Color Composition is HARD

[rowyn]

About, I dunno, three months ago, I spent some time working on a picture. After two drafts and several thumbnails, I got the pencils to the point where I was more or-less happy with it. And then I thought, "I'll finish it up by coloring it

Comments

[anonymous]

Don't quit your day job.

[octantis]

Wow, that sure is helpful, coward. Maybe you should -get- a day job, if you have the time to anonymously troll the journal of a casual art student.

[ceruleanst]

The pitfall is using too many different colors. Your colors need to divide the jumble of shapes into clear categories. It appears you've decided the wings have to be red, so the logical breakdown is that the background should be all cool colors and the foreground should be all warm colors. This means lose the blue jeans. Make all the colors of the main figure redder than the rest of the foreground to pick him out. Any of his clothes can be red, light red, dark grey tinged with red, or a tan/brown that's noticeably warmer than the tan/brown of the ropes and wood. Make the grey of the crowd a blue-grey.

[rowyn]

Thank you! That's very useful; I knew I ought to use fewer colors but couldn't figure out how to cut it down in a way that made compositional sense. Also was sort of stuck on the jeans, but in the end I don't really care about that and you're right that they don't work, color-wise.

[haikujaguar]

I like #3... because the hanging fae forms a triangle with the wings, and triangles with the weight on the bottom are very "peaceful" compositions: they rest the eyes with their stability. There's a reason a lot of pictures of the Virgin Mary with baby are triangular compositions.

Given that, using hot colors to fill in that triangle creates a very interesting dynamic: stable, peaceful physical arrangement, with moving, unsettling, invigorating colors. To my mind, the dichotomy between those things makes the picture more unnerving, which is appropriate for the subject matter.

All of which is a lead-in for my suggestion that you find some resources on color theory and compositional theory, read them and explore what they have to tell you. Working with color is very difficult, and I found I benefited immensely from conscious development of the skill with exercises and experiments. You might also. :)

[rowyn]

Thanks! That's a neat perspective on the picture and one I had not considered. Do you have any suggestions for specific books/websites/other resources you found useful?

[level_head]

Here's one that looks concise and reasonable -- and leads to others.

It occurs to me that the "garish" colors, including the red/pink tinted wings, would be rather muted in this image -- especially with the lowering sky you've shown in some of the tests. That certainly fits the mood.

Recommendation: Fire up YouTube and look at the opening of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 -- a similar scene (It's the "Hoist the Colors" -- or "hoist the pirates," really -- piece.)

Freeze the image, say at 1:34 in this video, and note how few colors are actually involved.

It's quite a trick, to convey the sense of the color while being restrained by realism -- but it can work.

It may not be photorealism you're looking for -- but it would enhance the drama, I think, of this piece. The video is a good place to look for details of the hangman's noose, too, which is quite thick compared to the rope.

Best wishes!

===|==============/ Level Head

[haikujaguar]

Basic color theory is fairly easy to get in most books... just go to a store and have a look, find one that speaks to you, perhaps.

As for other resources, you mentioned looking for things to rent? I'd recommend renting Samurai Jack, which has some of the most stunning and masterful use of color in any art form I've consumed lately.

[ladyperegrine]

Maybe some of this is a matter of subjective taste? I like the first one a lot better than the others - I think that a more minimalist approach kind of underscores the sadness of the subject matter - some of the brighter colors in the later versions kind of border upon garish to me...and while that could be *more* disturbing in a certain respect, it's also kind of distracting to me as the viewer.

That said...I'm just setting out upon the path of trying to draw recognizable things, so I think it's really cool to see how well you're doing and how much equanamity you seem to have when approaching new things. You're really an inspiration for me, in terms of both being creative and setting goals for yourself and sticking to them.

♥

[rowyn]

Aww, thanks. I haven't done any goal-setting this year, much less stuck to them, so I feel vaguely guilty. (Well, I guess I did stick to the non-goals, in that sense.) I'm starting to look at this year as a sabbatical, though, which probably means I'll be doing stuff again next year. :)

And I think you're making a similar point to Kevin Pease's -- there's too many colors in the later ones, which is what's making them garish. I'm gonna play around with the cool background/warm foreground and see how that looks.

[jim_lane]

Some images work best in monotones. Color can often be a distraction, especially when the mood is somber or dark.

Some of the most striking images I ever produced in my photojournalism days were B&W. Color came later, and was "cool" (and granted, my major awards were for color work) yet the ones that grabbed people were usually monotone.

Just my $.02---

[rowyn]

Oddly, while I like a lot of B&W photos better than color ones -- especially in portraits -- I very rarely see a painting or drawn image that's in B&W and really strikes me with the same intensity that color paintings do. I don't know why that is.

[jim_lane]

"We come from different generations" is often the cliche answer, and while it's sometimes true, it's just as often UNtrue.

What I've seen, both in photography and in hand-created art (paint, charcoal, pencil, etc.) is a fundamental difference in vision--- IE: How one person "sees" an image in contrasts of lights and shadows, while another may see the same image as tones of color, both warm and cool and even neutral.

Just like no two people hear a concert the same way, so do no two people see an object or person or event with the same eyes, the same values, the same emotions.

Yet two artists, if skilled in their artistic crafts, may produce two entirely different interpretations of a scene or object or person, and both may be equally striking in their own way---but for entirely different reasons.

Peace.

[koogrr]

Mmmm, interesting.

Partly why I wasn't much help is I don't do many colour pieces, for almost all the reasons you describe. I like the grey shading, and hard edges and strong contrast, and it's much harder to get that with tones.