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Article by Socar Myles.

Before I get started, I’m just going to go over what this tutorial is and isn’t going to cover, to avoid any confusion later on. What I’m not going to do is get into the minutiae of formal color theory, or compare the visual range of humans, insects, and aliens from the planet Zog. What I am going to do is discuss the practical application of color theory–that is, how it relates to your art, and how you can get it to work for you. This tutorial will hopefully get you painting without bogging you down in a whole lot of technical jargon, and is aimed primarily at the beginning artist.

Part One: Complementary Colors and the Color Wheel

One thing every artist needs to know about is the color wheel. It isn’t a pretty-looking thing, but it can help a lot with color selection. There are a couple of rules of thumb associated with the color wheel. They aren’t hard and fast, but they’re good to remember.

1. The rule of thirds - Break a color wheel into thirds along any lines, and the colors within any given third (in this case, any four adjacent colors) will work well together in a composition. Thus, you could start at red and go all the way to orange-yellow to the right, or to purplish-blue on the left. This rule comes in handy when you’re painting something that’s ostensibly all one color, such as the “black” rat pictured below, but want some variation of color and texture to make it interesting. The actual rat was, of course, entirely black, but in the painting, I’ve used subtle shades of blue, purple, and purplish-red to add a sense of richness and depth to the color. As you can see, it isn’t necessary to use super-saturated versions of your color group of choice to get the desired effect. The color wheel is just an aid to getting the right idea–you can experiment with intensity on your own (although it’s generally a good idea to keep it consistent).

2. Complementary Colors - If you take a ruler and lay it straight across the color wheel, the two colors it passes through are complementary. That is, because red is directly across from green, red is green’s complementary color. Knowing this is a good thing for several reasons. First, when you’re painting with traditional media, and you’re want to mix deep, rich colors, you’ll want to avoid mixing large amounts of complementary colors–this will generally yield an ugly, grayish sludge which will look boring on your canvas. When I want to mix very deep hues, I tend to use combinations of similar dark colors, then add burnt umber pigment or small amounts of Mars black until I get the desired hue. Complementary colors are also useful for making parts of your painting “pop out”. In the example below, I used pinkish and orangish reds on the dog in order to make it stand out from the bluish greens of the background. Again, you don’t have to go overboard to put complementary colors to use–even a subtle effect can have startling results!

3. The OTHER rule of thirds - If you’re going for a dramatic feel, one thing you can do is pick three colors that are equally spaced around the wheel to use as the primary colors for your image. For example, you could use orange, purple, and green. Care must be used when painting this way, however–choose just ONE of the three colors as the dominant hue, then use the other two to offset it. In the example below, the dominant hue is purple, and subtle greens, golds, and orange-yellows have been used in small amounts to provide contrast and accent. When you’re using any of these three rules, you don’t have to stick with just one–when picking shades of purple in a piece like the one below, you can use the first rule of thumb to pull blues or reds into your composition, as well.

Part Two - Saturation and Contrast

In my own work, I like to use very muted, desaturated palettes. However, low saturation certainly isn’t the only way to go. In general, the more saturated your colors are, and the sharper your contrast, the more strong and graphic your lines and shapes should be. Below, the same texture is shown twice: once in low-contrast, low-saturation colors, and once in colors with higher saturation and contrast. The closer those colors get to pure reds and greens, the more every brushstroke on that texture is going to show up. When you’re doing graphic designs or other images that use brilliant, high-contrast hues, sharp, smooth lines and well-defined, exaggerated forms can look great. Realistic textures tend to look best when applied more subtly, with judicious use of deep shadows and bright highlights.

Part Three - “Cold” and “Warm” Colors

You’ve probably heard colors referred to as “cold” or “warm” before. In general, the upper right half of the color wheel can be considered the warm half, and the lower left is the cool half. However, it’s absolutely possible to have warm (reddish or greenish) shades of blue, or cool (greenish or even bluish) yellows. Judicious use of cool and warm tones can really help bring your picture to life. For example, using warmer tones in lit areas and cooler tones in the shadows can suggest the hot light of a summer’s afternoon. On the other hand, cold-hued light and warm-hued shadow will suggest the crisper, chillier light of winter.

