Color Partnerships: Understanding Analogous Colors

1. Welcome to Class: welcome everybody. Teoh Color partnerships Understanding analogous colors Now on August colors themselves are very simple. In fact, the hardest thing about them should be how you say analogous colors and logos and a law Goes. And I in Bethany Lendell and author and artist with Lunesta Art, as well as an art teacher. In real life here in Texas today, I'm going to explain to you what analogous colors are, why they're useful and how you can put them to good use in your artwork will also be learning the pros and cons of using analogous color palettes and ways to kind of push back against the flaws in using these colors. So if you're a beginner or more advanced but really love color theory, all of you color enthusiasts out there like myself, let's dive right in with what our analysis colors anyway. 2. What Are Analogous Colors?: So what are analogous colors? Let's turn it to our handy dandy color wheel here and find out. So at their simplest, analogous colors are neighboring colors. It literally means they're just next to each other on the color wheel. So, for instance, red here at the top is a neighboring color to orange and purple. At the same time. Red is an analysis color to orange, which is also analyses to yellow, so you can have a set of three with red, orange and yellow all our warm colors. Or you could do purple, red and orange. And they would still be analogous colors because they're both neighboring red. Since their neighboring colors, you can have them in sets of 2433 is where you would take neighbors on either side of one color. Or you could just have them partner up with a color next to them, depending on which color you picked in the first place. Now let's take a look at some examples of analogous colors, So since you can have pallets of two or three, you can have roughly four different color temperatures in your image so you can have the very cool which is all of your cool colors together. Or you could have just a cool dominant with mostly cool colors and then a warm color. Or you can have a warm dominant, with mostly warm colors and some slight cool colors or very warm, where it is all warm colors. Now nature loves a good, analogous color. I found that out as I was putting together this class. Green is everywhere in nature. We kind of already observed that. But then you can have green with yellow flowers and then the blue sky. We can find it in stones with red rocks shading into purple here, and then he can have some more interesting ones, such as sunsets and sunrises, with those brilliant red and orange skies. And then here is the orange and yellow sky with that really strong green everywhere. You also see analogous colors in neutrals. They can shine through your neutrals as well. Neutrals may not be cool or warm, but they can be tented, cool or warm, such as here, where the noise Feinstein Castle in. I believe it's Munich. In Germany, you can see this. The white stone here is tinted blue by all the colors around it, which makes it analogy, is 12 that green of the trees. Or you can have, like your snow or your ground, be tinted a color or hear. The ruins of these castles are tinted orange and yellow and making them blend very nicely with the green or darker backgrounds of the actual landscape. So that's what analogous colors are. They are neighboring colors, and they're actually quite prevalent. So now let's take a look at what kind of pros and cons you find when using analogous color palettes. 3. Pros & Cons: So let's go through this list. Naturally. Analogous colors have pros and cons. For instance. Pros. Well, it's super easy to pick colors to pick a whole scheme, because you don't have to think about it. You just go. Okay, I'm going to work with Green today. I'm feeling in a green mood. Well, if you're on Lee working with analogous colors, you would use blue and yellow to support your green. So it's actually ridiculously super easy to just pick a whole color scheme like that. And because these colors are next to each other on the color wheel, there also ridiculously easy to create radiance. They're already ingredient, actually, yellow to green, to blue, the purple to rent of orange todo. Yet they support each other naturally because their neighbors their next to each other. And they share very similar qualities as you're going around the color wheel and then in your piece itself, they support each other. They kind of bolster each other, and because they are neighborly, they also create a very strong atmosphere. Just automatically, you don't again. You don't have to think about it now because that atmosphere is so obvious it can easily overwhelm your artwork and therefore your viewer. It can just be like just attack of the Reds attack of the warms attack of whatever colored you're using because there's nothing to break them up. There's nothing to separate them so much, since they blend into each other so nicely and naturally it feels like one lump sum of color attacking you, even though you can see different shades of yellow blue, what have you? And also, since analogous colors create their atmosphere and feeling so naturally, they can also lean into a monochromatic kind of feel or, worse, a monotonous feel. You don't want that. I mean, well, maybe you do. But honestly, I don't think monotonous works of art are ever going to be well known, except for being boring and monotonous. So that is something you have to watch out for. 4. Overcoming Overwhlem: However, these cons are not impossible to overcome For this class. I'm gonna give you two different ways to break up your palate without completely breaking up your neighboring colors and starting a whole fighting their little color neighborhood. That that would be wrong. So the 1st 1 you can insert a non analogous color. You can add a complementary color to break apart your color scheme. So, for instance, are blue, green and yellow image here. If I inserted read just a tiniest little bit of red, it will break apart that really nice flow. Those three colors have because it is opposite green on the color wheel. Because green and red are complementary colors, they clashed spectacularly. However, you do not want to use a lot of a compliment color. It will easily overtake your analogous colors. So if you do this, use that complementary color sparingly. I for my part and not doing that, because what is the point of having a class on analogous colors if I'm just going to insert a compliment in there, so I'm gonna check that out. There goes that idea. What I am going to do is lean into my neutral values. So my blacks, whites, greys and browns, and I'm going to use them to drastically change the values off my analogies colors so that they don't overwhelm you as easily effectively. What this did in my class project is it gave me a focus with the clear, bright colors without anything in that no white, black brown, nothing just the color itself, and that made it very clear and very attractive to the eye. So that's where I want