Here's a couple of terrific magazine covers. I'm especially interested in the way they're colored. Can any painter out there explain the color schemes to me?Using my color wheel I see that the girl in the cover above seems to be orange and blue which are complimentary colors. The guy seems to be a double split complimentary with red and violet facing green and yellow. I love how he's a dark silo against white while she's a light area almost totally enclosed by darks.
The cover above seems to be done in analogous colors: from blue-violet all the way around the color wheel to yellow-green. No blues, no pure greens. Once again the guy is a dark silo against light color and the girl is light totally surrounded by dark.
Can anyone who knows more about color than I do add to what I've said here? I know what I've written doesn't begin to describe what's really going on here.
15 comments:
I thought the Spumco guys hated red, purple, and green ;)
These covers are hella interesting, Uncle Eddie.
Even with complimentary color schemes, I've been told to start with a base color and add accents using harmonious colors.
You end up with something that's more graphic and idealized than photographic.
These seem to mix two different styles. They're photographic in their range of colors, yet graphic in their application.
As if it was photographed with colored lights.
Anonymous!
"HELLA"? how dare you say such a crappy, MTV, youth-slang, awful gross, word on my friend eddie's blog!
Warning: irksome grammar police section
ComPLEmentary colors. Not comPLImentary. I know, nobody likes a stickler...
One reason I can think of for the artist's color choices is that juxtaposing complementary colors is an easy way to create depth and dynamism; for pulp illustration purposes, it gets the job done quickly, and the cover pops off the stand so that sleazy, maladjusted creeps will buy it more quickly. Doing a full-on, dimensional painting would take a "hella"--I'm with you, Marlo, that obnoxious word stuck in my craw too--lot longer.
I wonder about blue a lot. It seems so absent from the palettes of the 40's-60's, I wonder if it was just a difficult pigment to work with. There must be some reason that print media was once so dominated by the red/yellow combination. (I've got a good example of that on my puny little blog page, a scan of a bizarre household product's packaging. Classic.)
I mean, why use two inks that don't create a third color when overlapped?
Last night we were blasting fireworks, and I asked why there were so few blue fireworks. (I love blue fireworks.) It costs a lot of money to make them, was the answer I got. Unstable chemicals, something like that. Hmm. And of course, blue oil paints are among the most expensive.
Color: A Natural History of the Palette has entire chapters on each color, and the story of ultramarine and its impact on art history is a lot more interesting than it sounds. Such politics!
I like the contrasting, complementary color schemes. The reasons why I like these paintings deals more with personal preference and less with color theory...harmonious, matching items are boring, inactive and inert.
Coolio, Marlo!
Steve Doggie-Dogg
I'm not much for being any colour expert, but it seems to be a take of expressionism. The colours used for the guy in the "G Man" painting make him look dangerous and mysterious: shadowy red & violets and the exciting green and yellow. The darkness around the girl may signify the unknown perils surrounding her.
In the second one once again are the menacing shadows about the girl and the hanged man is ghoulishly darkened with voilet with an eerie green light around him. Purple and gree nare excellent "zombie/death colours".
There's kind of a psychedelic quality to these also, I think, and these remind me a lot of Basil Gogos' work.
I love Marrrrrlo! Hella babe!(but that wasn't me, that there anony, I swear!). ; D
Eddie--who among the great color stylists in animation do you love or not? Are you a lover of Mary Blair? Say what you will, she certainly pushes the envelope(we're just all used to seeing her strange pallette by now, but it's still stunning imho).
I wonder what Bruce T. would say...he learned a lot from these covers(and even did a couple of throwback stylings of pulp reissues himself, for reprintings)--I know he'd be able to tell you. You should have asked him! Eric would know too...and so would a lot of those guys. I don't(except what you've already written--I have my color wheel too, heh)...I hope someone does break it down for you(and us). I like what anon. said about "colored lights"...true. It is like weird gels.
btw--*Happy Independence Day!* Are you going to drop some menthos into a liter of diet pepsi tonight? That seems like something you'd do.
By the way, I know "expressionism" is pretty much all art, but I'm not too keen on art terms so I couldn't think what else to say. Sorry! >.<
marlo - you must try saying hella with my russian accent. it makes it less MTV and more eddie blog friendly.
Eddie you rock!
nuff said
(A) Regarding the comment about the absence of blue...I wonder if there's a technological reason for that. As I recall, early Technicolour (the two-strip type) was very good for some colours (like turquoise and yellow), but terrible for certain colours, especialy blue. Skies tended to turn funny colours in some early productions. It's one reason they flaunted blue serapes in "La Cucaracha," the early 3-strip live action short. A parallel, perhaps, in printing?
(B) I hope you get better soon, Mr. Fitzgerald. One wishes there was a way to commission artwork.
Those cover remind me of the color in Mario Bava's films. Maybe you're not familiar with his stuff, Eddie, but his films are full of color while being also dark and scary, they look a lot like those covers, maybe you should check them out some time. Eerie but colorful is so cool!
Such wonderful colors! I see pantone 260 and 180! Yay!
Gabriel: I did check out Mario Bava! Those are weird colors alright! I think I've seen one or two of his films but only the color made an impression.
Jenny: Menthos into a liter of Diet Pepsi? What is a mentho? It sounds like a cough drop.
Eric: Sure, I'd take a commission or two. I'll be busy for a couple of weeks but if you're still up for it after that then let me know!
Howdy Eddie. Cool Blog. I just stumbled onto it tonight and I'm so glad I did.
What about the "warm light - cool shadow / cool light - warm shadow" thing. It seems to me that is a graphic tool the illustrators used to set the pages on fire. And, both covers employ the tactic of warm light - cool shadow for the female and cool light - warm shadow for the male. That such colour combinations would require complex lighting in real life is, no doubt, what keeps us all looking for logic in the pictures. Of course, that logic is probably symbolic.
I don't know about you but, I find a colour wheel far to restrictive. A colour grid seems to alleviate some brain cramps.
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