Part Four - Using Color to Suggest Mood
This is an area in which there are no hard and fast rules at all. If color is to be used as the primary method of setting the mood or “feel” of a painting, however, you’ll want to make sure you pick a reasonably consistent color scheme with one or two dominant colors that will pervade the piece. In the example below, I have used a palette composed mainly of greens and blues, with the occasional dirty yellow for emphasis. I chose the colors to suggest desolation, loss, and a cold autumn afternoon.

One thing you can do to pick out areas of particular interest in a painting is use a different color there than in the rest of the piece. For example, if you’re painting a man watching a dog running along a primarily blue beach, and you’ve used a greenish tone for the highlights on the water and sand, you could give the highlights on the dog a slightly yellowish or pinkish cast in order to differentiate it from the beach around it.
Some artists will tell you that each color will automatically suggest a specific mood, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to take any color association as gospel. I’ve used bright greens and pinks to suggest loneliness and despair, as in “No Tomorrow”, and cool purples and greens to create a whimsical mood, as in the winged rat example I used earlier to illustrate the third color wheel rule. Often, however, a wistful or contemplative mood can be achieved by using pale, unsaturated hues, and predominantly cool colors. A more cheerful, upbeat mood can be created with more warm, saturated colors. Compare a deserted snow field and a cozy fireplace scene, for instance. One would probably use a much cooler palette for the field than the fireplace, which would create a more chilly, unwelcoming atmosphere.

Part Five - Atmospheric Perspective
Another use of color is to create the illusion of depth. This is generally done by reducing the color saturation (although not necessarily the brightness) towards the horizon line. For example, if you’re painting a seascape using atmospheric perspective, you might use bright cerulean blues and yellowish greens in the extreme foreground, deeper phthalocyanine blues and emerald greens to suggest the deeper water further from shore, then fade back to grayish shell- and slate-blues as the sea recedes towards the sky in the distance. To push the sky even further back, you could unsaturate it till it’s almost white, using the barest hints of grays and blues to suggest the forms of clouds. This method might sound a little odd at first, but it does work. Here’s another example: If you’re painting two pirates in red shirts, one at the prow of the pirate ship and the other one off at the back of the boat hoisting sail, the shirt of the pirate in front would appear much brighter and more saturated than the shirt of the second pirate. Although the shirts are both cut from the same red fabric, the closer pirate’s would use more scarlet hues, while the second shirt would use darker, muted crimson-grays.

Just a small note–atmospheric perspective isn’t a substitute for other types of perspective drawing–it’s just a way of adding to the depth of your painting.

Part Six - Common Pitfalls
There’s a lot that can be done with color. However, there are also a few things that probably shouldn’t be done, and almost never work:
1. Avoid using wildly different color schemes in different parts of your painting–always have some way to unify your colors. For example, there’s nothing wrong with painting an angry red sky lowering over a grassy green burial mound. However, if you simply paint half your canvas in shades of red and the other half in shades of green, it’s going to look terrible. Remember that light from the red sky will affect the grass (along with everything else in the painting!), and you’ll get all sorts of interesting reds and purples in there. Cool purple and blue-green shadows can also help to offset the contrast between sky and grass.
2. When you’re going for a realistic effect, don’t shade objects all in different intensities of the same color. A sea-green mug with light green highlights and dark green shadows will have a lot less depth than the same sea-green mug with pale blue highlights and hints of deep purples and reds in the shadows. If you’re working digitally, try and stay away from Photoshop’s dodge and burn tools when you’re shading–these tools don’t know anything about color theory, and will end up giving your work a very flat, oversaturated look.
3. Unless you’re going for a very sharp, clean graphic look, try and stay away from pure whites and blacks. They lack richness, and often end up looking like holes in your picture.
4. This is mostly for digital painters, but also goes for traditional painters who use a lot of photo reference: Don’t sample colors directly from photographs. Photographs often distort color and flatten it out, and if you use exactly the same shades in your painting, any problems that existed in the reference photo will carry over into your finished work. If you’re going for absolute realism, you should probably aim for BETTER than photo quality–sharper colors, cleaner transitions, and no lens flares…absolutely NO lens flares!

Thanks for reading my tutorial! I hope it was helpful.
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