Contrast of Hue

Contrast of Hue

Contrast of hue is a visual representation of undiluted colours at their most intense luminosity. 3 clearly different hues are required and the most extreme instances are when red, yellow and blue are used because they have the biggest difference in hue, however other hues can be used such as green, orange and violet - the tertiary colours although this will decrease the resultant visual effect, as Itten states - "The intensity of contrast of hue diminishes as the hues employed are removed from the three primary colours".

As my given colour is 'Greenery', I intend to look at the interaction between the three tertiary colours here and see how they interact. I will have to change their hues slightly relative to the amount that greenery differs from a standard green hue.

I decided an interesting method to employ would be using coloured filters, comparable to those seen in some specialised camera lenses or in 3D glasses. This is called colour by subtraction; If white light passes though a green filter, only green light is allowed through. This is because the other parts of the visible light spectrum are absorbed by the filter. As a starting point I explored the relationship between the tertiary colours and how altering their hues effected how they were seen through a green filter. I then looked at other colours which when viewed through a green filter, drastically changed in hue due to a distinct lack of green in them, the best example of this was red.

With a selection of swatches; green, purple, orange and red - which when viewed through a green filter were all fairly extremely diminished in brightness except for green, I considered the visual and practical way to present this. I decided it would be interesting to use typography; a sentence with each word sequentially cycling through green, purple and orange and a red background. However when viewed through a green filter, the green words would be considerably more distinct and visible, and would actually spell out another sentence, like a hidden message. In keeping with the themes of nature imbued by Pantone's description and definition of greenery, I used a quote by The Smiths from the song 'Ask' - "Nature's a language, can't you read?" - I then added two words between each of the words in the quote to create a whole new sentence -"Nature's got bad language, so why can't I tell you not to read the green?" - The only exception to this pattern being that I used the letter a from the words bad instead of using the word 'a'.

While exploring contrast of hue and using colour filters, I also discovered a way of intensifying the effects of the vibrating boundaries that occur when viewing two complimentary colours; by looking through a green filter in one eye, and a red filter in the other, while looking at a red and green vibrating boundary. This occurs because while one eye is getting every colour other than red blocked out, the other eye is getting every colour other than green blocked out, and because eyes have a small distance between them, when the brain substitutes for this by combining light from both eyes into one focal point, the boundaries between the two colours are somewhat blurred and there is a visual overlap between the two colours.