COLORS Part 1! (Patreon)

Soooooo another tutorial request is about how I choose colors!

One of the things on my paintings that I've really been putting a lot of thought about these days is my color palette.

For me choosing colors is the most fun part of the process, my go to colors are always the bold, vibrant and warm! 

WHY ARE COLORS IMPORTANT?????

It helps with the mood of the painting!!

For example,  Cool colors are peaceful and relaxing. Blue and Green are often associated with calm and quiet, and.. sad???

Waterlilies and Japanese Bridge, Claude Monet

The Old Guitarist, Pablo Picasso (and his Blue Period! When he made paintings in mostly shades of blue)

On the other hand, warm colors like yellow, red, orange gives more intensity to the painting and radiates strong energy.

Sunflowers, Van Gogh

The Scream, Edvard Munch

Use of different shades, tones and tints of colors gives depth to the painting!

By understanding colors, you'll be able to put shadows and highlights that are harmonious with the whole painting and would give depth and dimension!! 

HOW DO I REALLY CHOOSE COLORS!

I think I kind of got a decent sense of what colors go with what when I read some stuff about color harmonies!

It was a great guide and really helped me build like.. a sense of what colors go well together. Now, i don't really like... planning it, i usually just go with the colors that would fit the "vibe" of my subject. I'll experiment, change things and colors and composition around until I find it pleasing!

HELPFUL COLOR TERMS!!

You frens might know more about this but I'll just give a short recap on what this shit is all about!!!!! in super simple terms!!!!!!!!! 

Basically, COLOR HARMONY is just a bunch of colors that... look good together. the colors are harmonious hehe

HUE: name of color

VALUE: lightness/darkness of color

value is super important if you want to make objects on your painting appear more.. three dimensional! look at this shit!!!!!

flat color vs if u add different values of the color!! 

TINT: hue + add white

TONE: hue + add gray

SHADE: hue + add black

SATURATION: intensity of color

Here you can see like the saturated red helped make the lamps appear like it's glowing

John Singer Sargent, A Dinner Table at Night

DISCORD:  These colors are super tricky to use, it could be a hit or miss! These colors would clash with your other colors, so it makes it.. eye catching and exciting.  

They're usually widely separated from the color wheel but are not complementary! 

*Some* COLOR HARMONIES:

MONOCHROMATIC: CONSISTS OF ONE HUE

ANALOGOUS: ADJACENT ON THE COLOR WHEEL

COMPLEMENTARY: OPPOSITE OF COLOR WHEEL

SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY:  it's.. basically just the complementary.. but split any side and get the adjacent color. 

TRIADIC: three colors equally spaced in the color wheel

TETRADIC: just two sets of complementary

COLOR WHEEL

HAL REED'S COLOR WHEEL ($27.95)

JILL RIDDER'S COLOR HARMONY WHEEL($18.99)

or you can just use Procreate's color wheel feature! (free if u have procreate hehe)

APPLICATION!!! LET'S MAKE A COLOR PALETTE!

Here's how I decided the colors on this painting using the color wheel and color harmonies!

1. CHOOSE YOUR MAIN COLOR. 

When I saw the reference picture, she was wearing this bright neon orange top, so I just decided that's going to be my main color hehe

Then for the first color harmony, I'm going to check the analogous colors, which is the colors next to the main one! It's kind of like a yellow green and red! 

2. MORE COLOR HARMONY!! 

You can just use one color harmony, (or all of them, you do you) but I always like to go with analogous and add the complementary colors! 

The complementary color of this....... poopi orange is blue!

3. DISCORDS (OPTIONAL!!!)

As I've said, discords are pretty tricky because it's like a very obvious splash of color, but since i like going crazy with colors, I love adding these eye catchers!! 

4. MORE COLORS! ADJUST!

Now that I have these main colors that I'm going to use, I'm going to adjust the values of each colors by adjusting the value bar under the color wheel, make the colors lighter or darker, make tones, tints and shades, and fill the palette!

NOTE: The main color, analogous colors and their adjusted values usually takes up most of the area of the painting. 

For the complement and discord, it would be better to keep it subtle and just around the subject, but you can use it more if it's blended with other colors! 

5. Now I have a color palette!!!! I'm a little freak so I always organize my colors.. it looks better!!! 

Here's how I used the colors!! 

MAIN: the orange and the adjusted values were used on the shirt!

COMPLEMENT: The complement of the orange here is more of like a pure blue, lighter than this one on the painting. And as I've said earlier, it's better to use it subtly if you're going to use the pure color. But if you're going to blend it/adjust the value, you can use it on a larger area. So using it as the background, you can see how the orange and the blue complement each other hehehe 

ANALOGOUS: I used the analogous colors very subtle here because the orange is already overwhelming

DISCORDS: used a poppinggggg pink on the background, some on the shirt and the glasses anddddd the violet was used a shadow on some areas like the neck! 

ADJUSTED VALUES: Thennn I used the rest of the colors around the subject!!!! 

NOTE: I only used analogous and complementary here, but it's fine to start with split, triadic and tetradic! You can also just pick the main color and let that dominate the painting!!! then get the other split/triadic/tetradic colors and use those colors as accents!

I'll make another color palette and make a new painting for part 2!!! 

Maybe I could also make it like.. a line art thingy or... a coloring page so you guys can make your own color palette and apply it to the painting!!!!!!! 

yay