10 Colour Studies and Experiments

This first study looks at the contrast of tone, the contrast of hue and the contrast of saturation. The first nine images show the contrast of ton and saturation, where the addition of a different blue changes the way the eye perceives the other blues. The addition of the other new blue makes the existing blues seem less saturated, more saturated, darker, lighter, greener or more purple, bringing in an element of hue. I added red to the final image to see how the addition of a completely different hue would affect the appearance of the blues. The placement of the red and its hue make some of the blues almost fade into the background.

The second experiment looks at the relationship between the contrast of temperature and some of the other contrasts. The other contrasts are; the contrast of saturation, the contrast of tone, the complimentary contrast and the contrast of extension.

The relationship between the contrast of temperature and the contrast of saturation can be seen here. The greater the contrast of saturation, the less strong the temperature appears.

The relationship between the contrast of temperature and the contrast of tone is fairly similar to the contrast of saturation. The more tonal change in the colour the warmer or colder it become, depending on the viewer’s perception.

The complimentary contrast is visible when juxtaposing the colour associated with warm and cold, as they are complimentaries of very close to being complimentaries, even when the tone is changed.

As they are complimentaries to get a balance the contrast of extension must be done extremely. With complimentary colours the balance is usually quite extreme, with one colour filling a very small space and the other a significantly larger space.

The third experiment specifically looked into the contrast of extension, however also had an element of complimentary contrast in it. I wanted to looked at what proportion would give the greatest balance. To do this I divided the page in half, then into thirds, quarters, sixths, tenths and twentieths. This gave me a wider range to assess. As well as producing the contrast one was I also reversed it to give another perspective. I think the correct and best balance is found when the page is split into, either, thirds or quarters. (Note: Colours appear differently to when created).

 

For the fourth study I looked into how our natural and manmade environment affects the colours. Our environment is mostly full of greys, green, browns, and a large amount of earthy and uninspiring colours. This means that when you add a brighter colour it stands our and appears. The first three images show the coloured poker chips with other similar colours where they are much more subdued and possibly darker that the other red, green or blue.

The rest of the photos are the poker chips taken in various outdoor locations, interacting with the environment, something that emphasizes the dullness of the immediate environment but also make the chips appear brighter, looking at the contrast of saturation.

  The next study I did looked at how light effects colour. Light is how we see colour and therefore a change in light will change how we perceive the colour.

In direct sunlight the colours are bright in ton and very distinguishable. Due to the brightness and the intensity on the sun colours that are not very strong appear desaturated.

Natural light is very similar to direct sunlight however the colours do not appear quite as bright and as vividly, yet they do not appear desaturated at all.

Under an incandescent light bulb (a bulb that gives out a yellowy glow) the colours appear slightly desaturated and tonally darker. In some more extreme circumstances the hue becomes affected and the colours can change.

The final light I exposed the coloured poker chip light to was a flash gun for a camera. This had similar effects to direct sunlight and natural light. It made the colours appear more vivid however potentially slightly darker tonally as it makes all os the surrounding background much brighter and more vivid.

For this study I looked at colours that work together. Colours that work together can usually be found next to or near each other on the colour wheel. At first I just looked at the colours directly next too each other. (Note: Colours have appeared differently to designed).

After this, however, I looked at a 3 colours that worked together. All of the threes contained a primary and a secondary colour. This is a process that could be taken much further by adding a touch more of the colour next to it so it would smoothly run into the next colour.

This experiment looked into how the introduction of black and white affected how we perceived the colour. What I found was that when black was added to the image the colour appeared darker and less saturated.

When white was added, I found that the colours appeared brighter and more vivid to the eye.

This next experiment looked at how placing a colour on top of another would affect the tone and saturation of both the object and the background.

The orange objects appeared much brighter on colours with different chromatic values, so for orange that is green, blue and in this case yellow. This also brings complimentary contrasts in with the orange on the blue. In the space between the two colours your eyes attempt to fill the abrup jump between colour with the colours in between the two hues. This can be seen in several of these photographs. Some of the orange object just stood out against the background, however some, specifically the orange, really appeared to desaturate the background.

I wanted to look in more depth at the relationship between the contrast of tone and the contrast of saturation, the two contrasts I found to be the most common. Focusing on the colour yellow, I collected a wide variety of different yellow backgrounds and different yellow objects. I proceeded to place each object on top of each background to the affect it had and how much the colours appeared to change. I was surprised at how much the colours did appear to change. For example when a desaturated background was used the object appeared more saturated and brighter, the same can be said when the background was darks the objects on top appeared brighter and more yellow where as the darker yellow became darker and almost changed into a brown. This happened again when the background was very yellow, close to a perfect yellow and the object on top had a trace of green in it. In this situation the green really came out and the object looked green rather than yellow.