Now let's use a computer to make five colors look like six.
So we've seen with colored paper how we can make three colors look like two
or three colors look like four.
Depends on how you want to really look at that.
The idea is that the same color can look different
on two different backgrounds.
This is the contrast,
the seventh of the evidence
color contrast that we call simultaneous contrast.
That the same color can simultaneously look different
on two different colored backgrounds,
have different kinds of contrast.
So we start this exercise here.
We could easily start it with,
say, three colors and just try to make them look like four,
which is very, very simple.
But a more engaging approach is to make five colors look like six.
So if you create a set of
outlines, it looks roughly like this,
where we have a series of rectangles
that we can fill with colors.
So here we have a background rectangle and then
another one over here, same size.
So one on the left and one on the right.
And then we have a rectangle that moves horizontally across both of these.
And then two smaller rectangles here and here that are going to go on top of this rectangle.
So we have a series of rectangles that will be layered on top of one another in different ways.
So let's begin by colorizing the two background rectangles.
And on one side,
I'm going to put yellows and oranges.
Say yellow here.
That's the outline.
And on the other side,
I'm going to put blue.
And then this middle color is going
to be something that I'll achieve through a blend of these two background colors.
So I'll create a rectangle down below.
Turn off the outline.
Go to my gradient tool.
Create a gradient.
And now I'm going to colorize that gradient
with these background colors.
So now I have a blend of these two background colors.
And I'm going to sample right from the middle of this blend.
And it looks like a fairly nice green color,
which is what you would expect from blending a blue and yellow orange together.
And I'm going to fill this box with this color.
So I'll sample from the middle of this blend.
Like that.
Now, on the top, I'm going to add two more rectangles.
One here in this rectangle is going to be another orange,
a little bit more vibrant.
And on this side,
I'll make a blue.
Make it darker.
Now I'm going to get rid of all of the outlines.
We immediately see that these two colors here and here,
we know that's the same color.
I can move that to the foreground,
and you'll see it's the same color.
Move it to the background.
And on this side,
we see how this rectangle right over here is very light in comparison to this rectangle.
This one looks like a darker muted green.
This one looks like a lighter muted green.
And what's happening here,
just like we described with the colored paper,
is that the background
colors are subtracting themselves from the inset color.
So on the orange side,
the bright colors of the background,
the yellow and the yellow orange,
they're going to subtract their lightness,
make that inside color look darker.
On the blue side,
the blues are going to subtract their darkness and make that inside color look lighter.
So here, the green looks dark.
Here, the green looks light.
They're both relatively desaturated greens.
They're not super vivid greens.
I could make them a super vivid green just to see what it looks like.
And there's a similar effect going on over here.
The green feels light.
Over here, it feels dark.
Let's go back to what we had before,
a little bit more interesting.
Now, if I made this background color even darker,
that green gets even more light.
If I made this background lighter,
so go with a really bright yellow.
Now, that green over here looks even more dark.
So this is the phenomenon of simultaneous contrast.
The same color can look different on two different grounds.
And remember,
I'm going to take these two rectangles away.
That's the same exact color.
We put them back.
Very different.
Again, we take them away.
Same exact color.
Put them back.
Very different.
Simultaneous contrast.
It's a really beautiful idea.
Very interesting effect.
And we don't need
this band down here anymore.
So five colors can look like six.
Again, this is the same color.
Just bring that to the foreground.
So one,
two background colors, two,
three,
four, and five colors.
Just take these two rectangles and I bring them to the front.
Those five colors now look like six.
One, two, three, four,
five, and six.
This is proof that colors are the most relative medium in art.
They're constantly changing.
They're constantly deceiving us based on their context.
Okay, now I'm going to open up the file
that I started working on earlier.
So now, we're going to try to make three colors look like two.
And I've already begun this experiment.
It's a similar kind of construction,
except instead of having all of those
different rectangles, I've reduced it down now to four rectangles.
Two large rectangles for the background.
Two smaller rectangles for the foreground.
Or what we call inset colors.
Now, I've got a system of colors set up here that are working pretty well.
We have two background colors.
Both of them are slightly desaturated,
which by the way,
tends to work a little bit better
than using fully saturated colors.
It's not impossible to do that,
but it looks a little bit better this way.
I have a gradient at the bottom in which I have the two background colors as parents on either end.
In fact, I've sampled this a little bit farther in.
So let me just sample this from the very end of this gradient.
So there's the fully saturated version of that orange.
There's the fully saturated version of that blue.
And the inset colors,
the smaller rectangles here and here,
are sampled from the middle.
Yeah, now this is always talking about finding the middle color.
So you can see what happens as I sample around through the center of this blend at the bottom.
I'm achieving certain effects.
So this small rectangle against the orange looks dark.
Against the blue, it looks light.
And we're starting to see one other thing happening.
So we're subtracting the lightness and the darkness of the background colors.
We're subtracting their values.
But simultaneous contrast also works in terms of subtracting hue.
So we can subtract both value and hue from those inset colors.
So on the orange side,
the orange is subtracting its lightness,
making the inside color look darker.
On the blue side, the blue is subtracting its darkness,
making the inside color look lighter.
Again, if you stare sort of at the center area up here at the top,
the illusion becomes even more prominent.
