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Understanding Color:
Intensity
December 5, 2019
Colors have several properties to explore: hue, value,
intensity, and temperature.

Intensity (also referred to as saturation or chroma)

refers to the degree of purity of a color. A highly
intense color is bright and a low-intensity color is more
neutral or muted. Colors are at their purist when they
are straight out of the tube, not mixed with another
color. As soon as you mix in another color, you have
lowered the intensity of both colors mixed.

Learning how to vary the intensity of a color gives you

control over color choices and creates beautiful color
effects.

A color’s intensity always diminishes when it gets

mixed with another color. The farther apart on the
color wheel the two colors you are mixing are, the
more the intensity of both color is diminished.
Ultimately, mixing two colors that are completely
opposite each other on the color wheel
(complementary colors) creates the least intense
(most neutral) mix.
To better understand these ideas, make an intensity
color wheel study like the one pictured above. The
swatches are made by mixing complimentary colors.
On one end, have a pure color, unmixed, Then slowly
add it’s complement to it to see the desaturation. Add
more and more of the complement until you end up
on the other end with just the pure complementary
color. In the middle, you will find that you’ve created
neutral mixes of all your colors.

Neutrals are muted down versions of the colors you

are mixing. The term neutral color also applies to
colors such as blacks, greys and whites.

In theory, a neutral color is a color which is neither

warm nor cool. Such colors result from the
combination of two complementary colors (such as,
red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and
purple). But you can push neutrals towards warm or
cool by adding more of the cool or more of the warm
color you are using.

Another great exercise is an Intensity & Value Scale

chart for each color you have. Pick a color and make
four squares of value with it from top to bottom on the
left hand side of your page. To make four square of
value, you just add a bit of water to your paint to get a
lighter value.

Next, add enough complementary color to it to get a

light gray and paint in the four boxes next to the ones
of pure pigment you already painted. Each box should
darken in value as you go down the scale. Make a third
mixture with even more of the complementary color in
it and paint the four squares from lightest to darkest
top to bottom. Then paint your last row which will have
a lot more of the complementary color in it. Again
paint that mix in four values.

You will end up with a good sense of each color’s

intensity and value range. And you will have a beautiful
page of color mixes!

You can also lower a color’s intensity by mixing in grays,

earth tones, and darks. Some colors are naturally
highly intense (like Opera Pink) while others are low
intensity colors (such as Yellow Ochre).

Neutrals, less intense mixes, are often the most

beautiful colors. Get friendly with them!

I am offering the workshop

Understanding Colors for the
Watercolorist, to start in January! It
will be held at Cloud 9 Art School in
Bothell.
Wednesdays 10am- 12:30pm
January 8 - February 26, 2020

Designed to help watercolor artists understand both

color theory and paint properties, we will explore the
properties of watercolor pigments (transparent,
opaque, staining, fugitive, granulating, on my!) and we
will look at different ways of mixing color (on the
palette, on the paper, wet-into-wet, glazing). We will
experiment with color temperature, value, and
intensity of pigments. We will learn about the
advantages of painting with a limited palette and we
will make a lot of color charts in the process.

We will play with formulas that work well for specific

subjects (skies, skin, shadows). We will explore how to
match colors and study classic compatible palettes
(colors that work well together in a painting). We will
look at the emotions of colors and explore the use of
color through art history.

Each of the lessons of our workshop will introduce new

ideas and exercises, new paints, techniques, and
challenge you to think about color in new ways. You will
get a creative workout, but in a relaxed, supportive
setting, where experimentation and play are
encouraged while techniques and observation are
emphasized.

For more information and to register please visit

www.charlenecollinsfreeman.com/workshops/

Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life. - Vincent van

Gogh
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