For the third (very nonconsecutive) year, I am bringing back my fine art calendar, Unnameable Colors! This started as a fun gift for friends and family and has escalated year by year. Every year I do it I really up my game as far as digital capture and reproduction of paintings. I thought many of you nerds might enjoy a low-stakes saga in three parts as I work my way towards production this year, so please read on if this interests you. Part one: painting recipes. Part two: color management from subtractive to additive to subtractive. Part three: production. Part one below!
I present a sneak peak of this year’s twist, “Unnameable Colors: Recipes for Mixed Feelings.”
Each painting has a large swatch of a mixed color, and for the first time in this series each painting also has its pigment components swatched next to it in the ratio and order they were added to the mix. I’ve always wanted to do this version of these paintings, but it was too daunting to try and represent the recipes. However, after having fabricated four custom color charts with precise measurements to the hundredth of a gram in the last couple years, I am confident my measurements* are at least somewhat grounded in reality.** Also, my ability to paint straight lines freehand.***
*I did not measure anything by weight in this project, unlike those charts. However, having mixed well over 200 samples of precisely 7.00 grams of paint for prior projects, I believe I am the most qualified person in at least my zip code to claim this.
** Ok and look, considering we are sensing beings under common experiences of perception I think claiming to be accurate at recreating ratios is much, much more likely to be accurate than claiming to be good at recreating the same color. I would call bullshit on even myself for that.
*** The lines aren’t perfect but I am way too busy to be running around with a hair dryer and a dehumidifier and that much low tack tape this year. But I do miss peeling all that tape. Very satisfying. ****
My procedure for doing this was pretty simple. I used dixie cups for containing my mixes, as opposed to mixing on a palette or wax paper. This allows me to get a look at how much of each pigment is in the sample before I mix it. Most interesting I think is this gray below, which funny enough is the first one I did.
I promise you, I mixed this shade because it felt right; not because I was trying to make a neutral color. Perhaps my vocation has drilled a preference for neutrality into my head, but regardless of why: I love this color. The spectral power distribution below (as measured by my Spectro 1 by Variable) is pretty fun, because it’s a little spikey. It’s not really neutral at all – lacking some shorter wavelengths and having much more spectral content above 600 nanometers. If you look at its CIELAB plot, it is much more neutral along the a* axis (red-green) than b* (blue-yellow) which explains the slight warmth. I would say when I look at this painting in person in particular, it feels like it itches my eyeballs in a very pleasing way. I have to wonder if that’s my brain’s interpretation of the spikes in SPD. Not to mention, these mixes are not homogenous so the readings could be different at a different sample point in the painting.
Once I completed the mix, I simply used the pigments in the same order, eyeballing the same ratios in smaller quantities in the area to the right. To include the percentages in the digital versions for the calendar, I simply overlaid a zero to one hundred scale and used that to record the percentage. Ta-Da!
I ended up doing about sixteen paintings this year, as a couple were close to what I wanted but not quite right. Most interestingly I think is the “porange” I started imagining, which is right on the line between hot pink and orange. I used a lot of a new quinacridone magenta pigment this year, which is more translucent and darker than my previous hero quinacridone magenta.
You can see in my first attempt at porange (on the left), I used quinacridone magenta and cadmium orange. I felt it looked a bit busy in the end, so my second attempt that made it into the calendar I tried a very different approach: more of a true red pigment, with a zigzag into a green for depth. I don’t hate either large swatch but I am much more interested in the recipe that includes the green. Here are the SPD’s for each orange.
I could go on for even longer but I will pull myself back. Despite the hot and heavy nerd talk/inclusion of a graph here, the first year I did this series was during the pandemic, and I was extremely attracted to painting colors that took me somewhere else with no reason other than my own experience. Many years ago I got a copy of a book called “Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words” and the attempt to describe liminal states really stuck with me. I find no greater professional joy than having an arsenal full of finely honed technical tools (like studying characteristics of heavy body medium, measuring color samples with a spectroscope, comparing different metals in palette knives), and then being so familiar with those tools I completely forget about them, lean hard out of the technical/into feelings, go into a trancelike fugue state, and do something that’s right simply because it feels like it’s right. Internal data only, baby.
I do hope that comes across when you see the paintings and read the captions. I got to go somewhere when I painted these. I enjoyed the shit out of it. And the idea that people might come with me and entertain a similar thought is just thrilling.
This year I am giving as many copies as gifts as I can afford, but I am also putting originals up for sale. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about doing commercial art while *gestures at world,* but I am of course going to send you another heady email about that whole can of worms in part three: production. In the meantime, please check out the shop if you’re so inclined. And thanks again for letting me tell you a story that took me somewhere else, in silly painted squares of color or long rambly email form.
Rory
**** Are mid-writing footnotes a thing? Body notes? Head notes? Whatever, I’m enjoying myself and you should too.
