As discussed in the previous blog, understanding color theory and how it applies to our paintings is invaluable. I'm not going to attempt to explain every theory associated with the study of color. What I would like to share is an explanation of the basic artist's color wheel and how it can be used to strengthen our paintings. Since pastel artists don’t have to mix individual pigments to achieve a variety of hue, value and chroma, it's easy to ignore this information, often leading to disastrous outcomes.
 
Arriving at the art store and confronting the color wheel choices can be daunting. The most prevalent is the simple Triadic wheel with its three primary colors. It has worked well for centuries and is a good place to begin. Its primaries of  yellow, blue and red are easily understood and simple to apply. There are many commercially available Triadic wheels on the market with most showing complementary, analogous and split complementary (or discordant) color relationships.

The other color wheel you'll run across is the Munsell. Around the turn of the last century, a problem occurred when printers attempted to reproduce a full spectrum of color in printing. They simply couldn’t do it with the three basics from the Triadic wheel. This led Professor Albert H. Munsell, through study of “human visual responses to color," to create what's referred to as “a color space,” consisting of three-color dimensions: hue, value (lightness) and chroma (color brightness or purity). He concluded that to represent color accurately, there had to be five primary colors: yellow, green, blue, purple and red. This led to the adoption of cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK color space) for printing. Cyan is a blue-green, magenta is a red-purple, and with yellow, they represent the five primaries he advocated. This is still the system used in all press run printing  today.
 
Whether you choose the Triadic or Munsell color wheel, acquiring an understanding of color relationships will prove a worthwhile exercise. In the next blog I'll discuss color systems from the wheel and provide a few tips for using them to create stronger paintings.
 
The Triadic wheel (shown in the photo) is available from The Color Wheel Company (Tel: 541-929-7526, www.colorwheelco.com). The Munsell Analogous Color Wheel from is available from Art Video Productions (Tel: 877-227-8843, www.artvideo.com)—sold by Dakota Art Pastels.

We're fortunate to be painting at a time when there is a wide variety of pastels available. Being able to select from the diverse offerings of many manufacturers allows for considerable flexibility within our individual techniques. Organizing brands for storage and keeping track of our individual sticks within a working palette is when the problems arise. One brand of blue can look very similar to another. Finding an exact replacement when a stick wears down can prove to be very frustrating, leading to many hours of searching—time that could be, and should be, spent at the easel. I've implemented a few simple procedures into my pastel workflow, which has made things a little easier.

To begin with, when placing a new stick of pastel into action, break it into a usable size (refer to my September 3rd blog entry) and keep the remaining piece within its wrapper. (See the photo showing drawers of half-stick pastels with their original wrappers.) Most pastels come with a label identifying the pigment by name and by a numeric code. By retaining the other half of the stick, it's easy to match the little piece in need of replacement. Since some pigments are very similar in appearance, and some sticks come with a slightly off-colored outer-shell (due to the migration of binder to the outer surface during the curing process) it's helpful to make a mark on a paper surface for a better match. Another strategy is to acquire the printed brochure for the pastel line and mark the ones in use. Spending a few minutes highlighting the pastels in use makes them easier to track down when replacing. Since these printed brochures are rarely accurate, a handmade color chart becomes an even better form of identification. Dakota Art Pastels has done the hard work for us by selling handmade color charts of the major brands (see photo).

Another tip is to heavily weight your pastel palette to one brand. If a palette consists of a full set of one brand, make note of it, then supplement with the other brands to fill in the missing pieces required for your working style. Make note of these extra additions on a piece of paper with the brand, individual stick name, and code information from the label. When you notice a stick wearing down, start the search with the majority brand. If not found there, refer to your extra pastel notes for the others. After working with a specific palette, you'll find favorites, which you'll rely on more than others. If a specific pastel becomes a favorite, or you notice that it's being utilized a lot, it's wise to buy duplicates. Having a few of these old friends set aside in case manufacturing changes occur will keep your paintings flowing, uninterrupted. I'm not recommending you hoard pastels—although you may want to watch for the yard sale to be held after my demise.