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| Tina Louise, Katherine Ross and Paul Prentiss in Stepford Wives, 1975 |
I was wrong! The subtle double-takes of women I encountered while dressed like a candy cane clearly delivered that message.
Making good colour choices is not something that comes naturally to most of us. If it were taught in school I believe the world would be a more beautiful place. What finally helped me with colour was discovering the colour wheel.
The colour wheel gives us a way of looking at colour that allows us to easily
pick colours that work well together. There
are a number of simple colour schemes that are commonly used to create very
sophisticated colour combinations.
1. Complementary Colours
This colour scheme allows for high contrast combinations. Pick any two colours across from each other on the wheel, like violet/yellow or blue/orange -- these are winning combinations. Pairing a warm and cool colour in this way creates balance. Warm colours, yellow, orange and red, can easily overwhelm cooler tones, green, blue and purple, so for the sake of harmony it is wise to use more of the cool colour and less of the warm one.
This colour scheme is rich and earthy. Pick any three colours adjacent to each other on the colour wheel, like red, red-violet and violet. To achieve harmony with these colour combinations one of the three tones should be made dominant.
Sometimes people push this scheme and pick adjacent colours more distinct from each other on the wheel like red, violet and blue. This works too!
1. Complementary Colours
This colour scheme allows for high contrast combinations. Pick any two colours across from each other on the wheel, like violet/yellow or blue/orange -- these are winning combinations. Pairing a warm and cool colour in this way creates balance. Warm colours, yellow, orange and red, can easily overwhelm cooler tones, green, blue and purple, so for the sake of harmony it is wise to use more of the cool colour and less of the warm one.
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| Elegant and Long Being Lulu Danglers made of patina copper discs and bright copper wire. These earrings make use of complemenary colours blue and orange. |
2. Analogous Colours
This colour scheme is rich and earthy. Pick any three colours adjacent to each other on the colour wheel, like red, red-violet and violet. To achieve harmony with these colour combinations one of the three tones should be made dominant.
Sometimes people push this scheme and pick adjacent colours more distinct from each other on the wheel like red, violet and blue. This works too!
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| George Barbier, 20th century fashion illustration |
3. Triadic Colours
This is a vibrant colour scheme that uses three colours
equally spaced around the colour wheel.
An example of three such colours is red, blue and yellow. Again,
it is useful to make one of the three colours dominate.
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| Headdress with leaf-shaped ornaments, 2600–2500 b.c.; Early Dynastic period IIIa; Sumerian style Excavated at "King's Grave," Ur, Mesopotamia Gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian |
4. Monochromatic Colours
This colour scheme is very subtle and effective. It uses various shades, tones and tints of a single colour. Since this colour palate does not offer much in the way of contrast it is an excellent choice if one wishes to emphasize form.
This colour scheme is very subtle and effective. It uses various shades, tones and tints of a single colour. Since this colour palate does not offer much in the way of contrast it is an excellent choice if one wishes to emphasize form.
Interesting lecture on color. I caught on to how you have gone full circle. Your red and pink "candy cane" combination was an example of monochromatism.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, years ago, I latched on to the idea that complementary color combinations are cheesy. But I suppose that is only true when you combine fully saturated versions of the two colors in about equal amounts. Sport a pair of red jeans and a leaf-green top and, lo and beho-ho-hold, you're a seasonal ornament!
One more thing. I seem to remember from school that colors one third apart around the wheel are called "supplementary".
You are right! I did go full circle from my awful red/pink outfit to embracing the beauty of monochromatic colour schemes.
ReplyDeleteThere is also some art to selecting the saturation of the combined colours. Bright red and bright green can be a little much, especially if you use equal amounts of both colours.
There are ways to select colour shades and saturation so that the combinations balance but that's another post!