THE OUTDOOR PALLETTE
BY DWAYNE HARTY

The collector who understands how an artist, and a painter in particular, uses colour, will make more discriminating and value conscious buying decisions. Canadian artist Dwayne Harty takes on the second leg of an educational journey to explore the theory of colour and the outdoor palette.

Every great painter has sought to capture the essence of the sun's colour harmonies specific to the moment. It's an extraordinarily challenging pursuit, but a rewarding one. Dwayne Harty's initial discussion of the outdoor palette began an examination of the theory behind the practice, beginning with the colour related issues of temperature, palette, complimentary colours, keying, aerial and lateral perspective.

Here, his discussion delves into halftones, reflected light, diffraction, and detail; subjective, local and photographic colour, all of which are important components to understanding the artistic theory of outdoor colour.

Halftones are those intermediate value steps between highlight and shadow. This range can be divided into ten equal increments, from white to black, which can be further subdivided and so on., illustrating that there are an infinite number of halftones. Generally speaking, halftones are those steps in colour value that are easily observed. Their accurate judgment and separation according to value and colour temperature is what gives colour quality to a work. Each time a painting's colours advance or recede, they require a step in halftone. These halftones then become lighter, darker, cooler, or warmer. Depending on the direction and quality of light, halftones will have a distinctive colour temperature and value when isolated. Think of the human head as an oblong spherical shape that narrows towards the chin. If it were segmented into small flat planes corresponding to the head's surface anatomy, the spherical shape would then become a useful tool for understanding halftones. Each plane would present itself, by degrees, either towards or away from the light. By defining each plane in terms of colour temperature and value relative to direct or indirect (reflected) light, the head would then be painted with greater understanding and integrity. It's not simply a matter of mixing a flesh tone for the skin and adding a generic pigment to lighten or darken portions of the portrait. Distinct warm and cool halftones help to place an object into its environment. This applies to all objects, be they trees, rocks, animals, or human figures.

Another advantage of being able to separate halftones accurately is understanding close value painting, one of the most difficult disciplines to master. Essentially, it means that the halftones remain identical in value, varying only in colour temperature. It's a useful tool in creating a simple design, where the illusion of depth can be created without causing “jumpy” or “spotty” handling of values. For instance: a field of golden-Landscape Painting, observed that the radiant blue of the sky acts much like the traffic light. Any object that projects into the sky, i.e. The pointed white steeple of a church, will become increasingly affected in colour and value. As the steeple narrows to a point it's easier for the light from the cool sky against which the steeple is placed- to bend around the top portion. The white becomes cooler and slightly darker in value towards the pointed tip. Tree branches against the sky are affected similarly: the smaller the branches, the cooler the colour.

The surfaces of any object (especially a light valued one) that receive light perpendicularly from the light source, are the lightest in value and reflect light source, are the lightest in value and reflect light back by radiating it away from its outside edges. Rather than being harsh and sharp, this creates a fuzzy “lost and found” area between the object and the background. There are many such instances of reflection when observing objects outdoors. At times these effects may be difficult to observe, but they exist in theory and in fact. Despite their subtleties, their application assists in creating more convincing works. It also prevents work from becoming more than just dry, colourless, photographic simulacrum. Most importantly, when observed from life, colour temperatures and harmonies are viewed differently by everyone, just as the colour palette is responded to individually. The work then becomes a statement of individuality rather than a regurgitative translation from a photograph or another artist's work.

The properties of reflected light also influence shadow colour temperature and value. It's analysis is what gives colour vitality to shadowed areas. It also assists the student in determining the colour of shadow. To demonstrate the properties of reflected light in shadow, the artist must consider the reflective surface as the source of light. I made this point clearly at a workshop I held at the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona. A mounted bighorn sheep's head was placed outdoors, bathed by the overhead, mid-day sun. Large sheets of white, then green, blue, yellow and red bristol board were placed underneath the mount. The boards received the sun's light perpendicularly and bounced it straight back, in an upward fashion. Any surfaces of the mount that were in shadow and faced the bristol board perpendicularly, received the full impact of the board's colour. The surfaces' colour temperature was warmed by the degree to which they faced the reflective bristol board. I recall as a student of Robert Lougheed (the great Canadian realist and my instructor at the time), trying to discover the colour of a shadow being cast by a tree that stood near a warm-coloured fence. As Lougheed explained what was happening, it became easier to observe, understand, and subsequently, to develop the relative colour mixture for the desired shadow. The tree's shadow was affected by the sky's cool blue colour, while the shadow at the base was affected by the warm light reflecting from the fence, into the areas of shadow close to it.

In a painting mostly of light, the lit areas are painted in more detail. This allows the shadows areas to retain two qualities: translucency and mystery. When orchestrating colour temperature and value, light and shadow should never compete. When painted in detail, shadows lose their function. Detailed shadows also “flatten” the illusion of depth. It's their relative simplicity that heightens the illusion of detail in the lit areas. This also applies to colour temperature and chroma. The lit passages of a painting are where the most chromatic strength is. This is enhanced by not letting the chromatic strength of the shadows compete with the lit areas. The shadows are therefore held in a more neutrally keyed colour range. It also applies in terms of value where the range of halftones in shadow is narrower than the range of halftones in light.

