Hi Daniel,
On Apr 3, 2011, at 6:37 AM, Daniel W wrote:

Well I like how your site does not fallow what basic art teachers teach in college or what science teachers teach....
your "Real" color wheel uses red to shade yellow?  isn't a shade any color by adding black to it by definition of art?

"Shade", conventionally by following Itten or Church-Oswalt shade is adding black to the pigment. That has corrupted the term. I don't use it. Instead, shadow works because the RCW matches shadow colors, neutral dark works. Neutral dark is the dark color made with any triad, complement or split-complement set of colors.

Yellow is a unique primary color. It changes to orange as in the mass-tone of transparent Tartrazine, and to brown in transparent Nickel yellow. Both are accurate. In the colors to neutral dark from bright yellow the first colors darken with magenta (red), from that color point it darkens like red does, to brown before neutral dark black. The RCW is for artists painting on location, that's why I combined the two elements of yellows color as yellow getting darker.

Warm Yellow never changes to cool dark as in adding black (Oswald) or subtracting light (RGB). They will continue calling this change to cool dark yellow as a shade color. So be it, I won't use the term.

Hi PaulC,

You said:
"I am new at posting replies regarding issues on the forum, but this one caught my eye and mind to such a degree that I have been thinking about it for over a month and think I wish to get my opinion out there.
I studied natural dyes and dyestuffs in general which are used for dying, not painting.  But, I think that if a dye exists in nature there must be a room for thought about it on the palette. "

I say:
No way! Forget it.. the painting doesn't look natural, how could it when full colors are darkened with black. If you ever tried it you know yellow mixes to yellow-green, a dirty, ugly shade of yellow-green. Not clean by any means.  A dirty ugly pall befalls any color darkened with that useless black pigment. The same thing happens when you darken Thalo blue with black, it gets greener. Thalo blue should get bluer like the sky, not greener. Yellow shouldn't darken to green, it should darken to brown. So say the crystals.

Elements represent color as crystals of color. To see which elements make which colors in which crystals.
http://www.realcolorwheel.com/crystals.htm

"Black can be found in Logwood, and Brazilwood, both barks found in the tropics."

Boil the Brazilwood for the pigment magenta. That was the best magenta in the world for a long time, it named the country.

  "The color black can be found in nature in landscapes such as the British one,after a good month long rain-no let up- and the tree bark truly becomes a dark that it could be described as black."

Just because one sees the color black in the physical doesn't mean it can be used as one of the pigments representing black in the painting.  Even black rubber will have reflection color in it when viewed in the light. Any dark can be made with 3 transparent primary  pigments.
http://www.realcolorwheel.com/3colors.htm

Before Indian yellow brown/side there was Burnt Beechwood bark that made a brown mass-tone and light yellow tint in water colors.

"There are also molds and fungi which when left to grow, will give a strong black powdery surface.  This is lab work and is not to be worked with in homes.  But, it is an example of a good black, in nature.  I never use black.  Why?  I personally find it an  uninteresting color, with qualities not worth exploring in serious painting.  But, that I think is the problem with the color.  Most people think it uninteresting, so of on use to explore.  We need a workshop in the color black.  Black used in every way.  As a color in itself- think Frans Kline- or of all the ways it can be used to dull or change the qualities of other colors.  But, there is not enough time in my life for a workshop of this kind.  But, lets not omit it from our palettes.  Lets get some of the blacks and when a time comes for changing a color- dulling, lightening to see what is under that black, wew might find some new ways of using an undervalued color."

By calling it undervalued your saying it has some value. Decoratively it has value but not in a painting from life, it sticks out like a sore thumb, anywhere you use it. Like a hole in the canvas.

"There must be a place for it on the color wheel.  Just because one finds it of no use is not a good reason for omitting it from the wheel completely.  Hopefully unforgivable, Paul C."

Well it is in my colorwheel, black is the center, even though the blackest crystal when cut thin enough shows red.
I show a perfectly neutral gray and black made from the primary pigments in the 3colors.htm link above. There is no room for the pigment black, only the mixed color black, which I prefer to call dark neutral.  Don

Aloha Don:



Thank you so much!



I do use paint color mixed “full spectrum”  which in my corner of paint world means the goal is to mix wall color with a representational amount from each spectral hue – and no black.  I’ve dabbled a bit mixing my own, but there are premixed brands available.  I wish I could spend my days designing my own colors, but there are rooms and buildings across America that need to be painted!



I fully understand and easily relate to each one of your answers.  I come from a graphic design community and some how rolled into architectural color.  Knowing that there is an artistic community dedicated to mixing good color passionately warms my soul and makes me smile.



Color IS everything!  If I can ever be of assistance to you, please do no hesitate to ask.  I will check out registering at the forum…



Warm regards,

Lori