make the viewer
feel lost nauseous or even irritated
basically colors can make or break your
scene very very important to get it
nailed down even worse in terms of
photorealism color is one of the biggest
giveaways that your image is fake if you
don't believe me take out your latest
work convert it to grayscale and notice
how it immediately looks a lot more f
photo realistic getting colors right is
just hard throughout the day our eyes
soak in millions of huge saturations and
shades but we rarely ever stop to study
them so when it comes time to actually
work we have a hard time drawing from
our memory what color is used for one
could argue that it goes back to our
childhood as kid we learned about colors
in their most simplified raw formats red
blue yellow Etc
but when we tried using these raw colors
in our art we probably quickly noticed
that the results came out really ugly
but why is that saturation and value
that's why saturation is the intensity
or purity of the color and it's one of
the biggest culprits when it comes to
ugly color work the second is value
which refers to the brightness or the
darkness of the color so let's have a
look at these uh on the left here 100%
saturation really hard to look at but
tone it down to 20% and it becomes
almost a pink fleshy color um again I
haven't adjusted the color at all but
just changing the saturation gives you
very different results let's try it
again with value 100% on the left 20% on
the right you can almost barely see it
so that's adjusting the brightness of
the color basically so you can see that
it now looks more like a muddy Brown
than a red now if you had to tweak both
of these the saturated and the value you
can see that you can create a whole
pleora of different shades um all from
just one raw color at the
start as is demonstrated in this
painting I'm fairly certain that the
only color used in this painting is red
so just mixing it with white and black
you know changing the saturation and the
value um able to create an entire image
from just one color very interesting now
in the CG World saturation is probably
one of the biggest offenders a lot of
artists choose highly saturated colors
because they think it will make the
result look much better um but really it
couldn't be further from the truth uh
highly saturated colors not only look
incredibly fake but using saturated
colors everywhere gives your eyes
nowhere to rest which is really
important in an image so um having a
look at this you can see staring at it
for too long it becomes a little bit
irritating so desaturate areas of your
scene are very very important but that's
not to say that bright saturated colors
are all bad um in this example you can
see that your eyes are automatically
drawn to the red bright mountains in the
background there that was deliberate um
that can be used as a compositional
element so your eyes are following back
and forth along the same path as the
camels are traveling very cool and in
this image it's pretty clear that the
artist wanted you to notice those flat
flowers it's also called wild poppies
which is kind of a giveaway um but the
red highly fluorescent uh color of them
it almost jumps off the screen at you so
really startling and probably the one
element that you'll remember this image
for and it can also be used for
storytelling uh throughout history if
you have a look at a lot of paintings
Jesus is always wearing red um and
that's basically to uh Focus the
attention on him and also to make him
look powerful and mighty and in terms of
cartoons um highly saturated or bright
colors can actually work in your favor
because it can immediately note to the
viewer that they're looking at something
which is fake and it really plays to its
surreal unrealistic uh
qualities brightness and saturation can
even adjust your mood if you remember at
the start of up the colors were very
vibrant there was a lot of oranges there
was pinks uh fluorescent grass and
really really vibrant colors this was to
signify the joyous happy moment in their
lives but then it later turned to
sadness and the colors immediately Chang
to very desaturated tones a lot of Grays
a lot of Browns and if you have a look
at that image on the right there I mean
there's almost really no color at all I
mean it's just a little bit of blue kind
of some brown in there but nearly all
desaturated so that helps you to feel
the coldness and the the loneliness that
the characters are experiencing um this
same effect was used at the start of The
Incredibles and as well as the Matrix um
color is a really powerful mood changer
and it's used a lot in Hollywood as well
as video games which is why Call of Duty
is completely desaturated almost um it
can also be used for composition so
having a look at this image your eyes
are probably automatically drawn into
the background there where there is some
dudes wearing some gnarly red pants um
so it's really it's guiding your eyes
from the foreground to the background
just by having something highly
saturated so very important um a similar
effect can be seen right here if it
weren't for that highly saturated parrot
there in the foreground it's unlikely
that this image would have uh be as
successful as it is um the parrot really
gives you something to Anchor yourself
to so you're then free to explore the
rest of the scene so to
speak so just to summarize what I've
already spoken about saturation and
value in a nutshell don't overdo it
