Something You Said (oil on canvas, 2019)

(Private Collection)
One of the most difficult aspects of working in color is the phenomenon of Simultaneous Contrast, which results in the relative perception of every color in a painting to be affected by every other color in the same painting. In its simplest terms, this means that a red placed next to a color that has green in it will appear more "red" than it actually is. A neutral grey placed in proximity to a blue will take on an orange tint. This concept of relative contrast can be experienced in all aspects of life. Where I live in northern Maine, when the temperature finally gets above thirty degrees some time in March, it's common to see people outdoors in shorts and t-shirts because, after three or four months of single digit or sub-zero temperatures, thirty degrees feels quite balmy! I stopped eating refined sugars in 1994. Years later I took a bite out of a plain bagel that, although it probably had only trace amounts of sugar in it, tasted to me like cake.

Simultaneous Contrast presents myriad problems for the visual artist because as the number of colors in an image increases, the manner in which each color affects every other one becomes exponentially complex. Frustration ensues as a color that appears bright warm red on the palette becomes a cool dark brown in the painting or, conversely, a color that appears warm brown on the palette suddenly appears as a dark cool purple in the painting and simultaneously causes the cool green that was painted in the day before to be transformed into a warm, acidic lemon yellow. A painter has to learn how to be always aware of how each color affects every other one and the relationship of each to the whole. With a great deal of practice and concentration this gets easier to do and one learns how to anticipate how colors will actually appear within the context of the painting.

I have found that mixing up the color palette for each painting before I begin to actually paint has been incredibly helpful because I can see how the colors relate to one another before I even begin to put them on the canvas. I try to give each painting that I create its own unique palette of colors. I tend to think of the color scheme as a cast of characters in a story. Sometimes it's a cast of very diverse characters and all manner of drama and conflict will arise. With this one, I made a conscious decision to keep the colors fairly close to one another in terms of value (light and dark) and saturation (intensity or purity of color), thereby reducing the overall contrast in the image and focusing instead on more subtle transitions and relationships. Sometimes it's best not to have any drama...