Color Harmony: Split Complementary Color Schemes

1. What's in This Class?: Welcome to my introduction to Color Harmony series. My name is Tamas, and we are here to explore how we can create aesthetically pleasing color combinations that just feel right to the viewer. If you are new to this series, I suggest you start with the first episode. You can find link to that in the A section right below the video. Today, we are going to look into some split complementary color schemes. We will paint three simple mini compositions to see how these colors work together in practice. I encourage you to come with me and let's continue our journey in color theory. I'll be painting with watercolor, but our focus will be on colors and not on the technique, how we apply them on paper. If you choose to use watercolor, you just need the very basic supplies. I'll be using some sheets of A size sketchbook paper, 120 GSM, the water resistant archival ink. Alternatively, a permanent marker with a thin tip will also do a watercolor palette. If you have the six pase colors like yellow, orange, red, violet, blue and green, plus black and white, you'll be just fine. Asizee tram brrush for painting the minis, and some common accessories like a water container and some paper towels. I hope you are excited. Whenever you are ready, I'll see you in the first video. 2. Yellow vs. Blue-Violet & Violet-Red: I'm so glad you are taking this class. Today, we are going to paint some split complimentary color harmonies. Split complimentary is a three color scheme. There is one color plus two others that are spaced equally from the first colors complement. As usual, let's start off by drawing the color wheel. I'm choosing yellow as one color. Its complement is violet, the two other colors are the ones adjacent. These colors will be blue violet and red violet. Let's paint the samples real quick. I'm using my cadmium yellow medium paint. My quinacridone lilac. You can mix something similar from bread and let. I do need to mix the third color from violet and blue. Here's my violet. And some ultramarine blue. By mixing the two, we get blue violet. I'm cleaning my brush now. So this is an example for split complimentary. By not using the direct complimentary for yellow, the contrast is tone down, providing a more sophisticated relationship. However, we still have high contrast with just less tangien. A color scheme like this offers a versatile, harmonious and beginner friendly palette that balances warm and cool tones effectively. It has a similar level of visual energy than complimentary, but it feels less chaotic. Now, let's draw a frame for our painting. Use the 60, 30, ten rule. Meaning that 60% goes to the base color as a background, 30% for the object, and 10% for accent. This way, you can create a cheerful, refreshing and vibrant artwork. Now let's come up with a composition that illustrates this. I'm drawing a lollipop in a sphere form. With it stick. Like that. This is lying on a surface. I'm also drawing guidelines for its gas shadow. Like so. First, let's paint the background with some pale yellow. My paint is pretty diluted, as you can see. No. I'm adding some more dense paint here and there. All right. I guess this will do for the 60 person background colour. Now, we let this dry completely. Until then, we can move on to our next thunder painting. 3. Red vs. Turquoise & Yellow-Green: This time, red will be our base color. Its complement is green, so we are adding yellow green and blue green to our color scheme. Let's paint the samples. I'm using my ruby paint for red. My cobot turquoise for the blue green. And my may green for the yellow green component. This pairing will be vibrant, high energy, creating a striking, eye catching design without being overwhelming. As usual, our composition will be simple. There will be a bedside lamp on the right. Something like this. I'll be using red for the wall in the background and turquoise for the table surface. Now, let's paint. I'm starting with the wall. I guess I'm adding some white paint to my vibrant red to make it a bit softer. Good. In the meantime, I'm checking the state of my yellow. It still needs some time. 4. Blue vs. Yellow-Orange & Red-Orange: So let's build up our third split complementary color scheme. Now let's take blue as our base color. It's complimentary orange, so we take the two adjacent colors. Let's paint the samples with a clean brush, of course. I'm planning to paint a coastline, so I'm taking my cupboard azure blue paint. My golden paint for the yellow orange and cadmium red light for the red orange part. Now, let's draw our composition. This will be an aerial view. We are looking down at the shore from, let's say, an airplane. The top left corner will be the land. The rest is the sea. We will have some waves with foam, of course. And let's draw a little boat somewhere in the center. We'll be painting sand over here. I guess I've changed my mind. I'll be using this cobalt turquoise for painting the sea. I'm diluting it with some water so I can paint the shallow water right next to the coastline. In here, it's getting deeper, so the tone is getting darker. Looks nice. Now, let this layer try. Let's go back to our first mini and paint the lollipop with the red violet. I'm diluting it with water to get a light tin for the first layer. With the placement of the cast shadow, I have already decided on the lie direction. So I'm leaving paper right for the highlights on the top right. A bit darker shade on the shadow side of the form. And let it try. Okay. Now, let's paint the table surface on our second mini with the yellow green. Good. The good thing in painting three mines in parallel is that we don't have to pause. An artist doesn't like to be idle, right? Now, let's paint this middle section with a tunnel value that is between the two. I guess I can make the lower section darker to achieve a higher contrast at the end. This looks good. 5. Final Touches on the Minis: Now let's paint the sand with the yellow orange. Here the gradation will be inverted. As we get closer to the water, the sand gets damp, so it becomes darker. I'm adding some black to the orange, so it gets less saturated right next to the water, kind of brownish. Some fine art touches. And I guess the ground is fine. Now, let's get back to our lollipop and paint with another darker shade. I'm adding a drip of black to it. More black to the mixture. And let's paint the darkest part. Now, let it dry. Let's paint the lamp with the third color. Now I'm realizing that originally I planned this color for the table surface, but never mind. This will look good anyway. Now let's get back to our first mini. Let's say we have had that 30% for the object. Now let's paint the remaining 10% accent for the shadow, which will be the blue violet. I'm using a well diluted paint as a first layer. Yeah. Let's paint the shadow side for the stick to. Now we can go darker with our paint. The shadow is the darkest where the object touches the ground plane. Maybe I'm adding a touch of black to the mixture to make it darker. Good. How about the sea? Is it dry enough to paint the boat? It's supposed to be because I plan to paint the boat with red orange and it shouldn't interact with the turquoise in any way. I think I'm making the shadow below the lollipop even darker. And the step two. The paper is still damp over here, so I guess it's time to ignite my hair dryer to speed up the process. Good. Now, the paper surface is ready for some further paint. A slight correction on the land. And we can paint the boat. I'm reactivating my paint with some water and painting a light layer for the boat. Now, let's try it real quick. And I'm adding a darker shade for some shadows. Good. We can clean our brush now. The split complimentary thumbnail paintings are complete. 6. What's Next?: All right. I hope you enjoyed this color harmony painting session and you made something that you like. Now I'd really like to see your own beautiful colors used in this painting session. Please upload your work in the project section right below the video. If you found joy in this activity, please leave a review on the review tab below the video player. Your feedback is important to me and it will also help others to find this class. If you like my teaching style and you are interested in other topics, I definitely have some more drawing and painting sessions for you. Make sure you check them out on my profile page. I hope you had a good time with me, see you in another class.