don't saturate and use high values all
throughout your scene it will always
come out horrible use saturation and
value to guide the viewer to tell a
story who is powerful you know what are
you drawing attention to you can use it
to change the mood use vibrant colors in
an animation and desaturated you know
when you want to change it to to be sad
um or you can just use it to draw
attention to something that otherwise
wouldn't be getting attention so that's
the why saturation and value which leads
us to point number three color harmonies
sorry for blinding you there so I love
this topic color harmonies basically
pertains to the fact that some colors
look better together than others it's
also known as color schemes or
complimentary um harmonies you know it
has a number of different words um so
what I'm going to be talking about is
six popular and common color harmonies
that work well they're based on concrete
ideas and you can start using them in
your work straight away
so the first one is monochromatic
probably the easiest one to start with
because it involves only one color
entire image uses just one color this is
best for single subjects because it
forces the viewer to focus on the
details of the image the changes in the
value the
saturation um and it could also be used
to create a very um striking atmospheric
effect as will uh be demonstrated right
now um so you can see here your eyes are
drawn to the silhouette of the rocks and
the figures and you're focusing on the
story as opposed to the colors very cool
and this image here aside from that
yellow moon at the top there is entirely
painted with red giving a very striking
atmospheric effect and this next one I
absolutely love creepy chilling and it's
all using one color yellow very very
cool effect and um yeah used very well
all right number two is analogous this
one is cool cool um it's about colors
that are adjacent to each other on the
wheel so generally you know about the
distance you can see right there the
cool thing about this one is that it's
easy on the eyes It generally creates a
peaceful and comfortable mood mainly
because it is seen a lot in nature with
you know green trees blue skies things
like that the colors are are very
related so to give you some examples
this image here um at the start it might
almost look monochromatic since there's
a lot of that uh that purple in the
background there but you can see over
here if I put my mouse here you can see
there is a blue sort of Shaw resting on
that that chair there and then of course
you've got this striking pink flower
there really great use of that color
scheme and then here as the example with
nature you've got some uh some you know
dark green grass here you've got some
light green up here in this tree here
and then of course the sky um with a
nice uh blue there and in this image
really awesome example um totally
striking um so you got this lovely red
dress of course and then the use of
purple and pinks throughout the rest of
the scene and in this image here um
aside from a couple of areas where
there's a blue the rest of it is all
really using yellow orange and red so if
you look in the background there yellow
taxis you got some orange signs red car
Etc so really nice effect which brings
us to number three the triatic color
Harmony scheme
so this one is probably one of the
hardest to pull off um it involves
colors which are equally distant to each
other on the wheel as I said hardest to
pull off um it's really best for
cartoons or surreal scenes um because it
can really come across as being quite
playful um it's probably not the best
example to put right after that um but
you can see here again Jesus is wearing
that striking red and then um using blue
and yellow to highlight other elements
and it's created a very pleasing looking
result and here really great example it
doesn't have to be just the primary
colors by the way the the triadic can be
as I said equally distant to each other
on the color wheel so this one is using
mainly orange green and blues um and you
can see it's it's a really great effect
um it it comes across really cheerfully
and um yeah just really nice all right
number four complimentary this one is
probably one I'm sure you've all heard
of before um it's basically colors that
are opposing each other on the wheel so
it's very very popular a lot of artwork
not only today but throughout history
use complimentary color schemes it's
just naturally pleasing to the eye
colors that are opposite to each other
on the wheel just look better I mean
they just look nice next to each other
um but something that a lot of people
don't mention is that you shouldn't use
both colors equally like you shouldn't
use 50% green and 50% red you should be
using one color predominantly generally
the weaker color so in this case if you
using green and red uh you'd be using
the green the most so you'd be using
that for like most of the scene and then
using some splashes of red so you know
like some really desaturated greens and
then some you know saturated areas of uh
red have a look at some examples here we
go uh very similar to the movie Brave I
think um you could see uh a lot of green
she's wearing a nice green dress there a
lot of green along the grass there and
then of course this red Shaw her red
hair and the Sun set and everything else
there creating a really nice scheme here
this one is um a lot harder to notice
since it looks almost monochromatic um a
