Your art is coming along nicely, but there is something missing. Something about your drawing that just isnt cohesive, it doesnt meld, it doesnt invoke what you were hoping for, and you are not sure why. Every thing is colored correctly, your trees are green and your sky is blue, but suddenly it hits you: Youre missing out on the real power of Color! Creating a palette or a color scheme for your drawing can help evoke mood and feeling, set location and time of day, season, and many other details that subtlety create a cohesive work of art.Now that you know you need to create a color scheme for your painting, what next? Where should you start? First, you need an idea for a drawing. Lacking an idea? Check out the Current Illustration Contests. Once you have a good idea of a scene, take some time and answer some questions before you start sketching.
All of these questions will help you define what type of lighting will be illuminating your scene. Now to figure out what color palette or color scheme you should use with the lighting you just figured out.
I bet I know what you are thinking now. Something along the lines of "Well, gee, nik, that's really good info to know, but how do I use it?!" Well, lets start at the very beginning:
Everything has a color, right? Kinda In 1671, Sir Issac Newton (you may remember him from such laws as Gravity) postulated that all color was inherent in white light, but different materials reflect different colors in the white light.
Basically, he proved that color is an object interacting with already colored light rather than objects themselves creating the color. A great proof of this is the prism, which takes white light and disperses it so that each wavelength of electromagnetic radiation (light) leaves the prism at a slightly different angle, illustrating the visible spectrum light. The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be seen by the human eye. A typical human eye sees wavelengths from about 380 to 750nm. The visible spectrum starts with violet at 350nm, then indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and finally red.
Wait.... Those color sound awfully familiar, don't they? It almost sounds like a rainbow! That's because a rainbow is a continuous spectrum of the colors of the visible spectrum. A great way to remember what colors are in the rainbow (visible spectrum) is by making the acquaintance of Mr Roy G. Biv. Roy G. Biv is a mnemonic for the sequence of colors in the visible spectrum, in rainbows, and in order from longest to shortest wavelength:
To sum it up more accurately: Everything reflects or emits a specific wavelength in the visible spectrum that our eyes decode as a color.
Everyone remembers the color wheel of our childhood. The kindergarten projects that involved destroying our house looking for appropriately colored knick-knacks that would earn us that coveted star on the homework chart, or perhaps thats just me. Nostalgia aside, the color wheel is one of the most important tools in the artists arsenal. The ways that colors relate to one another have both a mathematical precision and a visceral reaction in much the same way notes in a chord on a piano do. They can be either harmonious or dissonant. Color wheels are also more complicated than they were in kindergarten and they illustrate 3 completely different ways that color works (color models) and 3 standard relationships between colors.
Primary Colors are the main colors needed to mix all other colors. Primary colors come in sets of 3 because of they way the receptors in human eyes work, we have 3 independent channels in the cones of our eyes for conveying color information to the brain.
A secondary color is a color made by mixing two primary colors in any given color model.
A tertiary color is a color made by mixing one primary color with one secondary color in any given color model.
This is the traditional artists' color wheel, also know as the RYB Color Model, or Artists Color. It was originally used for light, and pigment, and to describe how human eyes see light. It's not actually accurate for light, or pigment or eyesight, but it still remains the primary color model that artists refer to.
The Primary colors in this color model are:
The Secondary colors in this model are:
The Tertiary colors in this model are:
Subtractive Color is the color model used with paints, dyes, inks, and other mediums to create a full range of colors. Each medium 'creates' color by subtracting (absorbing) specific wavelengths of light and reflecting the others. The color that a surface displays depends on which colors of the spectrum are reflected for our eyes to see, and what colors are subtracted.While the Traditional RYB color model is technically a Subtractive system, when people use the term Subtractive Color, they are most often referring to the CYM or CYMK color model used in printing.
When the primary colors of a Subtractive Color model are mixed, they produce black. (in an ideal world)
Additive Color is the color model used with light emitted directly from sources combining to create a full range of colors. Lights 'create' color by adding (combining) wavelengths to produce a new wavelength, or color.While a deep understanding of Additive Color is not necessary for the beginner colorist, it does help to explain how different light sources in your art will interact with each other. Additive color is often counter-intuitive to people used to traditional paint mixing.
When the primary colors of a Subtractive Color model are mixed, they produce white. (in an ideal world)
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A Hue is basically a color. When you ask, "What color is that?" your answer is what hue the object is. A hue is an element of the color wheel that refers to a pure color.
Value refers to the relative lightness or darkness of a color as compared to black and white. Pink is a light to medium value, dusty rose is somewhere in the middle and maroon would be a dark value. A series of values from black to white is called a "value scale". Every hue may have an unlimited number of values from very light to almost black.
Saturation is a measure of a color's 'purity' and refers to the amount of pure hue vs. black, white or gray mixed with a hue. A highly saturated color contains a very narrow set of wavelengths and appears much more vivid than a similar, but less saturated color. Think of saturation as inversely proportional to the distance from pure color. A low saturation means your color has a larger distance from its pure base.
