Chroma #229

A brief discussion and demonstration of the chroma (otherwise called intensity or saturation) of a color-value, We can find the greatest intensity of any pigment we may be using but, as with every aspect of color, its relationship with other colors determine its use.

In Response to Jeff

[jackdaly]

Wonderful to see a demonstration, really informative, thank you!

[anthonypirone]

Glad to find this video, with the question from Jeff and the explanation from you 👍 👏

[mariejacobs]

Thank you Mr Ingbretson, your demonstration and explanation is most helpful. I've been diving into the complexities of color mixing. This is the first I've seen quite like this, it makes sense! 🌷

[WilliamCollier-jkgk]

I always struggle to see what hue shadows are or lean towards in foliage - trees, bushes, hedges etc. Or seeing the colour/hue of shadows in anything generally. It's like it's a secret/mystery as to their hue/colour. Are there any rules? or ways to help see the colour of shadow/things in darkness? so that I can get a likeness and not make mistakes. I will search the videos on this site, but if anyone has any suggested videos to watch here or else where, please reply. Thanks

[terryhand]

Coming from a watercolour and gouache background the biggest difficulty I have had with oil paints is paint handling. With watercolour and gouache I was always able to successfully adjust the chroma with the complimentary colour. In fact the biggest problem with those mediums is not enough chroma. Not so with oil paints, I have discovered, where the amount of chroma seems to be almost overwhelming. My old methods have been particularly unsuccessful with cool skin tones, where I never seem to quite "hit the note". For some reason I have never considered using black to adjust the chroma, although from your demonstration it is clear how well it works. It also obvious that there is a lot of black pigment in the skin tones of many portraits. I'm not sure if this is something that I picked up many years ago at art school, or if it is a product of my years as an illustrator using water based mediums, but black has always seemed to be the one pigment to avoid. The obvious answer is, use black! But I would be interested to know if you have any other suggestions. For example, would you create a grey with black and white to reduce the chroma of a tonally mid range colour? I have been making my own blacks, e.g. Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna. Is this a bad idea?
Thank you for such a wonderful channel.

[querenstewart]

Hi paul
Sheila from England
Thanks for another way to see and use colour intensity .
More this to this and that to that (ha ha)
Thanks Sheila

[johnwellman]

This was eye opening. You always seem to throw pearls of wisdom in that seemly come out of nowhere. No color instruction I’ve ever come across made some of these points. Thank you Paul! In line with some of the other comments I see here, a couple examples of mixing neutrals and adjusting values with black vs color would be incredibly helpful.

[jamesmcginnis]

Chroma for me is the most illusive of the three color dimensions. What I found helpful is the “Munsell Student Color Book”. This consists of various exercises in which you arrange color chips in value and chroma order. When you are done you have a reference book showing the three dimensional color “space”, and hopefully a better eye for seeing the differences. The book is a little pricy, (about $75 as I recall) but it will give you hours of useful amusement.
As a “cheat” for comparing values you can always use your smart phone, take a picture and switch to black and white. If two spots look the same in the picture they are the same value. If they look different to your naked eye then the difference must be in chroma and /or hue.
Thank you Paul for another greta video.

[tastypaint]

Why not illustrate intense coma against neutralized gray?

[rvPaints]

There really is a very simple way to become "sensitive" to the dynamics of hue, value, and chroma...Munsell. The Munsell books present the various hues as value and chroma vary. If you are a serious student, there is no time to waste here. Save the money, own the book, don't look back. Personally, over the past 3yrs, I have made the journey from stressful ignorance to confident knowledge in this regard.

[carpethooligan]

I'm confused, isn't the most intensity when no white has been added? The moment you add any white to the top colors on that palette it immediately begins to lose intensity?

[AidenCassaroArt]

Immensely informative, thank you for the demo. (about when you said that you prefer oils over turps): do you clean your brushes with oils during a painting session?

[andrecruz]

Once an older friend of mine said: “Teachers teach what is written; they don’t have rich experience by themselves. Masters demonstrate. They are masters by their own experiences. They show the student that to be a master is possible, because between them there’s not much difference, they both are humans. But remember, a master accepts everyone, but they know who are the true student’s.” Do you aggre, that a real teacher/master should show how it is done?

[canalcerrado]

As an impressionist wouldn’t you also consider warm and cool within a hue? and why not use violet to have the three pair of complements ?

[richardgiedd]

Thanks for a very informative demo/video. It got me wondering what you thoughts might be concerning the use of black out doors. I once heard that Sargent said black was the prince of color’s and that he couldn’t paint a landscape without it on his pallet. I don’t know if that is true but some of his early landscapes (pre Monet?) do seem to have black in them.

[elizabethgeigerstudio]

I know it's not literally one of the 3 aspects used to define color but temperature is what I think about right after tone when I want to capture a sense of light. When you consider a color's hue, is that when you're thinking about the temperature of the color?

[swordguy]

Professor : after watching so many videos of yours I haven't seen any videos on Joaquin Sorolla
Now I wonder what is your opinion and the Boston School's opinion on the style of Joaquin Sorolla

[allenvoss]

Is it accurate that chroma produces more luminosity in your paintings along with value creating light?

[stillpaints]

The more opaque a pigment is, the more intense it is straight out of the tube. The more transparent, the more white you need to add to reveal the intensity.

[alanjane]

Hope you're not going to get paid... but, well done.