On Color! Quotes

These pages are jpegs, and may be copied and printed for your studio.  Assembled by Casey Klahn.

Colorists Coloring With Colors

What follows is a post first published in August of 2012.

Previous Post: Colorist Methods - My Thoughts On The Subject Of Color.

This is the second post of an undetermined number of posts about the subject of color use.

There is some danger in this subject for both of us. For me, I risk either writing inanity, banality or nonsense. For you, probably the worst risk is that you will become convinced that these theories I write will impart some method. There will be no methodology about color use here. Just ideas, tips, and histories. That is about as good as it can get, because we enter this aware of the personal nature of one's color use, called color sense, and it is known by many who study color that people see and respond to color in a manner different each from the other. If there is any commiseration on color feelings, then these ideas are already widely known.

Some Thoughts:

• Starting with a color idea involves, for me, either choosing one bright, pure color, or designing a color triad in my mind at the very first part of the process.
• Reacting to the previous color involves intuitive choice, and/or some reference to known color properties, such as what compliments or what harmonizes the colors already laid down.
• Keep looking at the work and making adjustments as you progress.
• Respond to problems to create the harmony that you seek.

Fauvism is the first school or movement we think of when we are faced with funny color in artwork. The Fauvists were a crazy bunch of Frenchmen, mostly, who painted in the Modern era. Among their ranks were Vlamink, Rouault, Derain, and the King of the Fauves, Henri Matisse. The ideas they shared involved a reaction to earlier movements and the late  Impressionist school of thought. They wanted bright, pure colors versus enhanced local color and an explanation of light. Their work was also considered painterly in the use of bold brushstrokes.

There will be no methodology about color use here.

 

I don't seek color that is a response to local color, meaning that that I don't choose a color that is purposefully not the actual (local) color. I just choose the color I want, and usually for personal reasons. It may often be the local color, and that is perfectly okay with me, especially because I am now set to react to the color I just used. I am a terrible reactionary in the artistic sense!

This approach, I think, is better than aiming for the "wrong" color or the opposite of the local color, because these methods can be formulaic.  One is required to prejudice his choice when he will not choose the local color.

Your Own Color Sense

Matisse's Palette

“Trust your feelings entirely about color, and then, 
even if you arrive at no infallible color theory, you will at least have the credit of having your own color sense.” John F. Carlson.

Colorist Art at Pinterest.

Colorist Coloring

Previous Post: Colorist Methods - My Thoughts On The Subject Of Color.

This is the second post of an undetermined number of posts about the subject of color use.

There is some danger in this subject for both of us. For me, I risk either writing inanity, banality or nonsense. For you, probably the worst risk is that you will become convinced that these theories I write will impart some method. There will be no methodology about color use here. Just ideas, tips, and histories. That is about as good as it can get, because we enter this aware of the personal nature of one's color use, called color sense, and it is known by many who study color that people see and respond to color in a manner different each from the other. If there is any commiseration on color feelings, then these ideas are already widely known.

Some Thoughts:

• Starting with a color idea involves, for me, either choosing one bright, pure color, or designing a color triad in my mind at the very first part of the process.
• Reacting to the previous color involves intuitive choice, and/or some reference to known color properties, such as what compliments or what harmonizes the colors already laid down.
• Keep looking at the work and making adjustments as you progress.
• Respond to problems to create the harmony that you seek.

Fauvism is the first school or movement we think of when we are faced with funny color in artwork. The Fauvists were a crazy bunch of Frenchmen, mostly, who painted in the Modern era. Among their ranks were Vlamink, Rouault, Derain, and the King of the Fauves, Henri Matisse. The ideas they shared involved a reaction to earlier movements and the late  Impressionist school of thought. They wanted bright, pure colors versus enhanced local color and an explanation of light. Their work was also considered painterly in the use of bold brushstrokes.

There will be no methodology about color use here.

