Colorist

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See color grading for the topic of motion picture coloring.

See Scottish Colourists for the group of Scottish painters.

In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black and white line art. Originally, this was done by cutting out films of various densities in the appropriate shapes to be used in producing color-separated printing plates. More recently, colorists have worked in transparent media such as watercolors or airbrush, which is then photographed, allowing more subtle and painterly effects. Most contemporary colorists work in digital media using tools such as Adobe Photoshop.

The improvements in the technology used for coloring have had a great impact on the way comics are drawn. Before the use of computers, artists would often use the pen or brush to put in detailed shading effects; now the artist is more likely to leave the drawing open and leave it to the colourist to insert shading through variation in color tones or through adding a layer of translucent black.

Colorists may work directly for comics publishers (either as employees or freelancers), or they may work for coloring studios which offer their services to publishers. American Color is a company notable in this field within the comic strip industry.

Notable colorists in the comics field include Jack Adler, Marie Severin, Glynis Wein, Tatjana Wood, Dave Stewart, Jeromy Cox, Laura Martin, and Steve Oliff.

In painting, a colorist is one following color field painting. This movement is an abstract style that emerged in the 1950s after Abstract Expressionism and is largely characterized by abstract canvases painted primarily with large areas of solid color. The term is also used to describe a painter using strong color skillfully in realistic or impressionist paintings.