This is reversed in painting comprised mostly of shadow, e.g. Any backlit composition. The rim of light along the edge of a backlit object must never compete in detail, blue range, or chromatic strength with the shadow areas. The richness of colour and the fullness of modeling must be reserved for the shadowed portion. It;s the lack of detail in the rim of light that enhances the illusion of glaring light.

The degree of delineation is relative to the light effect. Even if there is more detail in the shadow, there must still be less than in the first scenario. The quality of mystery that is associated with shadow must still pervade the painting as a whole. After all: it is still a painting of shadow.

To give equal importance to lit and shadowed objects (50% light, 50% shadow) is to court disaster! If everything is important in a painting, then they compete and nothing is important. It is the orchestration of these many precepts of colour theory as applied to observed outdoor colour that creates a work of colour interest and significance.

Colour is perhaps the most emotively strong element in a painting. Even good abstract work can evoke an emotional response with the use of colour. Colour juxtaposition can greatly enhance a given mood. Certain colour harmonies denote serenity, turmoil, happiness or despair. At this level, the individual use of colour becomes important. With a thorough knowledge of colour and colour application gained from the source, the artist will forever have in his mind the cornerstone of truth: the relative balances and harmonies of colour temperature. Its application can now be used harmoniously, no matter how arbitrary the orchestration.

The artist now faces decisions in the more subjective and personal use of colour to enhance mood. He should ask himself: how warm or cool do I want the painting to appear? How warm or cool does the day feel? How humid or dry does the air feel? The use of all senses helps to define the day's quality. For instance, the range of blue mixtures used for a hot, dry, summer sky should never be the same as those used for a frigid, frost-laden winter sky. The artist's use of colour was to enhance the specific mood of the instant was brought to its zenith in Canada by Tom Thomson. He was this country;s greatest poet in paint and colour. His mature, subjective and arbitrary use of colour has its roots steeped in his early, more literal plein air panels. Through these earlier pieces, he gradually became aware of the sensitive balances of colour temperature out of doors.

As his understanding of colour theory and its application matured, he was able to push the limits of these harmonies, but still retain their believability. Carl Rungius was also a master of arbitrary emotive colour use. With both of these artists one thing remains constant: the use of colour. While, as viewers, we may never literally see colour in a landscape the way it is presented on their canvasses, we can feel most intensely the type of day portrayed. This is the final, most challenging use of outdoor colour. It requires continual experimentation on the palette as well as a great sensitivity to the infinite range of halftone harmonies of colour temperature.

Local colour is the colour of any given item when seen without any light influencing it's warmth or coolness. More precisely, local colour simply does not exist, since there is always a source of light. The light source, by the very nature of its colour, will establish a relative range of warmth or coolness. It's of paramount importance to understand this! For example: the blue denim of a shirt is not the same blue colour mixed on the palette to give the illusion of that shirt under different light effects. The same holds true for a moose's hide or the feathers of an owl. The ability to see beyond local colour is one of the most difficult precepts to impart to the art student- yet it's one of the most pleasurable aspects of viewing a painting.

Outdoor colour is not photographic colour. Since colour seen out of doors is very different from those presented in a photograph, it's an absolute fallacy to equate one with the other. The human eyes see differently than the camera and are more capable of detecting subtle colour nuances. The artist, through the application of colour theory, is able to enhance these nuances to create a greater emotional responses from the viewer.

The photograph's colour varies with the mechanical processes used by individual companies. The shadow areas in photographs usually tend to be a muddy, nondescript brown-black. The separation of halftones is equally nondescript, resulting in gradations without colour integrity. A good example of this is the “white” snow in photographs. There are virtually no shifts within the “white” to establish a distinctive colour temperature. A lengthy list places the photograph as a poor second to the understanding of outdoor colour first hand. It takes real effort for the artist to pack up, set up, observe, and paint on location. Many are content to shoot a roll of film, then return to the studio and duplicate what they see on the surface of the photograph. This is complete colour anathema. Such a regurgitative procedure proves that the artist has seen little and has lesser still to say in terms of colour. For those who look at their photos of the weekend at the cottage and believe that their beautiful vistas represent true outdoor colour, I have a cautionary note: it likely means the photographer didn't take time to examine and appreciate those infinitely subtle colour harmonies before him. After all, an artist will spend to to three hours dissecting colours with the hopes of producing a sketch during that time. Years of such continual practise slowly reveal these colour harmonies ever more brilliantly. A simple comparison of a photograph of an Algonquin sunset and a painting of those same sunset colours by Tom Thomson suffices...there is no comparison!

I often hear viewers comment on certain paintings “Oh, look how real it looks! It's just like a photograph..” Frequently this is as much a comment on the viewer's level of appreciation as it is the level of the artist's ability. The chasm between reality and photography is enormous. The truth is, that the evidence of our senses-sight, sound, smell, tough and taste-when taken in totality, is a far better gauge of reality than a single photograph could ever be.

Colour, properly handled, is on the highest of aesthetic planes, regardless of subject matter. Whether as a still life, portrait or animal painting, it remains one of the most emotive qualities in painting. It resonates like music to our senses and it's only right; for art is a product of our imagination with its purpose being to elevate our lives with beauty.

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