 

I don't seek color that is a response to local color, meaning that that I don't choose a color that is purposefully not the actual (local) color. I just choose the color I want, and usually for personal reasons. It may often be the local color, and that is perfectly okay with me, especially because I am now set to react to the color I just used. I am a terrible reactionary in the artistic sense!

This approach, I think, is better than aiming for the "wrong" color or the opposite of the local color, because these methods can be formulaic.  One is required to prejudice his choice when he will not choose the local color.

Watch here for more on color choices in future posts.

Matisse on Color

1953

I just ordered a book of essays by and about Henri Matisse.  This quote is from the essay, The Role and Modalities of Color, 1945.

Colorist Methods - My Thoughts On The Subject Of Color

RYB

There has been some call for me to reveal my opinions on the use of color.  When I demonstrate in person, students invariably wants to know why I pick each color as I work.  This series of posts will be my attempt to draw back the curtain on my ideas about color.  


After perhaps six, or maybe ten, of these posts, there will be some organization to what I am saying. For now, I'll just write things down as they occur to me.

<><><>

  Color choice is a very personal thing.  I mean that in both intention and in talent.  You have your own color sense, and it is up to you to let it reveal itself.  Choose the color you want.  WANT!


  Kandinsky got it wrong when he assigned meanings to color.  That is, I think that the artist's job is to make the patron see his, meaning the artist's, own meanings. One should not pander to perceived ideas of what colors may mean to the viewer.


...umber comes from the earth already umber.




  I use the RYB color theory.  Red, yellow, and blue.  The reason I do is that I am not submitting my artwork to the printing press or the camera, at least not at the conceptual stage.  I will become involved in color mixing, and the RYB color space works well for this.


  In thinking about color theory, and in spite of the fact that I use the "old school" RYB method, I do think in terms of modern, or contemporary, color.  That is to say, we have the fattest color array available today.  Raphael would have given his left arm to work with this many colors.


  I begin with the hue.  More on this later, when I lay out for you my own theories on what is most important in approaching color.  By the way, I hope you are arguing with me about these things.


  A Color Solid is a fun and useful tool, also.  I have seen it used with the Munsell theory, so I just make adjustments in my head to see it my way.  Someday I will construct a Color Solid as I see it.


  Just because you know that color theory has evolved over time, does not make you "right" in your opinions about color theory.  It does reveal that opinions are subjective.  I need to focus on what works, and my tools are laid out before me.  It is important for the artist to know how to mix a brown he likes, but please also realize that umber comes from the earth already umber.


Homework:


Robert Gamblin has a great video about his Color Space theories.  I differ in that I think of each hue as a two-part system named by its color, but not by its temperature.  More on that later.  I say, "blue-red" and "yellow-red," not cool or warm red.






  

Color Intensity and Space

Casey's Palette

Intensity was my self selected assignment for the two month color study that Katherine Tyrrell has been posting about. Here is what I found out about intensity, and how it relates to the elusive color space theories.

Consider me a convert to the linear color space proposed by Da Vinci. The reasons are that the spectrum lays out in a linear fashion when you view it through a prism, and that my actual palette is arranged in a line.

Also, I understand that violet cannot be produced in the additive system except by blending, and that red violet inhabits a pole opposite blue violet on the spectrum. I know that sounds horribly brainy and hopelessly immaterial to the pastelist. Let's just say that the visual perception side of the house teaches me that light is a dominant reason for intensity in color.




Put plainly, your eye sees wavelengths at their highest meter and this represents greatest intensity. See this page about wavelengths and color. Need it plainer? See this page.

High key (more intense) blue is the peak of its wavelength, and so is high key green. I understood this intuitively before I knew the why of it, and made a special place in my palette for high key green. Later, I organized the blues by key as well.

I like Marie Meyer's use of the Munsell system as a number space, since their is a linear aspect to the numbered hues. Although the Munsell is a cylinder, I like seeing the linear description better. But, I find Munsell too abstract, and apropos to the additive people. My own color space will always be subtractive and pigment mixture based.

