Artist Resource no 15: Color Gamut

January 2, 2019 · Ward W. Vuillemot

If you happened to grab a copy of Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painer by James Gurney then you may recall a reference to an image’s color gamut. As useful as that information is, more useful is having a tool that generates a color gamut for you to work from. And fortunately, there are a few tools out there for you!

The first one is free and available online. I personally found it suffers slightly from performance issues on Safari, but works well on Chrome web browsers. I call it out as it is where I first stumbled the idea to create my own reference color palette while watching a video of Dominick Saporano where he introduces the idea during his hour-long demonstration. Take a look at his video to see how he uses the tool in his workflow.

The other tool is iOS and free to try, but costs $2.99 to unlock all its features is Wheel Masks. I truly love the app, and its worth every of is 299 pennies it costs to buy.

Color Masks allows you select any number of pre-defined masks based on various color theories. Do not worry, though, all of it is adjustable.

Another create feature of Color Mask is the ability to export to a number of various formats. If you are using Procreate.app on your iPad then there is a format specifically for that. Otherwise, I find creating an image the most universal format which I personally use when importing into Corel Painter.

Here is the color mask I used for Dragon Doula. I just exported as an image, and then pulled in as a reference photo.

That all said, regardless of whether you use either of the two resources mentioned above or something else entirely (please a comment if you do!), I found the idea of creating my own color gamut for reference in my pieces a great way to ensure harmonious color selection in my pieces. And you own an iOS device then I highly recommend you look no further and get WheelMasks now.

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Ward W. Vuillemot

I'm arguably an amateur artist. What I lack in skill, I hope I make up for with passion.