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Notes on Colour Theory

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Written by: Rod Boyle
Category: Ideas & Questions
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I have a problem with the colour nomenclature, wherein every brand of paint supplier has their own trademarked name or way to announce their colours, which are practically near 0 value to the artist. Having begun a series of exercises to familiarize myself with the colours currently in my possession I'm still annoyed that this is and issue.

So I had the idea to correct this, and hopped onto ChatGPT for some advice:

I paint, and as such have noticed what I believe are problems in the way that colours are labelled. For example, "Bright Red/Green/Sky Blue/Scarlett" etc, or the more classical names of "Paynes Grey", "Sap Green" etc, etc. They do not give the painter any idea of the hue (what colours they shift towards), transparency (some paints provide an icon that indicates transparency/opacity), their basic Chroma (light Value), Permanence, etc. Can you propose a colour naming scheme that assigns values to all these things and can be used by artists to determine practically what they need?

Yes. What you are describing is essentially the gap between marketing names and practical pigment information.

Traditional paint names evolved historically from:

  • pigment source (“Burnt Sienna”)
  • poetic descriptors (“Cerulean Sky”)
  • proprietary branding (“Permanent Rose”)
  • obsolete chemistry (“Indian Yellow”)

…but painters actually need operational information:

  1. Hue bias
  2. Transparency
  3. Chroma
  4. Value
  5. Permanence
  6. Tinting strength
  7. Granulation/staining (watercolour)
  8. Drying speed/oil absorbency (oil)
  9. Pigment composition

A genuinely useful naming system should function like:

  • a musical chord notation
  • or a camera lens specification
  • compact but information-dense.

Below is a proposed system designed for practical studio use.

The Practical Artist Pigment Code (PAPC)

The idea:

Every paint receives:

  1. A readable common name
  2. A compact technical code
  3. A standardized data order

Example:

Cadmium Red Medium
R-O15 C8 V4 T1 P9

This instantly tells the painter:

  • hue location
  • hue bias
  • chroma
  • value
  • transparency
  • permanence

without needing swatches.

1. HUE SYSTEM

Instead of vague names like “Warm Red” or “Sky Blue,” every colour sits on a hue wheel.

Primary Hue Letter

Letter Hue
R Red
O Orange
Y Yellow
G Green
C Cyan
B Blue
V Violet
M Magenta
N Neutral

Hue Shift Number

A 0–99 number indicates position toward adjacent hues.

Examples:

  • R00 = neutral red
  • R15 = orange-shifted red
  • R85 = magenta-shifted red

Thus:

  • “Scarlet” might become R18
  • “Alizarin Crimson” might become R82
  • “Sap Green” might become G28

This solves the biggest painter problem:

“Which way does this colour lean?”

2. CHROMA SCALE

Measures saturation/intensity.

Code Meaning
C0 Neutral grey
C1–3 Muted/Earthy
C4–6 Moderate
C7–8 Strong
C9 Near spectral

Examples:

  • Yellow Ochre = C3
  • Ultramarine = C6
  • Phthalo Blue = C9

3. VALUE SCALE

Lightness/darkness.

Code Meaning
V0 Black
V9 White

Examples:

  • Payne’s Grey = V2
  • Raw Umber = V3
  • Lemon Yellow = V8

This helps painters predict mixtures.

4. TRANSPARENCY

Code Meaning
T0 Fully opaque
T1 Semi-opaque
T2 Semi-transparent
T3 Transparent

Examples:

  • Cadmium Red = T0
  • Quinacridone Magenta = T3

This is critical for glazing.

5. PERMANENCE / LIGHTFASTNESS

Standardized 0–9.

Code Meaning
P9 Extremely permanent
P7 Professional archival
P5 Moderate
P3 Fugitive
P0 Extremely unstable

This avoids confusing ASTM/I/II/etc.

6. OPTIONAL SPECIAL PROPERTIES

These could be appended depending on medium.

Watercolour

Code Meaning
G Granulating
S Staining
L Lifting

Example:

Ultramarine Blue
B78 C6 V3 T2 P9 G

Oil Paint

Code Meaning
D1–5 Drying speed
O1–5 Oil absorbency

Acrylic

Could include:

  • gloss level
  • flexibility
  • UV resistance

FULL EXAMPLE CONVERSIONS

“Sap Green”

Traditional name tells almost nothing.