Book On Color

Here is a quick reference to the terrific Huechroval book that arrived a few days ago. This unique and thought-provoking reference book is based on a scientific measurement and comparison of 5,500 pastel sticks. The blurb given in Huechroval is, "Build Your Collection by Design, Not Accident".

I read with a critical eye, and am an enthusiastic supporter of this exhaustive tool for the serious pastelist. The benefit I will take from it is that I can accurately compare my jpegs and slides for jury against my actual artwork. As it is impossible to represent true pigments in the CMYK color space (photography & print) I am often frustrated when my art is represented incorrectly. This gem of a book actually lists the particular colors of pastel not rendered by CMYK. My tactic in the future will be to submit for jury those artworks that stay closest to the CMYK color space.

Thank you, Huechroval! A longer review will be forthcoming here at The Colorist.

Note: the book from publisher Huechroval is titled: "Multi-Brand Color Chart for Pastels".

Wheel Versus Real

Katherine Tyrrell, at Making a Mark and her other web sites, is engaging in a two month long study of colour. I think this will become one of the best organized references available about color on the web. I will be participating by studying the characteristic of "Intensity".

First, some groundwork on color theory.

Of course color is a problematic study. Opinions vary, and dogmatism can be a booger. Artists may be dogmatic based on what they learned in art school. People who use computer-based color applications will be off in their own strange world, adding lights of various colors to their white base. Painters will vary a little from print makers, and the dye-using artists also differ in their color models.

The important thing to remember is that points of view exist, and to keep in mind that you need a point of view that works for you. But, it doesn't hurt to be grounded in reality, either. So, measuring results helps. Science brings us that.

If science gives us conceptual theories, we should also feel indebted to Modern Art for uncoupling artists from the hegemony of visual perception. What I mean is this: I don't care at all how other's "perceive" color, or what the "mean average" is for perception of a given color, What I care about is how I use colors!

Put a different way, there has been much written about the ineffable state of color. Colors are perceived differently from person to person; visual perceptions are the result of mental processes and even psychology; cognitive and computational variances; blah, blah, blah. I don't want to ignore the science, but there is an intrinsic color there in the pigment and it behaves the same from day to day, your "perception" be damned.



My own recent studies of color have me occasionally pitching fits because the dominant paradigm on the internet is based on computer uses of color. When artist's use of color is addressed, it often is delivered through the lens of the new paradigm, and what results is misinformation, mistakes and generally not useful stuff for the pigment user.

In a rare entry of clarity, the Wikipedia on the Color Wheel has this to say:

There is no straight-line relationship between the colors mixed in pigment, which will vary from medium to medium. Whereas with a psychophysical color circle, the resulting hue of any mixture of two colored light sources can be determined simply by the relative brightness and wavelength of the two lights, a similar calculation cannot be performed with two paints. As such, a painter's color wheel is indicative rather than predictive, being used to compare existing colors rather than calculate exact colors of mixtures. Because of differences relating to the medium, different color wheels may be created according to the type of paint or other medium used, and many artists develop their own individual color wheels. These will often contain only blocks of color rather than the gradation between tones which is characteristic of the color circle.

The difference between the artist's pigment "color wheel" and the other color theories is best understood by the different colors anchoring them. Red, Yellow and Blue are the primaries of the pigment user because they cannot be mixed from any combination of other pigments. The science oriented, and the print maker or computer user, will identify some other set of base colors because of how light functions. I want to call that "experiential", and the pigment based paradigm I want to call "elemental".

I also want to wretch when someone wishes to impress on me that the "real primaries" are Red, Green and Blue because of so-and-so's color circle theory, or because of the way one's eye perceives color. Fine, I say. Show me that with paint on a palette!

So much for my color model position. Next: Intensity!

Skip these links if your brain hurts thinking about color as perception:
Qualia - Mind numbing experiential theories including color perception.
Paper on the Ineffability of Color.

