Color Theory of 4 Artists

One of the greatest concerns of a great number of painters out there is the coloring technique that they will use, and how they will blend those colors into a complete work of art. Those that have found their way are usually much more successful than those who haven’t. Finding your own, or sticking to an existing color theory will undoubtedly improve the quality of your paintings.

Of course, it’s all up to the individual and their taste. However, for those seeking a little guidance, and anyone else looking to find out a little more about this subject, it’s a terrific idea to take a look at the world’s greatest painters. We took a wide approach to this subject, and have thus put together a list of four distinct color theories that we think will provide proper advice to a painter of any caliber.

1. Vincent Van Gogh’s Complementary Colors (Simultaneous Contrast)

Based on Van Gogh’s unsurpassed technique, we can conclude that he heavily relied on the mixture of colors, so as to provide a different view of the painting. Simply put, depending on which two colors are put next to each other, they will appear different to the spectator. The vibrancy of the image and its entire impression are dictated by the complementary colors used in making it.

To get the simplest idea of how this technique works, you can take a look at Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”, where blue and yellow are in a constant clash that has a calming and near-magical effect on the spectator. Then again, the combination of red and green in “The Night Café” creates an edgy vibration in between those two colors, causing the overall sharpness of the painting to incite unease in the viewer.

2. Tom Barnes’ Transparent Multi-layering

Tom Barnes is a watercolorist that creates spectacular images with the sheer use of multiple near-transparent layers of color. However, he also outlines his pencil sketches with various atmosphere-inducing effects, such as sepia. His final products are based on an immense number of re-applying the same transparent hue over and over until a stern presence of the color is found on the canvas.

He is also fond of “salting” his paintings, which adds a lot of variety to the way in which the color appears to the eye. To put it in the simplest way, Tom Barnes paints the same transparent picture as many times as necessary to achieve the desired consistency of color.

3. Sandro Botticelli’s Gesso Ground and Egg Tempera

The firmness of color on Sandro Botticelli’s paintings and their overall quality is owed to restauration for the most part. Sandro would often use gesso grounds as well, which are special layers that allow for the canvas to be more resistant to moisture. He used the famous Egg Tempera technique (applying egg yolk to moist colors) in order to quickly dry and permanently save the color of his painting. He would then add more layers, depending on the desired effect. The essence of this technique is extensive re-layering and overall editing of a finished painting.

4. James Whistler’s Color Evolution

Take the expression “color evolution” with a grain of salt, as it’s just our way of naming Whistler’s odd technique. His work is based on days, weeks and months of extremely slow progress, that allowed for a profoundly strong effect to last in his final products. James would first use only dark colors, so as to create a deep and hard-colored sketch of the painting.

Once he’d finish that lengthy process, he would proceed with adding flesh colors bit by bit, using brittle and short strokes of the brush. In a manner of speaking, Whistler’s technique refers to letting the painting make itself out of itself, as the painter’s constant minor adjustments create a distinct path for this evolution to follow.