The Illusion of Transparency!!

• Simulated Transparency: a type of color interaction where opaque media (like your color aid paper) creates the illusion of transparency. This illusion mimics the effect of two colored sheets of glass laying on top of each other.

• Creating an illusion of transparency asks the artist to visualize what resulting color would be mixed from two parent colors

The colors that are being blended are the ‘parent’ colors, while the resulting color is the ‘mixture’ color

• Actual transparency is using actual translucent materials like glass, filters, or transparent plastics to create color mixtures.

• For this illusion to work, the ‘mixed’ color should not be darker than the darkest ‘parent’ color or lighter than the lightest ‘parent’ color

• It should sit between the two parent colors in saturation also

• If one ‘parent’ has an undertone of a specific color, that undertone should show up in the mixture—IF a parent is yellow-green, there should be a yellow and a greenish tinge to the mixture

In this example, the beige sheet first seems to sit on top of the black square, but on the bottom, the black square is on top of the beige sheet.

The mixture color seems warmer on the top, because the beige sheet seems to dominate. The mixture colors are cooler on the bottom as the black seems to be dominant.

The color that seems to dominate the mixture will be perceived as the transparency on top.

Michael Dotson, a contemporary painter who is working with paint to simulate transparent films

Student example of the illusion of transparency