Colour Lens

In the last month, I have been posting some general information about color theory. The take home message that I tried to bring was that the Internet is prejudiced, or at least heavily weighted, towards the colors that computers are limited to. The color theory ("additive") that the CRT, and much of print media, is slaved to is RedGreenBlue.

Take this post, in particular. In it, I attempt to indict the bias of illuminated screens. Possibly my best support is provided by Jusko's link where he supports my argument for the artist to keep the RedYellowBlue color theory in mind before you buy the RGB/CMYK theories first.

There is nothing "subtractive" about adding one hued pigment to another to create a third hue. Perhaps there is subtraction if you begin with the dominant idea of light-based "mixing" created in your computer or camera.

Theories based on light rather than human perception are what I call "light-dominant" theories. I prefer to think of the experiential side of human interaction with light. Stone age man did not crack a laptop computer, he rubbed colors on stone. BTW, he mixed the pigments in hollowed out "mortars" of stone.

Regarding light versus perception, see the following quote from the Wiki on color:

These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance.

Clearly the digital and information era is the dominant paradigm of our day, and art created in the context of this era is every bit as new and legitimate and creative as the "Old School" methods of painting ever were in past eras of history.

But tearing down or redacting the old does no good for advancement. That dialectic is tired and disproven. Painting is the foundation of visual art and must remain intact in it's theories, not re-written or ignored by the newest thing.

The Wikipedia entry on the Munsell Theory has a fine example of the computer's inherent inability to reproduce artist's colors here:

Note that the Munsell Book of Color contains more color samples than this chart for both 5PB and 5Y (particularly bright yellows, up to 5Y 9/20; that is twice as much chroma the 5Y 8/10 square to the left), however they are not reproducible in the sRGB color space, which has a limited color gamut designed to match that of televisions and computer displays.

Now, with all of that in mind, I have found after my series on color theory has been written a new, wonderful resource for all things color theory. See Colour - Resources for Artists, a new Squidoo Lens by Katherine Tyrrell.

Her blurb on the lens is here:

This lens is assembling links to information and advice about colour and how to understand and analyse it as an artist. Also listed are various books concerned with colour.

And for goodness sake, crack a book about color and don't rely on the Internet only! Katherine has listed many books throughout her wonderful lens, and also I would prefer the links that are from artist's paint manufacturers, such as Gamblin. Put another way: just take all Internet sights about color theory with a grain of salt.

Admin Note:

My Technorati Authority did dip to 20 on the wear-out of 90 day old links, but I picked up 2 more links and am now at 21. Probably I had another 1 wear out, for a net gain of 1.

On the positive side of things, I have been listed in the Top 101 Artist's Blogs, apparently on the authority of Technorati. The list is compiled at Laketrees.blogspot. And, I have no idea how she conducts her research to rank these Technorati-listed art site, but as they say, "there you have it".

The Rational Versus the Irrational

Superman Comics features the idea of a Bizarro World, where everything is the opposite reality. Sort of a bizarre dimension of opposites. Well, here is my Bizarro World: a blog called Rational Color.

Keep in mind that if The Colorist theory exists as the opposite pole of Rational Color, that makes me the Bizarro side of the equation. Hmm. Feels funny. Me so happy.

Pink

Pink Forest
7.3" x 5.3"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

Pinks & Greens
7.8" x 6"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Hill with Red Sky
12.5" x 9.5"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

The Four Seasons, Winter
14” x 10”

Pastel

Casey Klahn

The color pink is interesting for being really just light red, yet it has it's own name! Do blue and yellow demand equal treatment? Is it fair that light blue is just that, "light blue"?

The web is replete with sites that say things about pink, but I wish to avoid them. Their general bent is to assign meaning to the color, and I prefer to let you make your own associations. And my direction as a "colorist" artist leads me to avoid assigning meaning to any color. I am more interested in how pink interacts with other colors, and what the value ranges do to change these interactions.

