Human Error: Watershed 3; Creek Bed; October 11, 2014; 3:43 PM

The range of colors produced from translating digital chromatic data to oil paint hues

On October 11, 2014 I collected three sets of chromatic data from Watershed 1, Lookout Creek, and Watershed 3 in the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest at their respective gauging stations between 10:55 AM and 3:43 PM with a Canon 6D camera. A white rock was placed in the creek beds to provide a neutral reference point to compare the colors of the perceptual color of the water isolated from the overall perceived color of the creek as created by the creek bed and reflected colors of the surrounding landscape and sky, and the total color of the creek as it is perceived within the landscape as a whole. Three times throughout the collection period, images were captured every minute for the duration of 10 minutes. Color corrections were made out-of-camera to the raw image files user an X-Rite ColorChecker Passport to ensure color consistency. Each image was gridded. Two sets of chromatic values were gathered from the same 16 locations on each of the photographs, one set of values representing the creek bed and ambient colors, and the other set representing the values of the water and the white rock. The resulting paintings of the chromatic progressions are found in Ambient. The color accuracy in the paintings relies on the accuracy of the image capture, processing and printings techniques, as well as my own ability to match the colors accurately when I translate the digital information to oil paint. Human Error explores the range of colors I am capable of creating as I attempted to match the colors that I produced digitally.