Proposed:

Sap Green
G25 C4 V4 T2 P6

Interpretation:

  • green leaning yellow
  • medium chroma
  • mid-dark
  • semi-transparent
  • moderately permanent

“Payne’s Grey”

Payne’s Grey
B65 C1 V2 T1 P8

Interpretation:

  • blue-violet neutral
  • low chroma
  • dark value
  • semi-opaque

“Cadmium Yellow Light”

Cadmium Yellow Light
Y08 C8 V8 T0 P9

Meaning:

  • slightly orange yellow
  • intense
  • light value
  • opaque
  • permanent

“Quinacridone Magenta”

Quinacridone Magenta
M10 C9 V4 T3 P9

Meaning:

  • slightly violet magenta
  • ultra high chroma
  • transparent
  • archival

WHY THIS WOULD WORK

Advantages Over Traditional Names

1. Predictive Mixing

Artists can estimate mixtures before touching paint.

2. Cross-Brand Consistency

A “Scarlet” from one brand differs wildly from another.

But:

R18 C8 V4 T1 P9

is universal.

3. Teaches Colour Theory Automatically

Beginners learn hue bias immediately.

4. Works Across Media

Oil, acrylic, gouache, watercolour.

5. Compact

Small enough for tube labels.

IDEAL LABEL FORMAT

Example tube:

Quinacridone Rose
M22 C8 V5 T3 P9 S
Pigment: PR122

A painter instantly knows:

  • cool magenta-red
  • high chroma
  • transparent
  • permanent
  • staining

FURTHER IMPROVEMENT: SPECTRAL POSITION

For scientific precision, you could optionally encode actual:

  • dominant wavelength
  • Lab coordinates
  • Munsell notation

Example:

R18 C8 V4 T1 P9
Lab(52, 68, 34)

But most painters probably do not need this.

THE BIGGEST INSIGHT

Painters do not actually paint with “names.”

They paint with:

  • hue relationships
  • transparency
  • value structure
  • chroma hierarchy

Traditional naming obscures this information.

Your instinct is essentially pointing toward a:

“Periodic table for pigments.”

And honestly, painting has needed one for a long time.

You may also find it interesting to compare this idea to:

  • Munsell color system
  • CIELAB color space
  • Natural Color System

—all of which solved parts of the problem, but not specifically for painters in studio practice.

This is one of the more Intelligent Uses for ChatGPT I've come up with. 

Locker, Books, Art Supplies

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Written by: Rod Boyle
Category: Blog
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This morning, courtesy of friend (I hate asking for help, but until I get car there's no other choice) I take a ride to the locker. Drop off one of Milan's paintings (a less favoured one), and then pick a few boxes to take with me. 

2 Boxes of books to process, and 1 1/2 boxes of art supplies.

Start with the art supplies, sort into boxes. 1 box for Watercolours & Tempura, 1 for Oil Pastels, and the last for pencils and charcoal. This leaves me with a pile of ink and cartridges, these I add to already started boxes of the same. A big box of pen nibs, a dozen, 2 dozen nib-holders, jars of ink, a collection of broken lighters (some still working), some fine vintage fountain pens - of note a Sheaffer and a Waterman, a dozen Cross pens, silver and gold, boxes of sealing wax, more ephemera...

It's always the same stuff I'm finding, over and over again, more pens, more nibs, paint, pencils, etc, etc.

A couple of "fly-tiers" - good, for the detail oriented hobbyist, and that's it. 

One of the art boxes needs to be scrubbed, a mouse got in, gnawed through a tube of watercolours, sterilize, get rid of the droppings, just you wait, I'll be the next Hantavirus case...I wonder why only one? And, remarkably, for things I haven't touched in 30+ years, some still with the Czech label, they're still good...

When all is sorted - a box and a half, and there's more, always more, but thankfully that's left in the locker, it's on to the books. Only two boxes, and not packed in any sort of order, the son has mixed in a few of his (interesting taste, I much say), then take half a box to the used bookstore. At this rate it's going to take me months, but - better that than they tell me to piss-off, which would doubtless come about if I overwhelmed them. My credit there is huge, and in 4 or 5 months I won't be surprised if I own the place...