lot of yellow throughout everything but
if you look way in the background there
you can see uh some violet color so um
yeah that is a complimentary color
scheme and here I love this one it's uh
a great example of using cool and warm
colors which are naturally complimentary
um and uh that can also be used to
affect the mood of the uh of the scene
as well if you want the a certain part
of the of the scene to look sort of cold
then uh using blue cool uh Aqua type
colors can have that effect and then
using warm colors such as red and orange
can make it look inviting or Pleasant
and this one really popular one that was
on CG Society for a long time uh by Tony
brat inic sorry if I pronounced your
name wrong uh using the uh red and green
color scheme uh coming across really
really nicely um and uh very powerful
looking effect and this one here very
obvious red and green seems uh to be a
very popular complimentary scheme um and
then this example here um as I showed
you before we've got Aqua for most of
the elements and then in the background
there you've got some highlights of some
warm orange lights and especially on the
screens there but there's virtually
almost no other color in the scene which
is kind of interesting and then this one
here I love this one Drogo from Game of
Thrones um it's mostly yellow mostly has
this this yellow orangey tin to it and
you might be thinking where is the blue
well it's here it's from the rim light
and I would say without that blue this
image would not look as striking or as
good as it does that blue even though
it's really subtle and it's only a small
amount it really does help to balance
out the heavy use of this yellow color
all right so now let's talk about split
compliment split complimentary color
schemes are very similar to the one we
just talked about
using opposites um but basically you
take one end of it and then you split it
so um doing that allows you U more
creative freedom so instead of just
being locked to two colors um it allows
you to use three colors um generally
this type of color scheme feels more
lively and joyous so I'll give you an
example here um love this painting uh
really nice use of some purples there of
course all through the flowers and then
you've got some yellow FL um flowers
here the the green plants of course and
then you know yellow in the background
so basically just three colors all
throughout the whole thing and it's a
really striking very pleasing looking
result and this one I love this image um
we've got some really nice orange trees
there um this uh striking uh green um
lawn here sorry and then of course the
nice cool blue calming sky so the those
three colors going together um they work
out really well and even though they're
really highly saturated
um there are elements of uh um low value
and desaturation like you can see these
trees in the background here um they've
been uh desaturated it's really this
main foreground um where you've got this
orange against this blue which are
naturally um complimentary as well um
they go really well together and then
you've got some dark areas in the grass
Etc and then this one here this one's a
little bit harder to notice but um you
can see obviously you've got some yellow
um on the robot itself um and then of
course the blue sky and you might be
looking where is the orange and it's in
the sunset in the background there so
very subtle but again it does give you
um a little bit more freedom using three
colors as opposed to two and this one
here I love this one by Carlos um it's
uh it's a great use it looks like two
colors but really it's uh it's three so
we've got this this blue color which is
of course going through her hair and the
dress but then the plant itself you've
got some especially on those uh the
stamans if that's how you pronounce it
of the the flowers there um they sort of
come out as this aqua color almost a
greenish sort of color in the background
even a little bit of purple there I
didn't notice that before um but yeah
really nice use of a split complimentary
scheme there this one again you might
think this is just a complimentary
scheme um thinking that it's just blue
and uh orange there on the book but if
you have a look at her hair you can see
that um it's red it's got a nice red
tint to it especially um uh on this
curtain over here as well there's a
little bit of red so um a nice use of
three colors there coming out really
nicely um and of course this one here
really love this image great use of
colors especially for a cartoon scene
highly saturated um Lively joyous look
to it um you've got of course the yellow
bananas um the pink flower very vibrant
in her hair and then the green trees um
and uh this dress here as well um you
could argue that there's some blue like
there's a little blue uh sky and the Sea
um but I would say there's a lot of
green in that like it's not it's more of
a a greenish Aqua sort of color um and
as you could see I mean the results
speak for themselves lovely just
dazzling looking image um great use of
the split complimentary scheme all right
finally let's talk about the
tetratic or let's just call it the
double complimentary that's its other
name I prefer to call it double
complimentary um so this is basically
the complimentary color scheme doubled
so um it's just choosing two pairs of
opposites really um it doesn't really
matter where they are on the wheel um
just choose two different pairs um so
it's best used for foregrounds and