The story of these paintings in pinks and greens is that I visualized doing an artwork with these colors, but it took me months of failure to finally get it the way I liked it. Then, what I learned from that first success (entitled "Pinks & Greens," above) enabled me to create more of them with this color composition.

If I Were Rothko

Untitled,
6.5" x 4"
Original Pastel
10 June 2007
Casey Klahn

The image above was part of my Rothko study earlier in the year.

This blog is getting hits at Google with this quote by me:

Does it serve the artist to know about color theory, or to hold an opinion about which theory he finds correct? I tend to think the answer is no. More on why I feel that way later.

Of course it serves to know color theory when mixing paint, or establishing a mood in an illustration or a narrative piece. Actually, the times when knowing the science of color serves the artist at his craft are numerous. But that's just it: craft. The mystical quality that floats the painting up into what we describe as fine art is where we part ways with the science of color.

How did the artist establish that setting or feeling in a particular work? Was it done with algorythms and juxtapositions? Did it emanate from his soul? For sure it had less to do with the science of color placement, and more to do with the heart.

That's my opinion on color theory.

Back "In Pocket"

Back from my mini vacation and ready to roll with more on the color wheel.

Here's some food for thought at our ever faithful Wikipedia: Color Theory.

Look again at the wheel on the left, above. Green for a primary, anyone?

Color Theory - Continued

Beware the dominance of computer medias' views of color, dear friends. Ink, mass media, and the light on your computer screen do not reflect the totality of knowledge about color. The "Old School" color understandings that artists have known for a few centuries are not the end-all, be-all of color, either. However, the artist's eye on the two dimensional surface, and his pigments applied there upon, are very different from the use of color in the mass and digital arenas. I'm only saying that the knowledge contained on the Internet regarding color seems to me to be biased towards the digital media.

Here is a great, yet simple interactive lesson on the color wheel. It comes from Iowa State University (I think). Good on them.

Here's one that painters will need to use with some consideration of it's computer bias. But, it could be a slick way to create a rough composition for one's "analogue" artwork. William Lehman has begun working with an e-tablet for drawing. I really like what he's doing and look forward to keeping tabs on his progress. I had a neighbor at an art fair who was doing digital realist art with a stylus directly on the computer screen, and I was most fascinated by it. If I were to go that direction, I can see the possibilities for commercial art. In fact, I can't conceive of not going that direction for commercial, or applied, art.

More to follow on the subject of color theory.

Color Theory

There are about as many color theories as there are scholars with a dollar. Which one is the best? The one I was taught, of course.

A theory of color is an organized observation of the phenomenon of color. It serves the practical value of giving us guidance in "coloring" things, and in understanding aspects and purposes of color. Mixing paint. Illuminating computer images. Object recognition. Does it serve the artist to know about color theory, or to hold an opinion about which theory he finds correct? I tend to think the answer is no. More on why I feel that way later. For now, lets evaluate and critique what things are being said about color in the academic world.

The present day, which is very different from "my own day", is dominated by the computer. The Information Age, I have heard it called. I fear many young people are being brought up with the prejudices that the computer gives to the understanding of color. They are taught that the three primary colors are red, green and blue. If this is you, I challenge you to go get those three colors in jars of acrylic paint, and mix yellow for me.

If we dig deeper, we find out that these three colors (called RGB), when projected as light, produce a "white" light. Be still my beating heart. Now, to be fair, the digital media are the new and cutting edge direction of our civilization. Digital art will be, and maybe already is, a major contributor to the direction of contemporary art. At my gut level, true to the caveman that I am, I am made weak by the idea that projected light will be our new world of color. It is too limiting, in my opinion. Too flat, pardon the pun!

Proponents of the computer models of color argue that pigment mixing is imperfect to produce colors, and that the CRT screen is easier to use for them in achieving various colors, especially if they wish to create equal intensities or values of a given color. This is a straw man. Colors for the artist are pigment based, not mixed from three primaries alone. Yes, there is craft to achieving the range of colors. But, the science of making a full range of colors as say, tubes of paint, is not dependent upon mixing alone. It is tied to available pigments - environmentally driven, if you will.

