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Color Intensity!

I used to watch a fantastic artist named Brian Stelfreeze every year at the Heroes comic convention doing a painting for the annual Heroes auction.  Many times I’d notice how he would create a hot spot of the most vibrant, intense color that would just leaped off of his painting.  How does he get that color to sing I’d ask myself?  Years later through study and painting daily myself it became apparent.

Let’s define a few things first.  The full intensity or color saturation is the purest the color can be.  It isn’t muted in any way by the addition or white or black.  Think of it as a color to it’s most extreme degree.

An artist can use it to draw the viewer eye to a certain area of the page or make that color literally look like it’s glowing.  Below I’ve sketched the face of a girl with red hair where in I’ve placed a yellow highlight.  I really wanted that highlight to look like it’s glowing.  When a pure bright color is placed or surrounded by a greyed color or colors it increases the intensity of the pure color.  You’re looking for a high contrast of value or intensity.  You can see how the highlight on the hair of the girl on the left really shines but the one on the right is too similar in value and does not have enough contrast to make the highlight stand out.  So watch out for using values or saturation/intensities that are too similar.

For an even greater effect use complementary colors because, as we know, these colors opposite each other on the color wheel have a natural ability to affect each other in ways that intensify the other.

There are numerous artist who are masters of this technique.  The best I’ve ever seen is the painter Joseph Turner.   A more contemporary example would of course be Brian Stelfreeze.

Thanks for reading and make sure to try this in your next painting.  The best way to learn is to do.