Wednesday’s Creative Tip: Color Can Compliment

I am still thinking about color and want to pass on a tip I tell my students. If you want to perk up a painting, a room or even an outfit, add a dash of the compliment of the color.

What is a compliment of a color? Remember the 3 pure colors: red, yellow, and blue? No other color combines to produce them, they are pure. However, if you combine them, you will get 3 secondary colors: red+blue=purple, red+yellow=orange, blue+yellow=green. Now if you take one pure color and find the secondary color that does NOT have that pure color in it, it is its’ compliment. Blue’s compliment is orange, red’s is green and yellow’s is purple. In the above painting, Van Gogh painted a field of yellow and added a hint of a lavender mountain range. This gave the painting the extra zip it needed. If he had used say, green, it would have been a pleasant painting, with no excitement.

In this painting, he uses a lot of orange with some blue to give it pizzazz.
Ever wondered why the holiday season is filled with green and red? They are exciting together.

Take a look around you tomorrow and observe when there are compliments together and how dazzling they look.

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