The Value and Saturation can be changed with the use of Tints, Shades and Tones.Adding black to a hue creates a "shade" and makes it darker.Adding white to a hue creates a "tint" and makes it lighter.Adding gray or a complementary hue creates a "tone", which may be either lighter or darker.
These all effect each other intimately, and can be confusing, so lets look at an example:You have blue. Pure pure blue.You take some gray paint and mix it in there. Congratulations, you have made a blue tone! You have also lowered the saturation of your blue. Now lets take our blue and add some white to it. Once again, you've made a tone and lowered the saturation, but this time, you have also made a blue tint, and lightened the blues value.Once more with feeling! (I bet you can guess what is going to happen this time, right?) We'll take our blue and add some black! We have still lowered the saturation, but we made a shade this time! Now our blue is dark!Be aware that this is not really the way Photoshop filters and adjustment layers treat saturation. The do not see the addition of white or black, or the transparency of a medium through to the canvas below as altering saturation. However, this is a color for digital painting tutorial, so we are going with the traditional way this is handled in non-digital mediums.
The harmonious color combinations are called color schemes sometimes the term 'color harmonies' is also used.
We can break the color wheel in half to create Warm Colors and Cool Colors. Although there is a correlation to Color Temperature (a measure of light) there is no true science about this break, and everyone perceives warm and cool colors slightly differently. Warm colors include hues from red through yellow, browns and tans included; cool colors are hues from blue green through blue violet, most grays includedWarm colors are vivid, bold, and energetic. They tend to advance in space and can overwhelm less eye catching hues. If an element in your design needs to pop out, consider using warm colors to do that.Cool colors are soothing. They give an impression of calm and rarely overpower the main content or message of a design. Cool colors tend to recede and can be used if some element of your design needs to fade into the background.
Complementary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, red and green, purple and yellow. They contrast, enhance and intensify each other. The high contrast between the tone and hue can be eye catching, but can be overwhelming, especially at full saturation. When you place complimentary colors next to each other, they will make each other appear brighter and more intense.When you mix two complimentary colors you ideally produce gray. In practice, you are more likely to get a grayish brown. You can also use a bit of a complimentary color when you are adding back to a color to offset any hue shift that the black causes.In illustration, a black shadow is often too harsh or jarring. It will look out of place. To correct this, the shadow of an object may also contain its complementary color, for example the shadow of a banana will contain some purple.
The split complementary scheme is a variation of the standard complementary scheme. It uses a color and the two colors adjacent to its complementary. Using split complementary colors can give you a design with a high degree of contrast, yet still not as extreme as a real complementary color. It also results in more variations and subtlety than the use of the direct complementary.If you use a single warm color against a range of cool colors it will put an emphasis on the warm color. This color scheme doesn't seem to hold up well with the use of a low saturation, low value warm, like brown or ocher.
Any color that lacks a strong hue is said to be unsaturated, achromatic, or near neutral. Pure achromatic colors include black, white and all grays; near neutrals include browns, tans, pastels and darker colors. Near neutrals can be of any hue or lightness. achromatic colors are obtained by mixing pure colors with either white or black, or by mixing two complementary colors.This scheme depends on contrast. It also looks clean and elegant can produce a stark, harsh effect.
A monochromatic color scheme is one that uses a single hue. The colors are distinguished entirely by tints and shades. The overall feel is more subtle and peaceful due to a lack of color contrast. Unfortunately, a lack of contrast may be considered boring. This scheme looks clean and elegant, but can lack focus.
Analogous colors are colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. Analogous color schemes are often found in nature and are pleasing to the eye because the combination of these colors can create a bright and cheery effect. This color scheme is also extremely flexible and able to accommodate many changing moods. When you use an analogous color scheme,choosing one color to be dominant can help with focus and contrast. The analogous scheme is similar to the monochromatic one, but offers more nuances.
A triadic color schemes are high-energy colors that are found by choosing three colors that are separated by 120 degrees on the color wheel. The primary (red, blue, and yellow) and secondary (purple, orange, green) colors are examples of triadic colors.This scheme is popular because it offers strong visual contrast while retaining balance, and color richness. The triadic scheme is not as contrasting as the complementary scheme and may look more balanced and harmonious.
Tetrads are any four colors with a rectangular relationship on the color wheel, like double complements. The tetradic scheme can be the richest of all the schemes because it uses four colors arranged into two complementary color pairs. This scheme is hard to harmonize; if all four colors are used in equal amounts the scheme may look unbalanced. If you are having issues with this, you can try choosing a color to be dominant or subduing certain colors.
Color Symbolism and Color Psychology are often referred to interchangeably in the art world. The terms loosely mean, what feelings an image invokes. However, we should really separate these out, because there are two very distinct ways that color influence the meaning and feel of our art.Color Symbolism is the use of color as a symbol throughout a culture.Color Psychology is the effect of color on human behavior and feeling.In Color Psychology, warm colors evoke emotions ranging from feelings of warmth and comfort to feelings of anger and hostility. Cool colors are often described as calm, but can also call to mind feelings of sadness or indifference.Please keep in mind that both of these are highly subjective and very dependent on cultural norms.