Brown University has the following site which purports to represent the e-based and the pigment based theories of color. After the first page, you'll begin to see the bias preferring the RGB color model, though.

Conversely, here is a color theory site that digs into the shortfalls of e-based color production. Thanks, Don Jusko. See how he compares the RGB model for values of yellow, and the way an artist darkens the same yellow. He indicts the inability of the RGB scale to create Naples yellow, for instance.



I trust that if you have read this post closely, you will see that I am mainly giving you an introduction to the arguments that exist regarding current color theory. There are many more theories of color , and all a fascinating read. I hope to post and comment on them in the next few days. There will be some "out of pocket" time for me, as I will be hosting Deer Camp starting tonight.

We will be digging into the artist's theories of color, the value of these theories and relative merits of each. My opinion? Freely given, of course!

New Look

It's a new day at The Colorist. Since my art is mostly "sold through", I get to begin the process of finding my direction anew. Do I have more "colorist" works in me? If so, what will the focus be? I have a number of ideas, including advancing the blue-centric series, and creating a series of works based on a new color wheel that I am dreaming up. Then, for the future I am thinking of a yellow series.

While the market has a say in my direction, I very much feel that the direction I will take won't be slaved to it. The new directions have more to do with artistic seeing, based on spending a lot of hours looking at my works hung together at the art fairs. I loved the newest set of all blue works, including Blue Wandering, which is now featured in the "stuff" column at the right of this blog page.

It has been so long since I functioned these template tools, that I have forgotten how to format jpegs to "fit" properly. After a few failures, I discovered a very cool detailed view of the image, which you see as a tall image there that I'll entitle "detail". I think I'll leave it up for a short while as a good example of some scratch marks, and scumbling details of my technique. Enjoy it while you can.

Making Pastels - Continued

White Bunkhouse

8.75" x 9.5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Many, if not most, of the colors in this pastel work are done with my home-made pastels. The blue-grays, one of the oranges, some of the blues, and the grays are my own made-by-hand pastel sticks.

Yesterday, we gathered our tools, and I promised to show you how to make pastels with no expensive purchases, just to get you started. We are going to make a stick from your easel tailings (dust that fell off of your paintings in production). Then, we'll just briefly touch on repairing broken sticks, and then we'll talk about making your own authentic colors.

The left over dust from your easel can be segregated at time of gathering to be mostly red, green or whatever. Or, if you just mix them all together, you will get a beautiful gray result. Pour out that jar of tailings onto your smooth-surface work area. Best to have your latex or vinyl gloves and dust mask on, as pigment can be harmful to one's health. Simple precautions should suffice.


We won't need the Gum Trag. or other bodies because your substance already has the manufacturer's binder and body. We're taking our first, easy steps, here.


Put a paper towel around that spray bottle with a rubber band, so that you can change it out for the next color that you want to mix cleanly. Make a mashed potato-like pile (or a mini volcano, if you will) and spray water into your pigment.
Pastel is a paste, so think pancake batter for consistency.


Roll the paste in your hand until you achieve a stick. If it's too wet, dab it with a paper towel. If it has cracks, then add a little water at a time until you get it like I show above. I take the extra effort of forming it up against a right angle of glass that I have taped to my glass surface in order to make it square. Many reasons support the square model, but I do it mainly to differentiate my sticks from most store-bought ones. I make them big.


The next few steps will be without photos, but you'll be fine. It's a bear trying to not muck on one's brand new Nikon Camera while making these messy pastels! Also, the next steps are now requiring you to have a supply of white pigment. The photo above shows Whiting, which is a body for making one's own colors, and not the same as white pigment, which I show down below. I bought mine at Daniel Smith, but several suppliers exist. I guess I went with DS because I could visit the retail store in Seattle to hand pick my materials.

