Painting Basics: Color in Design Phases of Art!

How do we plan color in design applications for painting? This lesson will focus on a few key color theory basics so you can make sure your digital paintings will come out right!

Specifically, we will be focusing on color hues, temperature, values, and intensity. Learn this well since these properties will pave a good foundation for any colored paintings that you will do!

The one thing about your digital art program is that it will have a built in color wheel for you to select colors from! All you need to know is the logical placement of these colors.

For example, left to right may mean saturation while up and down may mean color hues or values! This is all dependant on your digital art software and can vary with another digital art software.

See if you can find the color spectrums in your digital art program that fits into a logical color arrangement as it'll help you find the right colors for your picture in terms of creating color harmony and color contrasts!

1. Color in design: hues

Any time that we talk about a color, we are actually referring to the term, 'hue.' Basically a color hue is the color itself! For example, if we are talking about the color blue, we are actually referring to the hue of blue.

Color mode is another way to talk about color hues. If anytime I refer to color mode, I am referring to how the color hues are represented. For example, grayscale is a black and white tone representation of the color hues within a picture.

Even still, you may notice that there are other color modes available like RGB or CMYK colors. These colors modes are based on a color's output. For example, CMYK would be the preferred output for printing while RGB is the color output for your monitor!

As you can see from this example, the circle represents dull CMYK colors while the bar represents RGB colors! Notice the difference? Knowing this can help you plan your color ranges so your digital paintings can come out the way you want it to!

2. Color in design: temperature

For creating depth, there is a property called temperature which dictates how color hues will be divided into! Normally there are two types of temperatures: warm and cool colors. This is how you determine the mood of your digital painting.

The common warm colors are red, orange, and yellow. What good are they for? Well, warm colors are excellent for pushing elements in a picture up to the front. As such, you will see a lot of warm colors being used as foreground colors!

On the opposing token, cool colors push everything to the background! Colors like purple, blue, and green are colors used to fade elements away from the viewer.

Knowing this will not only create depth, but will help you design a composition to suite the mood. For instance, do you want to show a welcoming composition or an eerie composition to the viewer? It's that important!

3. Color in design: value

Just as important as temperature, you need to consider about color values! Values are the instances of how dark or how light one particular color hue is. For example, light yellow and dark yellow are both instances of the yellow hue.

In a painting, the value of the colors will determine the light and shadows of a particular element. For illustration purposes, I've chosen red and blue as the main warm and cool color hues with different value instances.

Think about any particular 3d design. Whether it is complicated or simple, it will have light and shadows to the object! You need to know the color values since light and shadows aren't completely black!

Colors that the light can't hit will still have a dark tone of that particular color. It's the same with objects that light can hit: it won't be purely white! Use this as a reference point to make sure your characters have the proper colors when it's time to add shading!

4. Color in design: intensity

The last few color properties involve the use of intensity or saturation. Basically, there are two instances of color manipulation: dulling of the color and brightening of the color.

Look at the example with the two islands. On the left, the colors are dulled out while the island on the right has the colors saturated. Just with this, you can see just how color intensity gives depth to the painting!

Always remember that blue values will push everything to the back. By dulling the colors further, the green hues of the left island will approach a blue hue matching the sky, which effectively separates it from the island to the right!

This is where you need to ask yourself what tools you need to use to dull or brighten the colors. For instance, I know that you can dull the colors using the sponge tool in Photoshop. On the flip side, I can also use the dodge and burn tools to highlight colors.

So what tool is available in your digital art program? What would you need to do to manipulate these color properties?

Take some time off and practice manipulating colors without having to paint over the hues with a different color. Also, if you haven't guessed it yet, you can't change one color property without affecting the other three color properties!

For example, changing the intensity of the orange hue changes it to yellowish hue with a different temperature feel. Moreover, it changes the overall color value of the painting as it moves it towards a lighter yellow hue.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson on how color in design is determined through these four properties. I look forward to any artworks that you may want to upload to the site galleries!

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