Split Complementary Color Scheme

Using a split complementary color scheme is another great choice for your painting. With this scheme, instead of choosing the complement of your first color choice, shift to the two colors adjacent to the complement. As an example, take a look at these:


First choice: Yellow (Primary) - it’s complement is violet, but to use a split complement, you jump to the color choice on the side of violet. Make this choice on both the right side and the left side of violet and you get a split complement color scheme. What color is it? Here they are… Yellow, blue violet, red violet.

First choice: Red (Primary) – it’s complement is green, but to use a split complement, you jump to the color choice on either side of green. What color is it? Here they are… Red , yellow-green, blue green.

First choice: Blue (Primary) – it’s complement is orange, but to use a split complement, you jump the color choice on either side of orange. What color is it? Here they are… Blue, red orange, yellow orange.

Many painters have solved the problem of making mud by applying the lessons learned by using the split primary color choices. Making mud is not always a bad thing, but to know how one gets there is a real break thru. In the end, it’s up to the artist to make color choices based on knowledge of the palette of colors normally set down by them. It’s fun to take apart the different color theories and test-drive them using our own colors in our paintings to see what happens.

Callaway painter Durinda Cheek has a watercolor painting of a red door that demonstrates the use of a single primary color (red) and choosing to use different values of yellow greens and blue greens to complete her painting. Durinda is an excellent artist and workshop instructor equally talented and knowledgeable in many mediums but best loves watercolor and oil. You can see more of Durinda’s work at www.durinda.com and keep up with her by visiting her newly created blog http://artisttravels.blogspot.com/



The next time you are setting up your palette, think in terms of the color wheel and see if you can make some choices based on the split primary color choices. If you are like me, you will be confused and confounded by what you learn and will begin to have even more questions about color and what makes them work for or against each other. This is one of the reasons there are so many different color theories for us to explore, learn from, or discard.

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