1. Split your big stick into roughly two equal parts.
2. Pour out white pigment on your surface equal to the size of your original pile of pigment.
3. Combine the two and spray with a little water. Roll til you get the right consistency, adding or subtracting water as needed.
4. Keep following the same regimen of halving each stick and adding white until you get to the last one which will be roughly the size of your first "pure" color stick. Now you have a set of one hue in lightening tints. Perhaps about five or six in all.
5. Stop here for now, or decide to make your tones or shades of dark. If you wish to continue, clean your surface completely with glass cleaner, and change out the towel on your spray bottle. Wash, or change your gloves.
6. Get out the carbon or lamp black and start over. The blacks come in jars, typically. Of course, a grayer color of each hue may be achieved by mixing hues in the classic painting methods. Another good way to do some minor color mixing is to add liquid pigment, which I also use for underpainting.

Createx Liquid Pigment

The drying process takes days. Three or more in marine climates (Western Washington, England, etc.) and about three where I live in Eastern Washington (almost out of the marine zone, dryish climate). I took over an old food dehydrator that we had for the purpose, which I'm still in the doghouse with my spouse about ;) You can still test the color even when it's wet, though.


Now that we have done some incredible grays, we can clean up and grab that broken yellow remains, and disperse it as a pile of dust, add water, and roll into a paste. Dry, and there's your long lost buddy!


Now, go here for the super-secret, never before revealed and extra-classified formula for making your own custom colors. I owe Paul de Marrais a debt of gratitude for his openness in revealing this "state" secret. It is, hands down, the most workable and simple formula for starting your exploration into pastel making.


Are you ready for it? 2/3rds Calcium Carbonate (Whiting) to 1/3rd French Talc, and make a paste. SSSHHHHH! Now eat the formula! No! Not the paste, the note! At this point, you'll want to but some dry pigment. I recommend French Ultramarine for starters.


As de Marrias explains, the task is now to take your formula paste and mix it with the pigment, in much the same way that I have taught you to add the white or black. The impact on the color of the pigment is minimal, and you will have a very soft pastel as a result. I have experimented with going half the magic formula, half French Ultramarine pigment, and also with going 2/3rds the blue, and 1/3rd the "body". Both work very well. My next move will be to try to "channel" Henri Roche, and make an almost all pigment blue stick.


Did you notice that we haven't touched the Gum Tragacanth, yet? Keep that bag shut, sports fans. It turns out that many pigments have enough cohesive qualities that the binder isn't needed at all. If you so desire, you may want to experiment with the binder to make harder sticks, which are good for drawing, blocking in, and initial steps of a pastel work.


This brings us to the downside of our subject, which is that all pigments are not created equal. Some have more cohesive characteristics than others. It's just the plain facts of the matter - pigments are derived from natural elements, as well as some man-made efforts such as Manganese Blue, ferric-ferrocyanide (Prussian Blue), and Alizarin (Madder). Blue is one of the happy colors that are easy to work with. The linked websites below have details on what are the troubled pigments - those harder to make into soft, workable sticks. Different amounts of the binder (Gum Tragacanth) and the Whiting/Talc formula are what you'll need to experiment with to get your particular pigment "right".


I have been lucky, so far, with the colors that I have mixed. I have not yet needed a binder to add either cohesion or consistency to any of my pastels.


I also credit Kitty Wallis with giving me my first experiences with home-made pastels. She actually markets a product that takes the mixing of the water out of the equation. She has done the hard part, and put it in a jar for you to just start rolling paste sticks. Her Pastel Moist Pigments can be found here, along with the Createx Liquid Pigments that I really love. I know they are expensive, but the full set will produce more sticks than you can shake a, well, a dollar at. The factor is well in your favor. I came back from Kitty's workshop with eighty sticks, which is greater than $260 worth of the little gems. She also sells them in individual jars, so you don't need to pop for the whole set.


I chose the adventure of making the sticks from scratch, just like any artist who lived before the Nineteenth century had to. I wanted the earthy, craft-side of the artist's tools to be part of my repertoire. I do call myself a "colorist", after all!


