Working with Color Harmonyyyyyy (Patreon)

Hi frens! One of my frequently asked questions is how I choose my colors and.... honestly I wing it EVERY time. I really love experimenting with colors and it's kinda a hit or miss for me so I always end up using the primary colors lmao but!!! I've kinda been researching and reading stuff about color theory and color harmonies! And I decided to apply it to one of the WIPS I posted here for Pooptober!

This 15 minute WIP:

To this!

Honestly, without the color harmony, I'd probably still choose these colors, still kinda ranging with the primaries... maybe next time I'll go out of my comfort zone!! I have a hard time with greens and pinks, mostly cool tones.. So umm maybe that's it for the next one!

So COLOR HARMONY is basically working with color combinations that are aesthetically pleasing. If you're using Procreate, it's very easy to choose the analogous, complementary, split complementary, triadic and tetradic. 

My main color is kind of a brick orange/red! Used it on most parts, the background, her lips, eyes, cheeks! Used the colors next to it, which is the ANALOGOUS COLORS, for smaller details. Values of yellow on that background details and lighter values of yellow on her hair! The yellow is very light on the hair but you can still see it, right?!

COMPLEMENTARY COLORS are direct opposites of each other in the color wheel.  I read somewhere that you don't have to use large doses of complementary colors in your painting because it can be overwhelming to the eyes. But what can I do peeps.. I always go all out!! So here I used the brick red for the most parts and shades, and added the complementary color blue on the half of the background. Well I think it works!!!

TRIADIC COLORS are three colors evenly spaced out around the wheel. These colors are not apparent on this painting, and triadic colors are often just used to keep the balance of the painting, let the first one dominate the painting (brick red!) and use the other colors for accents and shades. I used a darker hue of green for the dark parts of the hair and if you look closely, i put the blue violet on the shadows of the face. Near the eyes, the shadows on the cheeks, under the lips and chin! 

I enjoyed placing the triadic colors because it brought life to the painting! If you look back at the original  15 minute painting, the colors are very flat. It's mostly the main colors of her skin tone and a little bit of the red for her cheeks. With the triadic colors for the shadow, it gives the painting more definition, makes it look more realistic! 

Chart of the color harmonies I used! There's still Tetradic, Monochromatic and Split Complementary!

I mentioned earlier that I used lighter values of Yellow for the hair! From what I understood, you really don’t have to use the exact color from the color harmonies, you can use lighter/darker values of that color to adjust the contrast, so it’s not too overwhelming.  On the hair, I used a lighter value of yellow, which is analogous to my main color, red. If you’re using traditional paint, you can achieve this by adding white/gray/lighter shade of yellow. 

andddd here’s the final painting! My color harmony wheel just arrived today so ummm if You guys like me to do more closer look to my paintings, I’m gonna do moreee!!!