Complimentary Color Schemes
Montana Horse Gallery, Donna Allen Weber, Fine Artist
Complimentary Color
There's a color theory that states, if your eye looks at certain colors together, your mind will form the color grey. Isn't that weird? As weird as it may be, there's something to it. Here are some examples, stare at blue and orange. There's something about these two colors that you like. It's because your mind is forming a sort of grey made from these colors. Blue and orange are complimentary to each other. They're also directly across from each other on a color wheel. Purple and yellow, the same thing. Green and red, once again, complimentary colors.
If I were to do a painting of this cow, using complimentary color, I first have to decide which color is going to be the compliment for brown. You could say this painting would call for blue as the cow might be more of an orangy brown than a yellow brown. But there are other factors in determining the over all process for complimentary color. The grass is a large part of this scene and it's mostly yellow. As it happens, in this picture, purple is my chosen compliment to the painting. Notice the shadows under the cattle. Cameras create black shadows. The human eye sees color in shadows. You can make black shadows if you wish, or you can throw some color in them and make them sing. Just like the purple color does for this entire color scheme.
In this painting, The Good Bay Mare, I used complimentary colors. For this painting, I chose green and red. You have to go by what you like, and how you want the painting to look. There are many variations on these color schemes. You can choose which greens and reds look best to you as you paint. Some artists like to plan their paintings out by doing tiny paintings ahead of time to see if the painting works. These are called thumbnail sketches. If you want to see how your painting will look ahead of time, do some of these, trying different color schemes as you go. Photoshop is a great tool for this also as you can see in the example above with the cow. If I start a painting and the color isn't right, I adjust it as I go.
Complimentary colors add zing to what can be a boring painting. You can get away with using them because God does it all the time! Our eye is used to seeing the glory of His complimentary colors. Look at the sun setting in a blue sky. Look at the red berries on a bush full of green leaves. I love complimentary colors because they are His colors.
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