Now, to the library...

Members Show (II)

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Written by: Rod Boyle
Category: Blog
Hits: 31

So again on my day off to survey the members show & sale, now noticing how many pieces have sold and how off-the-map the pricing is. 

For example, someone's created a hand-drawn bat to place in your window to keep birds from crashing. Very creative. He wants $500 for it. I want to say it's a joke, but you can't be sure around here...

Another, a linocut for again $500 - and - yet again, given you can buy an original oil or acrylic for the same price, who's going to pay that?

A fine felted wall hanging - $3500 -  and while I appreciate the work that went into it $3500 is a big price for something that's going to attract dust...

Then there are the "prints on canvas" - another peeve of mine, they are never "limited", always too expensive (even if you wanted one); the artist currently hanging his work in the restaurant at the moment is the same - you're buying an unlimited run of prints on canvas for the price of an original. That said, the one selling out of our restaurant has now sold I think about 6 paintings, and he has work hanging in the art gallery, in Salmo, other places, and so - while it might annoy me he's clearly got the selling part of the business down...

"Don't Panic" and other tales...

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Written by: Rod Boyle
Category: Blog
Hits: 32

In the news quite literally nothing of interest, despite the pundits predicting the war in Iran and the inevitable outcomes of this. Just more Israel behaving badly, more nonsense from the US, nothing ever new, just more of it.

Oh, wait - the Hantavirus outbreak on the Cruise Ship. That was interesting, although it's already had it's run in the news - for a bit the human-to-human transmission was looking like we could be on to another Covid, then it disappeared; we'll see if it comes into play again. I can't help but think:

Don't dismiss
The Hantavirus
- it's foreshadowing a plague bubonic

Given the last pandemic was filled with similar misinformation and given as well the fact the current administration has proven even more incompetent/indifferent than it was last round I'm not yet convinced this is a dead story...

***

Meanwhile, when not fretting the state of the world; some efforts at painting - abstract, I've been enjoying Chris Loud's YouTube Channel, although I have to say my results vary a great deal from his (how is this possible that I can fuck up even abstract art??!!), some other YouTube prospectors including Everything is Spirit; and Barry's Economics although I find myself too much in agreement; and really would like once in a while to be exposed to a different point of view (one differing from mine own). Not the standard imbeciles that ornament the right side of the political spectrum, just something different.

Social Media, Facebook and it's buckets of AI generated slop; formerly comics of Gary Larson with the captions that made sense of the cartoon cut off, now it's AI drivel “after the style of" Gary Larson with nonsensical images and punch lines. Low effort engagement - but - hey -"made you look!!". 

Digging out the art supplies again, inspired by Chris Loud, trying again the fluid acrylics only this time it's not working, not at all, and this - as I discover later in an "aha" moment is because the Floetrol has separated, try again after shaking and it works, after a fashion, although I'm going to have to tweak the recipe...

Outside, have a cigarette, feed the crows, the pigeon has proven fearless, landing beside me, trying to get on my lap or land on my head, a passer-by notices and congratulates me on my pet; the pigeon, meanwhile, is making love to my shoe, which I suppose makes sense as it's the hand that drops the peanut but the shoe that crushes it so the pigeon can eat it...

The crows, they'll play fetch for a bit and then get bored and carry on about their day, this pigeon, it's non-stop, and I'm half curious to go out with a full bag of peanuts and see how much it can eat, really, I mean it's pretty fat as is, I don't think it would stop...

And I am broke, not of my own bad money management but I've let a few paydays slide and I really must get a little more insistent, out of vodka, cigarettes, an empty fridge and a neighbour that constantly needs to borrow money and forgets to repay it; when I announce I'm out of cash she's over raiding my fridge, despite my having an empty fridge and hers being full she's taking the last of my tomatoes, sauce, she means well but it's getting a bit maddening...

Which catches us up to today...now to text work and see if I can claim on an old payday, get back to the flat and try painting again; see if I can't get a proper "acrylic flow recipe" going; find the next book to read; tonight, at work, a wedding, it's going to be loud, long and late and I need to find some way to psychologically prepare...

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