Every
object has a colour, and can be defined
by one. But we have to understand
how the object is affected by shadows
and surroundings. To make it visible
enough let's take a pool ball. When
you cast a light on it - you can see
that the colour of it is not plain,
it has local ( true ) colour, colour
close with tone and surrounding colours
( reflection ) and specular highlight.
(1
- specular highlight, 2 - local colour,
3 - reflections, 4 - colour close
with tone)
As
you can see, the red ball is full
of tones. But if you remember the
rules of colour interaction - it will
be easy for you to rule the colour.
The rule of a thumb - most generally
we paint shadows by adding black and
red to local colour, while adding
yellow/green and white to the highlights.
This makes nice, deep shadows and
bright, live highlights. This situation
changes whenever you feel like it
- the lighting can get blue, red or
of any other colour, affecting the
whole scene. The shadows can be cold
- blue and lighting can be live and
yellow ( as on the photos on the bottom
). But remember - never make shadows
with just adding black to it - it
will look ... dirty. I'll prove that
later on.
Another
thing is the strength of the light.
Objects that are lighted with it -
especially red and yellow - are well
saturated and reflect it very strongly.
When
the light is fainter - all the objects
get desaturated and blue.
(photos
taken from H.Parramon book of colour
theory)
When
the atmosphere gets in a way, different
situation takes place... The further
the planes get from the observer,
the more blue and less contrasted
they are. It is especially well seen
on the landscape photos:
There
are also other factors like fog, clouds,
smoke etc. that affect the scene.
Part
4 - Contrasts.
Comparing
to nature our colours are very poor.
Imagine a situation - there is a hole
in a wall, that leads to a dark room.
There is literally no light in it.
Then, next to the hole we hang a black
sheet of paper. When we compare them
- the paper is really dark grey in
contrast to the hole.
So
we have to immitate the colours by
playing with contrasts. The general
rule says, that the colour seems brighter,
when the surrounding colour is darker.
And the opposite - the colour seems
darker, when the surrounding colour
is brighter.
The
same colours of different values put
together strenghten each other:
