Colour/Tone/Intensity

 Notes on the use of Colour/Tone/Intensity

You have to consider tonal values. These are used to define form and depth and, in monochrome work, can indicate colour.

You have to consider colour. This divides into choices of hue and intensity.

You can use tone or colour or a combination of both, depending on the effect you want, but either colour  or  tone should dominate - i.e. don't have a lot of colour  and  a lot of tonal variation.

If the artwork is mainly tonal, the colour should be secondary. Make sure you organise good, big areas of similar tones. This will make your art look good from a distance and give it strength. Think Rembrandt, Picasso. Don't have little darks and lights dotted about. Choose your hues to suit the required tone...for example, you can't paint a low key painting with yellows which have a naturally high key.

If the artwork is mainly about colour, have most of your colours in the same tonal range. See  Ittens's colour/tone grid . Think Van Gogh, Bonnard.  

When using mainly colour, you won't be able to get much depth in your painting. You can still represent the direction of light by using colour intensity. Intense (pure saturated colours) will appear to glow with light. Dull, muddy colours will sink into shade, even if they are quite light tonally.

Each hue has a natural tone at which it is most intense. For example, yellow is most intense (pure, brilliant) in light tones. As you make yellow darker, it becomes duller. Blue is most intense in the mid range, less so in high tones (white added) or low tones (black added). Red is naturally dark. This is really clear in the Ittens grid.

To make all the areas of a painting sit comfortably together, you have to lay down neighbouring colours and tones that match. That way, they can all talk to each other, without one element shouting everything else down.  Try for harmony but with some contrast.