Now we see that this orange,
not only subtracting its lightness, it's also subtracting its orangeness.
It's subtracting its hue.
And it's making this small rectangle in the middle actually look a little bit blue.
It's subtracting itself, its lightness and its orangeness,
making it look darker and making it look more like its complement.
The complement of orange is blue.
Therefore,
you're subtracting orange, making the inside color look more blue.
Against the blue ground,
the small rectangle looks lighter.
And if you stare long enough,
in this case, it's a little bit hard,
but you can kind of start to see how this square is starting to look a little bit orange.
And you have to stare a while for this to happen.
But I can make that effect even more dramatic.
And Elber's calls this pushing the ground.
So in order to make this inside color look more like this background,
what I need to
do is select the background.
And I'm going to now sample from a little bit closer to the center of this blend.
And as I sample closer to the middle,
what's happening is that this inside color is starting
to look a little bit more like this background,
or vice versa.
The background is starting to look a little bit more like this inset color.
I can do the same thing on the blue side.
Since this inset color on the orange is pretty dull,
I can sample a little bit closer to
the center of the blue spectrum and increase the dullness of that background to make it
look more like the inset color.
So now if we stare up here at the middle area,
we can see that this inset square,
this inset rectangle here,
looks bluish,
dark.
On this side,
the inset looks lighter and starting to look a little bit more orange.
So the key to this,
making three colors look like two, again, one,
two,
and we know that these are the same colors.
If you want to prove that,
it's pretty easy to do.
You just make the connection.
You can take this and just take that.
Bring it all the way over.
You see that's the same exact color.
Now we really see the illusion happening.
So you can try this and you can try it with any pairs of colors that you want.
Try complementary colors.
You can do similar to what we did with the paper where we used grays, we used monochromatics.
It's the same illusion,
same idea.
It's going to be prevalent in both experiments,
any kind of experiment where you're using
contrasting colors.
It really works well with complements.
You really get a dramatic change.
Pretty interesting.
Let's try red and green.
It should be kind of interesting.
So I'm just going to go in and put in a very intense red down here.
Dramatic,
right?
Same thing on the green.
Dramatic green color.
And now I'm going to make a blend and sample those two colors.
And right in the middle,
we have this very dark color.
So let's just see what happens if I take
these and I sample that from the center.
And Albert Zell always says,
find the middle color.
In other words, sample from the middle of the blend.
Now, because these two background colors are about the same value,
we're not subtracting any value.
So the lightness and the darkness doesn't really change very much.
And we can see a subtle change.
How this square, this rectangle against the red,
looks a little bit different than the rectangle against the green.
You can see how the rectangle against the green,
that brown, is a little bit more reddish,
a little bit lighter.
The rectangle on the red side,
definitely darker,
a little bit darker,
not a whole lot darker.
And it's a little bit greener, too.
It's kind of interesting.
So now let's see what happens if I take this red down a bit and try, say,
sampling in a slightly different way.
Reduce the darkness.
Also reduce the saturation slightly.
Same thing on the green side.
Let's take that saturation down.
That's super saturated.
OK.
Keep the darkness.
Let's reduce the saturation.
Now let's sample these colors and basically bring them down into the gradient.
And we can see that the blend has changed dramatically.
And the middle of the blend actually looks pretty gray.
So this should work.
See what happens.
Again, these are complementary colors.
If I sample from the middle of the blend,
I should get a pretty neutral gray,
a little bit brown.
So I'm going to try cooling off the green just a little bit.
Now sample in the center.
So it's more of a blue-green, actually,
which is kind of interesting.
And now let's see what happens to this inside color.
When I sample from the middle of the blend.
Again, Albers always talks about trial and error.
This is such a matter of trial and error.
I'm going to try one more thing.
I'm going to make the green lighter and see what happens.
Keep it fairly desaturated.
Try to blend the same color.
Now I've got two different colors,
complementary colors in the background.
Go down and sample the blend down here.
That's a fairly neutral gray.
So now we're going to stare at this a little while again.
You have to stare at it for a while in order to see the illusion take place.
If we stare right up here at the top where the red and the green intersect,
see how this rectangle is really starting to look very green.
And this rectangle over here
is starting to look more red.
It's not quite approaching the vividness of this background,
but it's getting close.
Same thing on this side.
It's very, very close.
So let's see what happens when we sample this a little bit closer to the center of the blend.
So now it's very intense.
I'm desaturating that background.
And still the goal is to try to make
this color look like that ground and this color looks like that ground.
And when I look at it
individually,
it looks green on this side and red on this side.
Just continue experimenting a little bit.
Make this background a little bit lighter.
Keep the vividness of this.
Sample that new green.
Bring that into the gradient.
Resample the inside.
Still working pretty well.
Desaturate this background just a little bit.
So the goal here is to make this color look more green,
this color look more red.
Again, the longer you stare up here,
the more intense the illusion becomes.
So this is an experiment you can try on your own.
Again, try working with monochromatic colors.
Try working with gray colors.
Gray is the easiest because you don't have to subtract any hue.
You're just subtracting value.
Complementary colors work really well.
Analogous colors sometimes work really well.
But let's move on to the next experiment.
And here we're going to try to make four colors look like three.
This should be pretty interesting.
Let me save this one before I go on.
Always good to save your work.