Now we have covered making one's own simple grays in multiple values with easel left-overs (the one I made for the photos presented here is already dry and turns out to be a dark violet-gray-which Lorie calls "eggplant"), recovering a broken stick, and two simple resources for how to make soft pastels (de Marrais and Wallis ).


Articles on Making Pastels:

• Paul de Marrais. Via Daniel Smith.
• Katherine Tyrell's Squidoo Lens, and scroll down to "Making your own pastels".
• Sinopia; I emphasize this one which Katherine has linked, because it is relatively simple, and has well organized formulas for given color groups. The groupings are designed to help you get ahead of the curve regarding pigments that are less satisfactory for handling qualities. I suggest letting the pigment tell you first, though. I found that the hansa yellow light from Daniel Smith was fine without binder.
  

Readable articles about pigments:

• Golden.
• Sennelier.
• Wikipedia.
• Webexhibits.org/pigments.

Pastel Month Results - The Bunkhouse

The Bunkhouse
6.5" x 8"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn
$375

This is the first Colorist American Landscape I have done in some time. It's nice to be doing these very free, yet challenging works. I have been wanting to get back to barns and outbuildings, too. I also wanted to get some cropped barn compositions that worked.

Another good feeling is finding a method for working on Townsend Pastel paper. You can really abuse this stuff, and the more the merrier. I did a wash of deep red, then mixed as many contrasts and compliments as it would hold without "filling up", as we say.

Lots of goals coming together!

Those French Products

Detail
Soft Pastel
Casey Klahn

Say what you will, the French have certainly cornered the art media market, big time. I cannot do without my Sennelier pastels ( A L'Ecu ) and my La Carte sanded paper.

Oh yes, I suppose one could stay with some very excellent American products and make out quite well. For instance, I feel that the Diane Townsend Artist's Pastels (Pennsylvania) and the Kitty Wallis' ( Oregon) Sanded papers are maybe the best products in their field anywhere.

But, when I scumble a DT Terrage pastel over the vegetable matter surface of a La Carte card, I have experienced a technique that is unrepeatable, to my knowledge, by any other set of tools. The Wallis is superior for other things, but not that particular move.

And, those Sennelier extra soft pastels are the best for keeping to the original characteristics of each pigment as much as possible. Sure, the sticks break easier in certain colors. But it is all about the color, isn't it? It's better, in Gustave Senneliers' mind (by modern extension, his company's collective mind) to keep the color of the pigment, than to satisfy the needs of consistent handling from stick to stick.

This is as close to artistic integrity as it can get, I think. It's absolutely none of my business, but if I were a Frenchman, I would want a Sennelier for President of France.

I am no chemist, nor am I anything more than a punter when it comes to making pastel sticks, but I hold the Diane Townsends and the Sennelier up as my two favorite sticks. Why not stay with just the DT's, which have the more pleasing shapes and overall characteristics? Because there are certain intensities of color that Sennelier has that I find no where else. Also, those big, monster size Sennelier sticks are off the hook.

Sure, Sennelier sticks are expensive, but when I purchase powdered pigment at retail, and roll my own sticks, the value of how much blue is in a Sennelier Ultramarine pastel stick becomes well apparent. In fact, when I find a Senneleir standard or jumbo stick on sale, I feel that the thing is coming to me at a net loss to Sennelier. That is when compared to what it costs me to buy the pigment to make them, without even factoring in the cost of my labor. Until I find a shipwreck of pigment jars washed up at the beach, or figure out which dumpster to dive to get pigment cheaper, the Senneliers seem like a great value to me.

Postscript: The Jerry's Artarama link (jumbo) above has an old picture of the Jumbo Senneliers in a wood box. Those are not being produced, I understand, and are replaced by the La Grande, which is still a big stick. I have some of all three sizes, and the monster ones rock. If you find some on clearance, buy them. You are taking them at way under cost.