COLOUR THEORY, CONTRAST

Today we looked at contrasts in tone, hue, saturation, extension and temperature.

T o n e:  

Where light and dark areas meet. The eye is very sensitive to strong contrast and it can be a useful tool to draw attention to important areas of a drawing or painting. Where contrast in tone is strong, the subject will stand out, where it is weak the subject will blend into the background. This is especially important when a picture is viewed from a distance and the detail provides fewer clues for the eye. (http://www.picturescape.co.uk/class%20pages/contrast.htm) 

http://painting.about.com/od/colourtheory/ss/ColorClassTones.htm

H u e:  

Contrast in hue is dependent on distance and how far away the colours are to each other on the colour wheel. The further they are, the higher the contrast. This links closely to temperature as contrast of hue links to the contrast between cold and warm colours. Blues and violets would normally be perceived as cold colours, whilst reds and oranges would be seen as warm. On a page, cold colours appear to be a lot more distant to the human eye, whilst warm colours stand out.

S a t u r a t i o n: 

By de-saturating a colour, you are getting rid of it in it's purest form. It works with the intensity of a colour, whether or not it is pale and weak or pure and strong.

E x t e n s i o n: 

This refers to the 'weight' of a colour - the contrast between the quantity of colours used within an image. In simple terms, a darker colour is seen to be heavier than a lighter colour, therefore black is heavy whilst white is light.

T e m p e r a t u r e: 

As noted above and violets would normally be perceived as cold colours, whilst reds and oranges would be seen as warm. On a page, cold colours appear to be a lot more distant to the human eye, whilst warm colours stand out.


images - http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorcontrasts.asp