"Paintings With Personality"

You will often see me placing a dark behind the light side of a face to draw attention to that particular area. This painting is a realistic image within abstract shapes. 18x24 inches.

“There are colors which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a couple which complete each other like man and woman.” (Vincent van Gogh)

Did you ever wonder what color something really is? Or how light or dark an object might be? A thing will look one way and then I put on my glasses and it looks another way. Or someone gets up and moves and the color and value where that person was totally changes. What color was that object, really?

Simultaneous Contrast is a visual phenomenon that refers to how two different colors, values, or temperatures affect one another. By understanding the association of colors we can make better choices when we paint. Our minds make decisions based on what our eyes see, so it is important that we learn how to see.

The strongest visual effect to our human eyes is contrast in value and the second is color. In simultaneous contrast, when a middle value is painted next to a light value it looks dark. Put the very same middle value next to a dark value and it looks light. Or, when we have two colors painted adjacent to one another, each color changes as if it were tinted with the complement of the contrasting color. The farther apart the two colors are on the color wheel, the more extreme the simultaneous contrast. When placed next to a very warm color, a medium warm color will appear cool, the same warm color when placed next to a cool color will look warm. What seems to be a highlight can be a shadow somewhere else. The values, colors or temperatures don’t change at all, but what we see changes. Simultaneous color contrast can be decreased by painting a narrow neutral line or cushion around the colors or values. The neutral line will appear a color because of contrast with the backgrounds.

To demonstrate value contrast, I made four rectangles. The inside rectangles are the same shade of gray, but the one on top looks lighter than the one on bottom. They look different because the backgrounds are different. 

In Successive Contrast when we look at a color and then look away from it to another object, we still see the former color. The color may be solid or mottled. The good news is, that mirage goes away quickly.

For a demonstration of successive contrast, stare at the dot in the center of the orange rectangle for about 10 seconds and look at the dot in the yellow rectangle immediately below the orange rectangle, the yellow rectangles will appear to be different colors for a second.

Contrast, on the other hand, is the difference between one color from another color, or one value from another value.

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