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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Monochromatic color scheme

Monochromatic means that the entire painting is organized around just one color on the wheel then using different values of that color to complete the painting. When you decide to make use of a monochromatic color scheme, value is of upmost importance and of course is a great exercise to use when you are working on getting the values correct in your paintings.

Value is the relative lightness of darknes of a color. If you don't already have a value chart to help you, go to Sherwin Williams and pick up one of the free paint selection strips that take you from a dark color to a light version of that same color. Cannonball D45-7 to Abalone D45-1 is a good gray scale and is marketed as D45 in their color selection strip charts. Using that to judge the relative lightness and darkenss of a color will help you better define your values and serve as a check point for you.

Callaway painter Barbara Robinson has a good example of a monochromatic color scheme in this painting. Good job Barbara.


11x14 oil, "Storm Coming"

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Triadic color scheme

Triadic color schemes are based on three colors spaces more or less evenly around the color wheel. The colors you choose could be high-croma colors like cadmium yellow, cadmium red medium and cobalt blue or it might be colors that are more muted like burnt sienna, yellow ochre and ultramarine blue. You might think that for a painting to fall in this category the colors you would select would have to be primary colors, but that's not so, they could be three secondary colors.

In using a color scheme like this, be careful not to use equal amounts of the colors because you will lose your dominant color factor.

In looking for a painting that would fit this category I ran across a delightful painting by Callaway Painter member BJ Wright. While I haven't seen this painting in person, it looks like she has used a triactic secondary color scheme to set this painting up by using orange and green and violet as her color notes. She uses the dark violets under the trees to confirm depth and the cool of the forest, and the dominate green we all have in the south during summer, then she uses red-orange in the foreground to draw attention to the Queen's Anne's lace that was her inspiration for this painting.


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10" x 8" oil on canvas covered hardboard - painted en plein air, alla prima "Queen Anne's Lacy Meadow" B.J. Wright See more of B.J.'s work by visiting
http://beejw.blogspot.com/
Paying close attention to the colors we use will help us all learn more and more about what makes some of our paintings successful and some not. I painted at the Callaway butterfly center Saturday morning for about 2.5 hours until the air started to heat up and never could get the roof angle right, so I’ll try again, or maybe I'll take the advice that has been given to me many times and just simplfy what I'm painting and not try to paint EVERYTHING. :) With a few minor value changes back in the studio, I might be able to save the right side of this painting. Thank goodness for saws. :) Or, I might take this back to the butterfly center and work on this a bit more. Whatever I decide to do, the value of painting outside with lessons learn can not be replaced.

Analogous Color Scheme

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Last Spring some of you may have met Callaway Painter member Jim Carpenter who came up from Florida to paint the azaleas and spend some time with his brother who lives in Columbus. Just like so many of us, Jim said he was overwhelmed by the mass and color of all the azaleas at Overlook Garden and the Brother's Azalea Bowl. Even so, Jim painted for days and managed to take some photographs to use later as reference.

Jim will be showing his work at the Melrose Bay Gallery in Florida during the month of September. Take a look at the gallery http://www.mbagallery.smugmug.com/. While you are surfing around, take a look at Jim's elegant web site, http://www.carppaints.com

Looking at Jim's painting of the azaleas at Overlook Gardens, Callaway, I am immediately taken back to spring and the wonderful weather we had then. Jim's painting takes advantage of another of the Five Great Color Schemes that most successful paintings are based on, which is an Analogous color scheme.

Analogous means "nearly the same, or similar." In theory, this color-scheme utilizes colors beginning with a primary and moving about three or four intervals in either direction on the wheel. In practice, it often begins anywhere and might stretch as many as five or six intervals.

Jim's painting is a perfect example of using an Analogous color scheme. Painting the masses of azaleas at Overlook is interesting and fun to tackle the problem of getting a full-value painting knowing your painting is going to be mostly analogous colors. Jim shows us how using a variety of reds, yellows, and greens which are all adjacent to each other on the wheel. Notice what colors Jim has used in his background to show depth and air space. It's not blue sky! In this piece, Jim keeps his analogous color scheme going right up to the background air space between the trees.

One thing I am working on is to be careful not to paint the azaleas as little muffin puffs. Jim again shows us how to capture the true nature of the azalea branches and does a good job of keeping his dark passages and light passages connected to each other so no one passage is left like a little island with no friends around.

Good job Jim and thanks for send it in! Wishing you the best of gallery sales in September, Phyllis

Complementary Colors

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Callaway Painter Betty McLendon has been busy in her studio working from plein air studies and photographs taken this past Spring at Callaway Gardens. Yesterday she mailed me a butterfly and peony painting that's on her easel now. This is an acrylic painting on 16x20 panel. While looking at it, it occurred to me that this is a great example of using complementary colors, which is one of the five great color schemes that most successful paintings are based on.


Complementary colors are directly opposite each other on the wheel. Color contrast is at a maximum. This painting plays up the red-orange tones of the peony against the blue greens of the trees and lake.

In a complementary scheme, as in any color scheme, there has to be dominant and subordinate colors, just the same as with masses and values. In Betty's painting she has placed the peony and butterfly in the foreground so the predominance of green-blue in the background will make the red-orange peony stand out. If she had chosen a different color for the peony she would have lost some of the pop this painting has. This painting is also a good example of using warm and cool colors to play against each other.

To make the trees go back even more all Betty has to do is make some value changes to go lighter and use softer edges with the background greens and blues creating the allusion of air space or distance. Using this same palette Betty can make a variety of greens which is another thing that is fun to experiment with and something I’ve been working on with my paintings this year.

Good job Betty.