Pigments and color
- Pigments are variously colored minerals, salts and oxides that reflect specific wavelengths of light. Usable pigments largely come from a small range of elements, namely lead (82), chromium (24), iron (26), cobalt (27), copper (29), cadmium (48), and, more recently, carbon (6). Combined with a medium, such as linseed oil or acrylic polymer resins, they make paint. Paint can be formulated to a range of characteristics, varying in viscosity, transparency/opacity, and texture.
Color is the narrow range of the electromagnetic spectrum which is received by the rods and cones of the retina. Through the perception of three wavelength signals and one luminance signal, the brain interprets these four measures to create our infinite experience of color perception.
Paint pigments represent a range of colors which differ slightly from the theoretically ideal hues from which most color theories are derived. It is difficult to find three natural paint pigments which form a balanced trio of primaries for additive color experiements. Some complementary colors combine additively to form true blacks, but most form neutral greys or muddy mixtures. Quinacridone Magenta and Pthalo Green will mix to form a true black, an actual tube color produced by Gamblin Colors called Chromatic Black.
Color: Color is a complex feature of all things that reflect and radiate light. Most people think of color as only the hue - or wavelength of light that is reflected or radiated from an object. Our eye-brain system actually perceives several aspects of the characteristics of light which enter the lens of the eye and react with the retina at the back of the eye. Wavelength is one measurment that is made, but so is luminance, or what artists typically refer to as value, as well as chroma, or the relative saturation of a color.