ANNOUNCEMENT:

Check out my new book, The Art of Notan: An Artist's Guide for Painting Lights & Shadows

Recently, I've been puzzling about why so many art students struggle with seeing how colors behave. Not long ago, one of my students asked me the question: How do we recognize a hue in a neutralized color?  (I learn volumes about painting from questions my students ask me.) Honestly, I did not have a focused answer until I mulled over it for a while.

In spite of all the research into how we learn, our culture still leans towards memorization rather than visualizing.  The memorizing approach will cause an initial explanation of a concept to sound like this:

But if an explanation contains action, we're likely to identify with what's happening rather than strain our brains to understand an idea. Action can kindle an experience. Maybe that's why so many of our historical sages spoke in parables.

PARTICIPATE WITH OUR SENSES

Our bodies are equipped with senses through which we can connect with the world around us. Helen Keller, blind and deaf, discovered through the sense of touching cold water what she described as "the mystery of language."  

Are there senses we can use to help us discover the hue in desaturated colors?

PARTICIPATE WITH SEEING

When we give attention to what a sense is doing, we participate with that sense and experience the information it gives us.  Eckhart Tolle, the renowned teacher of living in the moment, guides us through giving attention to washing our hands by feeling the water, the sensation of the lathering, the smell of the soap, and so on, throughout the activity of washing our hands. This exercise is a short meditation, keeping us in the moment.  

We can have a similar experience by paying attention to what our eyes are registering when we look at color.  That kind of guided attention can help us train ourselves out of the memorizing trap and into participating with seeing.

Look at this:

Disc 1 is the same value, hue and saturation as all the other discs within the squares. (Yes, there is also a disc in square 5). In what way does it appear to be different from the other discs?  

What causes it to appear to be different?

Light and Shadow: The one thing that lets our eyes see.
Visual Movement: What our eyes do when images are visible.
Seeing Beyond the Image: The possibilities beyond just describing what our eyes see.
Freeing the Artist Within (Curiosity): Finding our individual interpretation to what our eyes are seeing. 
Composing:  Finding ways to put together all that we discover.
Drawing:  Searching the potential of images.
The Craft:  Continually forging our skills to visually communicate what we continue to discover with our eyes, mind and soul.

And the eighth:

The Art:  The results when all the above are working together.