"Visitations Between Color and Light On Form" - Euan Uglow's Work

Color is complex.

Discerning the shifts between color temperature, saturation, and value quality across a single given form, let alone within the visual range of a scene's complex subject matter, is a difficult thing to learn to see. But knowing how to see and articulate these distinctions in artwork suspends disbelief for the viewer. It makes it breathe, and be believable. 

It takes years of active looking in tandem with practical execution through medium, in order to posture 'mastery' of this.

An endless fascination for many artists, let alone the admirers of such hard work put to canvas and paper, is the truly diverse range of shift these things can manifest in - from seemingly subjective and hallucinatory degrees of shift through basic changes all the way to dramatic, garish shift on the other end of the pendulum.

You can find it everywhere, but look at the shifts of color temperature, the saturation of color, and the value quality in color through planes, their collective shapes, and ultimate form in space, in these art examples from Euan Uglow - He's an excellent source for more cleanly defining and determining these shifts:

Temperature - the degree of coolness or warmth within a color
Saturation - "chroma" - the degree of brilliance or intensity of a color
Value - the degree of lightness or darkness within a color, or the degree of light reflected...

"Nude with Green Background" - Euan Uglow - 1964-5

"The Wave" - Euan Uglow - 1989-97

"Girl Tree" - Euan Uglow - 1989-91

"Duck" - Euan Uglow - ?

Notice how he's created planes and form through simplistic partnerships of color saturation, value, temperature, of course the hue of color, and edge quality, or the softness and hardness between shifts in application.

"Daisy" - part of Daisy triptych - Euan Uglow - 1991

"Peach I Young" - Euan Uglow - 1999

It can be a healthy reminder to pay attention to observing the relationship of these qualities as we create, interpreting our world and our intentions through sensational and psychological practices, in order to represent a vision for audiences and posterity.

It will only ever be an interpretation, after all. We're not copy machines.

-Mairin-Taj