Obtain Brilliant Color in Your Paintings!
August 6, 2009
Louis Remy Mignot
Here is another one of my all time favorite paintings. This one is by Louis Remy Mignot. Mignot was an American Creole and member of the Hudson River School. He enjoyed a brief but well traveled career as an artist until his death in 1870 at the ripe old age of 39. This stunning piece is in the permanent collection at the High Museum in Atlanta, Ga. If you have not visited the High you should check it out next time you do Hotlanta.
There are a lot of wonderful things I could say about this painting and numerous learning points to be had from it for sure. But for now I want to focus on its overall sense of saturation and bright color.
Viewed in person it is easy to tell that Mignot held his value range in reserve. He had room to go darker and lighter. Nothing in the painting approaches black or white. Extreme values are not making it look bright.
Mignot held his colors in pretty good reserve, too. The colors of both the upright and ground planes are pretty gray; as are the cloud shadows. The band of yellow across the sky is washed out and somewhat neutral, too. The key to this paintings bright color lies in how Mignot placed those bands of orange, his most intense colors, in the light but right next to shadow. (How many of you think it happened this way while Louis was out plein air painting and he “captured the moment”? I digress, that’s another post altogether.)
In his book, Creative Illustration, the famous illustrator Andrew Loomis put it this way:
It is not necessarily true that the color in the brightest light is always the strongest color. Light, being white, can dilute color, just as can the white on your palette. In order to reach the high value we may be forced to to lighten the color. Yet on the next planes, which are the halftone planes, color may be more intense, being still in the light. So then, the halftones may contain the most brilliant color….Here is one of the best ways in the world to obtain brilliancy of color: Keep your color most intense on the edges of the lighted areas, where it merges into shadow. (p. 152-53, C.I.)
This is a universal truth. It works for everybody. All top artists employ this strategy to some extent or another. (Check your favorites and see if they aren’t using it.)
Stone crab claws are Florida's answer to Maine lobster!
Those of you whodo a lot a still life or portrait painting are probably keenly aware of the fact. You probably realize that the halftones are where you see, not only the most intense color, but most of your local color, too. It came to me in the form of an epiphany while painting a still life. Since that day great paintings and great books on painting continually validate the insight. It was probably something I had read numerous times and failed to comprehend and until that day it finally pierced my consciousness.
Here is a recent, 8×10 field study done at a favorite location. Beaches are a great place to paint but the glare off of brightly lit sand can obliterate color. Here I placed some warm pinks at the edge of the light, next to the shadow. This was done back in the studio. Prior to these minor touches the painting looked colorless. I think it works a lot better now.
North Beach Study - Ft. Desoto
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3 Responses to “Obtain Brilliant Color in Your Paintings!”
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Great painting by Mignot and very informative post. Loved the Loomis reference………….
I’m happy to have discovered your blog and its wonderful insights. That painting of the beach really illustrates the points and that bit of added pink does make it sing. Here in New England many of the beaches have a tan quality, except closer to the water’s edge. The tendency of many painters is to paint the sand more on the orange side which , I think, does help if blue water is also visible in the painting.
Your blogs never dissapoint, and this one is “spot on.” Thank you for emphasizing these important points that we sometimes realize but then let slide in our memory. Oh yeah! now I’ll try my best to keep this point in my consciousness.