You're right: the gamut is a two dimensional slice. It just takes practice to lighten or darken a color without shifting its hue and chroma. I can't tell you which colors to do that with; you just need to try it until you can convince yourself that you're changing only that variable.
Really concise. I spent how much money in art school (AAU), and they did not demonstrate gamut masking? Limited palettes make more sense now. Thank you!!! I like how you bridge the technical side with creativity. I also like your time lapse videos showing the work you put into projects.
+Jenny Bray Right there with ya. It's annoying how nowadays they take away credit to technical knowledge and just praise "creativity". I mean, don't get me wrong, creativity is amazing, but it would have been useful to have this knowledge as well. I think it actually increases productivity. I don't know why people are so adamant in mediocrity
@@FutileGrief Same here. All my teachers were Postmodernists and I only got the bare minimum of technique training. Concept was considered over execution with any real show of talent or technique branded as 'kitch'.
+James Gurney Your book 'Color and Light' and your blog are a gold mine of knowledge!!! You've opened my mind to these topics and given me the courage to explore them!! Thank you :) Using gamut masking makes things less intimidating. I'm still new to these concepts, but excited to try them out.
Photoshop? WTF is Photoshop? Hand me some freezer paper, a few rubber bands and a used $0.35 brush that's seen far better days and I'll teach you how to paint like a pro. I love this guy.
Awesome video James, thanks for sharing! A quick random question. When you show the color wheel, there is a little sticky note on the side, and I can't read all of them. - Big Brushes, - Large to Small, - Accent last (?), - Soften edges, - Take your time. Is this right? Amazing little set of notes, I'm going to add them right next to my work desk here
Krysjez: It's a good question. I have to "find" the subject two times. Once in the drawing and once in the painting. To paint in oil means covering up a few lines. But you can find them again easily enough.
Hello Mr.Gurney! I just finished reading your book about colour and light, but I'm stuck on something with gamut masking. I understand that you pick the corner colours as the primaries and then make strings out of them, but when it comes to the actual painting, do you use the colour strings just as they are, or do you ever mix some colours together to make new ones? I feel like mixing the colours would defeat the purpose of limiting the palette, but I'm just not sure! Also, when and where would you use the secondary colours from the gamut? Unless I missed it, I didn't see any examples in your book using the secondaries as well as the primaries. I really really love your art, and your book has helped me so much so far!
You mix new ones when needed. Think of your chosen color points as the primaries. Any colors you mix using them will fall inside the mask, thus will keep the colors harmonious throughout.
@1908salsa Good question. The colors inside the gamut show how those appear in a mid-range value. Your strings will take the mixtures for each of those subjective primaries all the way from very light to very dark. (I almost never go all the way to black, because I want to keep some character in the colors.) Another way to think of it is that the color wheel is a 2D slice through a 3D color space of hue, chroma, and value. So really the gamut you're creating is 3D rather than 2D.
Hi, we saw your video in our colour theory class today and began experimenting with this technique and I think I learned a lot! This is a great way to bring your composition together colour-wise.
I like color stuff, but I'm still trying to improve drawing, so I probably shouldn't get into too much. I didn't start drawing until very recently, so I think I need to get better before I move into really studying painting. I have Color and Light, but I still haven't gotten to do much painting. It is fun to look at the different effects. I just got Successful Drawing by Loomis. How long did you practice drawing before you were comfortable with it?
Hi James, thank you for the all the beatiful stuff you produce, from videos to books! I waas trying to create my own color wheel with my own gamut mask. Maybe beacuse of my weak English but I could not understand something.. let me ask to you and to will be so gentle to help me: Are the gamut mask and the color schemes related? I mean, should my masks have the shape of (i.e.) a split complimentary scheme? and, there is standar size for the gamut masks or it just up to me? I guess the size will alter the color in the extreme edges, isn'it? I hope I could express myself and thanks for your answers
Thank you so much! I hope I can make this work. I understand how the method works, but until the paint hits the paper, I know I'm going to be fighting the pigments, trying not to make them full saturation. ;-;
Hello James, I've watched this and have read your blog related to this video, as well, a few times. I have a color wheel photoshop file based on your method (by smilinweapon at Deviant Art) and have been trying to learn to limit myself, especially with the euro-mood setting comic book style I like to do. After re-reading and re-watching...a question comes to mind. You said in part 1 of Color Wheel Masking, "... As each of these colors approaches the center, it becomes a neutral gray." Why neutral gray, what is the reasoning or significance for this? I see in some wheels, the use of (outer to inner circles) white, black and saturation centers as well as neutral gray. Same question regarding a center white or black, if you please? (a bit of context, I did a little experiment to use CMY blocks of color and test de-saturation...I quickly realized my misunderstanding that you are adding gray rather than de-saturating. So this led me to wonder, if you are not de-saturating, then why do they go to neutral gray?) Thank you for your time and awesome videos!