backgrounds like I would wouldn't really
recommend using it for like mixing
everything in the same sort of area sort
of hard to describe I'll show you some
examples in a sec um but like for
example using the foreground you might
want to have you know one pair and then
weigh in the background maybe balance
another pair um never ever use 25% of
each like what I said before about using
complimentary colors don't use 50/50
same with this if you use 25% of each it
would just look horrible just chaos um
so you want to uh have you know some
like the weak colors use them primarily
and then use the splashes of the uh the
brighter colors hard to pull off but it
can uh produce some pretty pleasing
looking results having a look at this
one for example um this is an example of
the 4 grand background uh the for Grand
is using the green and red pairing and
then way in the background sort of hard
to see but you've got some violets and
some yellows coming through there so
that's an
example and this one here this one you
might not think is a double
complimentary but you have a look at it
more and you'll notice it um you've of
course got this uh reddish orange
building there so that makes up the red
um then you've got the yellow coming
through on this light here as well as in
these buildings here the blue coming
through on the sky which just leaves the
green left and and that is in the water
very very desaturated really nice use of
it but the it's this nice green sort of
murkiness and as well as that you've got
some splashes of green in the plants
here and the vine as well so a really
nice use of using four colors together
and this one I love it's an excellent
use um of course the the the main color
for this image which your eyes are most
drawn to is the red hat and then
opposite to that is this uh jacket or
hoodie that he's wearing in which is
this green color so looking at this
color wheel you can see they're paired
the red and the green so where's the
other two colors in the background you
can see the background mostly blue with
some little yellow um bouquet effect
lights in the background there um so
again that's foreground background just
pairing the two foregrounds paired and
the background is paired creating a
really nice pleasing
result um and then finally to leave on
this one this one you probably wouldn't
think uh is using four colors but again
it is there um so there is a lot of blue
um but you can see that there's a
difference you've got this Aqua greenish
bright blue and then you've got this
deep sort of murky blue um so those are
the two different Blues there and then
you've got this nice blonde yellowy hair
here and that goes in really well with
that deep blue so those are nice
complimentary colors and then the skin
is this more warmer orangish color and
you've got some even some red lips there
as well
um and uh and that goes balancing um uh
the uh this aqua color which is uh in
going into her mermaid tail there really
nice use of it those nice vibrant funky
colors again really plays to The Surreal
qualities of a of a cartoon render so
that's it to summarize this whole video
saturation use it sparingly not over the
whole thing use it to highlight the
areas of interest and to help tell a
story think about the overall image
uh values use values of high con high
contrast to draw attention to things so
that's basically brightness versus uh
Darkness um and then talking about the
color harmonies these are the six again
first monochromatic which is one color
two analogous using adjacent colors
triatic using equally distant colors
three of them um complimentary opposing
colors on the wheel split complimentary
uh one complimentary end extended and
then finally the double compliment just
the two pairs of opposing colors so
that's pretty much it guys I'd leave on
one final note and that is don't stress
colors can be really fun um it can be
stressful when you're trying to you're
experimenting and you're trying to play
with it and trying to make something
that works um it it sometimes does just
take a lot of practice to come up and
have a like uh develop an eye for seeing
um a combination that will actually work
with your scene uh especially with 3D
scenes uh where you've got a lot of
different shading as well as bounce
lighting and stuff like that and that
can kind of mess up your scheme
sometimes so um just basically have fun
with it it can be fun provided you don't
stress um and just enjoy the process of
learning the colors um and yeah um yeah
if you wanted the notes for this
presentation as well they're up on
blender Guru and as well as that I
provided some resources so some sites um
where you can read up more on some color
schemes as well as some programs will
help which will help you develop some
color games um and finally special
thanks to all of these artists who were
um nice enough to let me use it in this
presentation big thanks to all of you
that's it for me guys I hope you enjoyed
this video have fun with colors and I'll
see you next time bye
Weitere ähnliche Videos ansehen
The ultimate guide to Color Theory for photographers, in just 20 minutes. Use Color harmonies.
Lighting, Coloring & Shading : The Holy Trinity Explained
TEORI WARNA TERLENGKAP [ Dengan Animasi Penjelasan ]
Elements of Art: Color | KQED Arts
PowerPoint Ideas: Color Theory Basics That You Can Use for Better Slides
How filmmakers manipulate our emotions using color
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)