Lets look at how the culture of your audience and the culture of the artist can influence the color symbolism in a piece of art.White is often the color of a wedding dress in western culture. It symbolizes purity, a new beginning, peace, and a clean slate. Red is often thought of as the color of lust and passion, and would be a very inappropriate color for a traditional wedding dress. However, if we spin the globe and land somewhere in the eastern part of the world, red would absolutely be the correct color for a traditional marriage dress in multiple cultures as it symbolizes things like luck and purity and integrity. White would be an unfortunate choice as it can mean death.
These are some very basic currently recognized color symbols. They are not complete or absolute. Some will see the symbolism and some wont. Remember that color symbols have changed dramatically throughout the ages, and differ widely between cultures.
White is known for symbolizing light, reverence, purity, truth, snow, peace, innocence, cleanliness, simplicity, security, humility, sterility, winter, coldness, surrender, fearfulness, unimaginative, air, death (in Eastern cultures), life, marriage (in Western cultures), hope, bland, empty (interior) and January (winter).
Black typically symbolizes absence, modernity, power, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, style, evil, death (in Western cultures), fear, emptiness, darkness, seriousness, conventionality, rebellion, anarchism, unity, sorrow, and professionalism.
Gray, somewhere between white (good) and black (evil), is a neutral color. It can symbolize elegance, stability, subtlety, wisdom, old age, pessimism, boredom, decay, decrepitude, dullness, pollution, urban sprawl, balance, neutrality, mourning, or formality.
Red typically symbolizes passion, strength, bravery, danger, energy, fire, sex, love, romance, excitement, speed, heat, arrogance, ambition, leadership, courage, danger, blood, war, anger, revolution, radicalism, Communism, aggression, respect, martyrs, the Holy Spirit, conservatism (US politics), Liberalism (Canadian politics), wealth (China) and marriage (India).
Orange is energy, enthusiasm, 'get-it-done' attitude, and balance. It typically symbolizes Hinduism, Buddhism, happiness, energy, balance, heat, fire, enthusiasm, flamboyance, playfulness, gaudiness, autumn and desire.
Yellow typically symbolizes sunlight, joy, happiness, earth, optimism, intelligence, idealism, wealth (gold), summer, hope, air, cowardice, illness (quarantine), fear, hazards, dishonesty, avarice, weakness, greed, decay or aging, femininity, gladness, sociability, friendship, deceit, hazard signs, death (Middle Ages), mourning (as in Egypt and Frank Herbert's Dune), courage (Japan), royalty (China) and God (gold). Yellow ribbons were worn during times of warfare as a sign of hope as women waited for their men to return.
Green symbolizes intelligence, nature, spring, fertility, youth, environment, wealth, money (US), good luck, vigor, generosity, go, grass, coldness, cunning, jealousy, perverseness (Spain), deceit, disgrace (China), illness, greed, corruption (North Africa), life eternal, air, earth (classical element), sincerity, renewal, natural abundance, health, balance, harmony, stability, calming, creative intelligence, and growth.
Blue can symbolize seas, men, productive, interior, skies, peace, unity, harmony, tranquility, calmness, trust, coolness, confidence, conservatism, water, ice, loyalty, dependability, technology, winter, depression, coldness, idealism, air, wisdom, royalty, nobility, Earth (planet), strength, steadfastness, light, friendliness, peace, mourning (Ancient Iran), truthfulness, love, liberalism (US politics), and conservatism (UK, Canadian & European politics).
Purple can symbolize nobility, envy, sensuality, spirituality, creativity, wealth, royalty, nostalgia, ceremony, mystery, wisdom, enlightenment, arrogance, flamboyance, gaudiness, mourning (Thailand), profanity, bisexuality, pride, riches, romanticism (light purple), delicacy (light purple), and penance. Purple is so heavily tied to the symbolism of royalty because purple dye was so difficult to obtain, that puple cloth was resrved for the nobility from the time of the ancient Egypians to the Middle Ages in Europe.
Pink symbolizes spring, gratitude, appreciation, admiration, sympathy, socialism, femininity, health, love, romance, June, marriage, joy, flirtatiousness, innocence and child-like features.
Brown symbolizes calm, boldness, depth, natural organisms, nature, richness, rusticity, stability, tradition, anachronism, fascism, boorishness, dullness, filth, heaviness, poverty, roughness, earth (classical element), and the quality of being down-to-earth. .
Hopefully this will give you a good idea on how to start building a color scheme for your paintings. This tutorial just barely touched on the complex world of Color Theory, but it will set you on the right track. If you have any questions or want to explore this in more depth, please feel free to site message me or start a thread in the Illustration Forum or start and Art Class.