Understanding and Applying Colour Online

This course presents a unique approach to understanding and applying colour developed by David over the last 25 years for art and design practitioners and teachers as well as anyone just fascinated by colour. It consists of eight beautifully illustrated lectures that will interest students wanting a deeper understanding of colour itself as well practical guidance on applying colour in painting. These lectures are complemented by optional practical exercises that progress from mastering colour control in paint through to still-life painting studies.

David’s lectures are given live on an online platform with time allowed for questions and discussion but can also be viewed outside class hours as video recordings. Students undertake the practical exercises outside class and can submit photos by email for feedback and discussion.

In addition to access to the video recordings, all participants receive a set of more than 500 slides from the lecture course, a mailout of a Munsell greyscale and hue circle, and ongoing access to David’s private online Illustrated Glossary of Colour containing illustrated definitions of about 200 terms related to colour and painting.

The course assumes no prior knowledge but goes far beyond other “colour theory” courses and has been given enthusiastic reviews by Australian and international students ranging from beginning painters through to highly experienced artists and art teachers and eminent specialists in various colour disciplines.

* Please note there will be no class held on Monday 9 June due to the public holiday.

* Short courses are open to students of ages 16 years and over. For students under 16 years of age there are School Holiday Workshops, Art Club and other youth art programs.

Lecture Topics
1. Colours and their attributes. What exactly is a colour and what attributes can we use to describe colours? Colours of objects including paints can be described in terms of hue, lightness and chroma, as in the Munsell System, or in terms of less familiar attributes such as blackness, while colours of lights involve different colour attributes again.
2. Artists' paints and paint mixing. Compare the most useful artists’ pigments and their physical properties including transparency/opacity, tinting strength, toxicity, and permanence. Learn the typical mixing paths in colour space of coloured paints with black, white, grey and other coloured paints, and learn how to use this knowledge to fine tune the colour of paint mixtures.
3. The Munsell system. Understand the Munsell system in depth by tracing its evolution from its 19th century forerunners through to its integration with colorimetry in the 1943 Munsell renotation. Colorimetry. If colour is a perception, what does it mean to "measure" a colour using colorimetry? How does our framework of colour perceptions relate to colorimetry and to the colour spaces used by digital artists?
4. Biology of colour vision. Explore the widely misunderstood physical and biological basis of colour vision at the level of the retina and its bearing on important visual phenomena including brightness and chromatic adaptation, afterimages, fading and coloured shadows. Colour vision deficiencies and other variations.
5. "Colour mixing" processes. When we mix coloured paints or lights, are we really mixing their colours? How does understanding colour vision at the level of the retina help us to understand additive mixture, ideal subtractive mixture, averaging mixture, physical paint mixture and pointillism. Light and lighting. Sources of light, metamerism, colour temperature, Colour Rendering Index and lighting for studios.
6. Colour, light and atmosphere. Understand the zones of light and shadow on and around an illuminated object. What are the effects on these zones of varying the direction, size, distance, colour and number of the light source(s) and the material properties of the object. What are the physical and perceived effects of coloured illumination and intervening atmosphere?
7. Perceiving colours of objects and colours of light. A closer look at how our visual system produces perceptions of objects having relatively stable colours under varying illumination. Learn how controlling colour relationships of saturation and blackness/brilliance in a painting can make an object appear to be consistently illuminated or to be emitting light.
8. Colour constancy and inconstancy. Our tendency to perceive objects as having relatively stable colours under varying conditions, called colour constancy, is very useful for our survival but can cause us difficulties as painters. We discuss how painters can contend with these difficulties and with the difficulties presented by departures from colour constancy such as simultaneous contrast and assimilation.

David’s online studio course is taught through an online platform. He is present in the online studio for the whole session, and he responds directly to student questions in live critiques and discussions.

We are also using Padlet in this course, Padlet is a web application that allows users to post information and images on a digital wall.

Students will be provided with a link to directly access the video conferencing platform and NAS Padlet. The links will be provided close to the date of course commencement. Please ensure you use the links provided to directly access the online platforms.

The course lecturer and NAS team will be able to provide some assistance to students in the initial session, in the event students experience any issues.

Class sizes are limited to a maximum of twelve students.

Student Home-Studio requirements

A computer, laptop or iPad with a good internet connection.

For those doing the practical exercises, a digital camera to submit photos for feedback.

Dr David Briggs is a classically trained painter, art educator and researcher who has taught colour, painting and drawing classes since 1996 and has created online resources on colour for painters since the launch of his website The Dimensions of Colour in 2007. His many publications and presentations, which include a chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour (2020), can be found here. David is Past President, Vice President, and NSW Division Chair of the Colour Society of Australia, Co-Chair of the International Colour Association (AIC) Study Group on Arts and Design and a committee member of the AIC/ISCC Colour Literacy Project and CIE Technical Committee 1-99. David has been teaching NAS Short Courses continuously since 2011 and has previously written and presented a NAS Art History and Theory elective on the history of colour theory and practice.

Students who wish to do the practical exercises must supply their own art materials; please refer to the list of recommended oil painting materials below. Students who prefer to use other media can be accommodated but should enquire to discuss this with David via email before the course.
Oil paints including at least these colours (more if you already have them):

• Raw Umber
• Permanent Rose
• Any black, white, red, yellow and blue
  

Other:

• One tube Matisse Carbon Grey or Golden Neutral Grey No. 5 ACRYLIC paint (both dry to an exact middle grey ground for painting; please do NOT buy other greys like Payne’s Grey etc.)
• Small range of brushes from fine to large, in good condition
• Painting supports, either artists’ canvas (preferably) or sealed heavyweight card or paper
• Palette (wooden, or a small glass clip frame or plate of glass)
• Metal palette knife
• Linseed oil and odourless solvent (small bottles okay)
• Old rags and paper towels