Good question. You could use white or black instead of gray at the center of a color wheel, and many people do, especially when they're in the digital realm. Whichever you choose, you want the center of the wheel to sit at the hub of the wheel of hues, with zero saturation. Black, white, and gray all fit that description. I made a blog post for you that explains this further. gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-hub-of-color-wheel.html
3:25 take note of his note on the left- BLAST (Big brushes, Large to small, Accents last, Soften Edges, Take your time) great reminder, I'm stealing it, thanks again James! Question: For very dark accents, how do we stay in our gamut, often the gamut doesn't allow for strong complementary mixing for dark values without adding raw umber and ultra-blue or whatever you use to make near black. I'm guessing you would say: deviate from the gamut when needed for darks by trying to remain within one of the hues inside the gamut?
this is a 'newbie' question from one who's only tried oils once...but I noticed you painting over details like the TV antennae (?) on top of the buildings when you put in the blue for the sky. If such details are going to be covered up, why bother putting them in the underdrawing?
I don't know if you authorized this or not, but this video looks like a copyright infringement to me: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EejGPq4GyeA.html I could be mistaken, but it seems like that channel just takes videos and add their own title at the start. (To be fair, they do credit you in the title and link to your blog, but still... There's no mention of your RU-vid channel either.) I first found this video over there, thinking that it was a collaboration or a sort of interview you made with them, before finally realizing that it was on you channel all along. I can't believe that I didn't find this video before, but that's probably because I usually browse your channel using the playlists; 'watercolor', 'casein', 'gouache', etc... (They have this one too: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eLbf3JyE1Tc.html) Since I'm leaving a comment, I would also like to tell you that you are a constant inspiration. I watch the videos on your channel again and again, and thoroughly enjoy reading your blog. I also just bought the full video of 'Gouache in the Wild'. Next, I know I'm buying 'Color and Light', and I'll probably get the whole Dinotopia series (in either French or Japanese) for my newborn daughter when she grows a little bit older. Always keep up the amazing work! Best wishes from Japan.
sorry, but in the first example you're painting the sky with blue color, but in gamut mask you have the limitation palette in GREEN RED and YELLOW, and blue color isn't included in the original mask, I don't understand.
I have a question about color wheels: the way I learned it way back, if you mix ACROSS the wheel, you get gray or brown. But in some of them (like shown here) blue is across from yellow - which would mix to a fairly clean green. In others blue is across from orange, which would indeed result in a muddy color. What's the benefit of using the color wheel shown here?
This wheel (blue across from yellow) represents true visual complements as we see them, but when you're mixing from pigments and not light, the rules are slightly different. You often have to use colors that are slightly off from the true visual complement. That's why we have the painter's wheel and also the rbg or digital wheel. It's annoying, but there's no way to get away from it entirely!
Hello! Reading your book tonight and just found your video. Thanks for all the great information!! Where can I get a printed color wheel like the one you are using here?
this is the online link for the gamut masking method. But i dont know why this page eats up lots of ram so be mindful about it and close it after u get done using the page.
0:43 "..The range of possible mixtures from those colours plus white will all appear within this shape on the colour wheel.." Starting out with Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow and Pyrrole Red, then? That triangle doesn't even consider all the greens you should be able to do with the Blue and Yellows? Where does this technique work then?
MacKingsly Thes edges of this color wheel show the most saturated colors you’re able to find in pigments but the values are adjusted for each of them, for example the most saturated blue is a lot darker in value than the most saturated yellow. For the gamut masking method to be entirely accurate you’d really need a whole three dimensional version of it with the height measuring value. Obviously this inaccuracy is most jarring for yellow and blue where their values are the most distant. Ultramarine blue leans a bit towards cyan, it’s not actually that saturated of a blue but its value is pretty dark fooling us into thinking its hue is closer to the complementary of yellow. The greens you get from mixing them are also not as saturated as you may think they are. One way to check the hue is to mix your color into white
James, are there instructions anywhere for making a Yurmby wheel? My apologies if they are in your book. I've ordered it but not received it yet. But ... it would be a tremendous learning experience and tool. It looks like you cut your "triangle" out of a color copy of your Yurmby wheel.
You're right, painting a Yurmby wheel would be (and is!) a good learning experience. I don't have specific instructions anywhere, just tried to figure it out.
Hello Mr.Gurney, how do you create the warm grey colour scale? do you mix the three primary pigments of the gamut mask adding white in diferents values? as the video show in the lower part of the sheet in the 3:51 min. Sir I really love your work, im enjoying the pleasure of drawing and painting again, oftenly I used to go to the library of my city to read your book The Color and Ligth. Thank you and best wishes from Colombia.
Yes, the grey color of any gamut is simply the average of the subjective primaries. It may not be in the center of the whole color wheel, but it should be in the center of whatever gamut you have chosen.
There are ways of doing it, but it's a tad complicated to explain through a youtube comment. I can, however, recommend you to check coolorus. It's paid, but it does have a free trial and it adds a gamust masking tool for photoshop :)
Hi James, I read your whole book where you talk about gamut mapping and I've been trying to find a color wheel with many value shades to each color. You mentioned a certain kind of color wheel but I haven't been able to get one. Where can I find one like the one you have? Thanks. I love your work and clear and concise teaching.
Whoa those 3 images at 0:38 just gave me some extreme Deja Vu. If I close my right eye, everything I see with my left has that warm tint. If I close my left eye and look with my right, everything has a cool blue tint. When I have em both open they work together to make one normal, balanced image. My eye doctor never had a clue what I was talking about when I asked them why my vision was like that.
