Part 4 (1/2)

CHAPTER III.

COLOR MIXTURE AND BALANCE.

+All colors grasped in the hand.+

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6.]

(54) Let us recall the names and order of colors given in the last chapter, with their a.s.semblage in a sphere by the three qualities of HUE, VALUE, and CHROMA. It will aid the memory to call the thumb of the left hand RED, the forefinger YELLOW, the middle finger GREEN, the ring finger BLUE, and the little finger PURPLE (Fig. 6). When the finger tips are in a circle, they represent a circuit of hues, which has neither beginning nor end, for we can start with any finger and trace a sequence forward or backward. Now close the tips together for white, and imagine that the five strong hues have slipped down to the knuckles, where they stand for the equator of the color Sphere. Still lower down at the wrist is black.

(55) The hand thus becomes a color holder, with white at the finger tips, black at the wrist, strong colors around the outside, and weaker colors within the hollow. Each finger is a scale of its own color, with white above and black below, while the graying of all the hues is traced by imaginary lines which meet in the middle of the hand. Thus a child's hand may be his subst.i.tute for the color sphere, and also make him realize that it is filled with grayer degrees of the outside colors, all of which melt into gray in the centre.

+Neighborly and opposite hues; and their mixture.+

(56) Let this circle (Fig. 7) stand for the equator of the color sphere with the five princ.i.p.al hues (written by their initials R, Y, G, B, and P) s.p.a.ced evenly about it. Some colors are neighbors, as red and yellow, while others are opposites. As soon as a child experiments with paints, he will notice the different results obtained by mixing them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7.]

First, the neighbors, that is, any pair which lie next one another, as red and yellow, will unite to make a hue which retains a suggestion of both. It is _intermediate_ between red and yellow, and we call it YELLOW-RED.[17]

(57) Green and yellow unite to form GREEN-YELLOW, blue and green make BLUE-GREEN, and so on with each succeeding pair. These intermediates are to be written by their initials, and inserted in their proper place between the princ.i.p.al hues. It is as if an orange (paragraph 9) were split into ten sectors instead of five, with red, yellow, green, blue, and purple as alternate sectors, while half of each adjoining color pair were united to form the sector between them. The original order of five hues is in no wise disturbed, but linked together by five intermediate steps.

(58) Here is a table of the intermediates made by mixing each pair:--

Red and yellow unite to form yellow-red (YR), popularly called orange.[17]

Yellow and green unite to form green-yellow (GY), popularly called gra.s.s green.

Green and blue unite to form blue-green (BG), popularly called peac.o.c.k blue.

Blue and purple unite to form purple-blue (PB), popularly called violet.

Purple and red unite to form red-purple (RP), popularly called plum.

Using the left hand again to hold colors, the princ.i.p.al hues remain unchanged on the knuckles, but in the hollows between them are placed intermediate hues, so that the circle now reads: red, yellow-red, yellow, green-yellow, green, blue-green, blue, purple-blue, purple, and red-purple, back to the red with which we started. This circuit is easily _memorized_, so that the child may begin with any color point, and repeat the series clock wise (that is, from left to right) or in reverse order.

[Footnote 17: Orange is a variable union of yellow and red. See Appendix.]

(59) Each princ.i.p.al hue has thus made two close neighbors by mixing with the nearest princ.i.p.al hue on either hand. The neighbors of red are a yellow-red on one side and a purple-red on the other. The neighbors of green are a green-yellow on one hand and a blue-green on the other. It is evident that a still closer neighbor could be made by again mixing each consecutive pair in this circle of ten hues; and, if the process were continued long enough, the color steps would become so fine that the eye could see only a circuit of hues melting imperceptibly one into another.

(60) But it is better for the child to gain a fixed idea of red, yellow, green, blue, and purple, with their intermediates, before attempting to mix pigments, and these ten steps are sufficient for primary education.

(61) Next comes the question of opposites in this circle. A line drawn from red, through the centre, finds its opposite, blue-green.[18] If these colors are mixed, they unite to form gray. Indeed, the centre of the circle stands for a middle gray, not only because it is the centre of the neutral axis between black and white, but also because any pair of opposites will unite to form gray.

[Footnote 18: Green is often wrongly a.s.signed as the opposite of red. See Appendix, on False Color Balance.]

(62) This is a table of five mixtures which make neutral gray:

{ Red & Blue-green } { Yellow Purple-blue } Opposites { Green Red-purple } Each pair of which unites { Blue Yellow-red } in neutral gray.

{ Purple Green-yellow }

(63) But if, instead of mixing these opposite hues, we place them side by side, the eye is so stimulated by their difference that each seems to gain in strength; _i.e._, each _enhances_ the other when separate, but _destroys_ the other when mixed. This is a very interesting point to be more fully ill.u.s.trated by the help of a color wheel in Chapter V., paragraph 106. What we need to remember is that the mixture of neighborly hues makes them less stimulating to the eye, because they resemble each other, while a mixture of opposite hues extinguishes both in a neutral gray.

+Hues once removed, and their mixture.+

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 8.]