Dark, Cold, and Intense...how value, temperature and chroma affect mood

The Tennessee lakes are filled with turtles and also filled with heavy, murky water. How could I express this in my painting for the Radnor Art Show? There were a pair of turtles in a demonstration tank at Lake Radnor Nature Center that I used as models for my underwater painting of turtle life in the South. I laid in the colors dark and heavy and when I view this I feel the mystery and danger of the underwater world. Rather than the typical "calm, hope, peace" that blue and green can evoke, I feel the foreignness of that alien world. 

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​Here is another green & blue painting that does communicate quiet, peaceful rest. Artists work with the properties of color to capture the mood of the scene and subject of their paintings. These properties, again, are:

• Value- the lightness or darkness of a hue
• Temperature- the coolness or warmth of a hue
• Chroma- the intensity of a hue​

In "Heron Hideaway" the blues and greens are warmer hues (even though they are still cool colors) and their values are much lighter on the light to dark scale. Do you notice a difference in your emotional response to this painting and the turtle painting?

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The chroma, a fancy word for intensity, is also at opposite ends in the two examples. "Lake Buddies" is very dark (low key), but also very intense in chroma. The dark, dark blue is almost neon and so is the green area on the left. Even though the heron painting is lighter (high key), the blues and greens are less saturated and lower in chroma. That allows the light feathers to be the star of the show. You can see the reflections of foliage in the water are even lower in chroma. Intense (high) chroma, as a rule, evokes intense feeling and energy and, conversely, lower chroma (as in the heron painting) evokes a more gentle, restful response.
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Stay tuned for more on Mood and Art. Thanks for reading! Leave a comment in the comment box and I will love you!!