to look first. And then, as I continued, and I did reach that overwhelmed state very quickly. As I continued into that, I made sure to add in lots of browns, lots of blacks and lots of whites, and I mix them into my analogous colors to really set them apart. Here is the image that actually inspired this class thes Goard's. Here they are chalk pastels and watercolors on a piece of watercolor paper, and you can see here how they kind of glow because I included so much white above and complied. The white is behind it, so it gives them this kind of glow and then because I offset that with their very dark shadow that maroon ish color. I added lots of black to a red or ah, reddish orange, and it gave me this nice maroon color. Looking at it, you wouldn't automatically assume. Oh, that's red because it's so dark and the same with the white and the neutral background that white. It's very creamy. I would not automatically go well. Look, there's a very light shade of orange. It's a cream color and it let's look. Pumpkins themselves be the focus by being the bright central colors. 5. Putting Our Colors into Practice: and we'll go to our class project. You've made it this far. A. So today I'm going to be working with chalk, pastels and watercolors on watercolor paper. I found this is a very easy form of mixed media. The chalk pastels really loved to absorb water, and it effectively turns them into paint and very bright, bold, colorful paint as well hands because they like water. The water colors help to stick them to the page, and they drink up so much water that your paper tends to curl less. So if you'd like to follow along with me and use those materials, it's great fun and super easy. If you have your own that you prefer with this kind of color theory and color work, you can easily apply it to pretty much any medium you want. So go crazy for my palate. Today I'm going to be focusing on orange that's going to be my central color, and I am going to support it with, of course, red and yellow. And I'm gonna have lots of browns in there, too, because when you get into the darker shades of those colors or you begin to mix them you often get various shades of brown, so that, as well as white and black, will be my neutral colors that I will use to send all of those really, really warm colors just to break them up so they don't overwhelm you with just, ah, Tom, that would not be relaxing or peaceful, which is essentially what I want. Okay, great. Go ahead and find your materials and we will get started on our project. First things first I block in my painting using chalk pastels. I go from yellow to orange than to red and brown. This is because chalk pastels are a light to dark medium, meaning. Once you have a dark color down, you can't make it light again. So it's usually wise is to start with your lights and build from there. Once I have those Dunn's, I bring out some clean water, my paints and pick my brushes. Ah, 12 And um, yeah, three. I told brushes that are small or have points to reach into these kind of tight spaces I have going on in this busy painting. And then I began wetting down the pastels with my watercolors. First, I just match up the colors so red on red orange on orange brown on brown. And that's so I can really block this in and see where everything is. And again, you want to move from your light colors to your dark colors. Once I have that blocked in, I bring out Mike Washes. Specifically, my white washes are a more opaque form of water colors and white water. Color in particular is very thin, so the wash helps me to really layer it up, so that's more noticeable. And then I bring out some black on the other side for my dark values. Then I begin building up my values so I can tell from how I have my life, where some of my highlights are and where some of my shadow areas are. So I begin adding in white and black to those areas before going back to my really bold colors, and that really sets my pattern for this painting. I will focus on my bold colors, really strengthen them and build them up, and then I will return to my values, adding more highlights with my wash white and then more shadowed areas, especially around the edges. And that helps took three, almost a Vigen it where the center is clear and bold, and Thea outer edges are darker and they blend more into each other so that they aren't quite as distinct. I repeat this process several times throughout this painting, so it is a very much a building process. I even returned to my chalk pastels once or twice when I really want to strengthen those colors. However, don't do this when your paper and your paints there still wet, really wait for them to dry. The dry medium likes to really grab the paper that way, and if you use it on a wet paper, a Camilla just destroy it and not much color comes off. We came back to my bold colors, and so here I've largely gotten rid of that wishy washy kind of background I first blocked in. I saw that I was like, OK, I really have to press my darks and my whites and even add just more color, more color to specific areas because that's the overwhelmed I was talking about. It all just kind of runs together. If there's nothing to break it up and this one didn't really overpower the view were first . Yeah, because it was very thin and transparent and wishy washy. But building up the colors and the values, uh, sets it apart and gives it more impact. You can start to see that now, back to my values, really pressing those, especially around the edges. And for those of you curious about the leaves, I'm essentially dabbing them in its on more like pointillism than painting this. It's to stepped up that really quick because it's But have you ever tried painting individual leaves in a forest? It would look unrealistic. And oh, my gosh, is mind boggling even thinking about it s so I go with more the Impressionist view to quickly sketch them in, and it gives him a little bit of movement. This took me about, um, took me a couple of days to finish this, but overall, I think it took two or three hours. So while this does seem like a lot, it is possible to do it in a fairly short amount of time. I think part of what it makes it seem longer to is all the data. Please. I'm really layering up the darks in the below half of the painting to kind of counterbalance. The really, really bright yellow and gold of leads up into the center. Lee's leaves everywhere. Brent leaves red leaves, not green leaves, though it would defeat the point. And even in the dabbed leaves, you can include not just single colors but value colors or a mix of analogous colors, and that will help break up Thea the least piles as well. So it won't just be a single blotch of orange, he warns, with yellow or red in it for both from black and white. Now the leaves at a nice texture. And so that's one of the last things I do. I included a few of them as I was building, however, yet most of them, you can see I waited until the end, and that is my class project for today, and what I hope will encourage you to create your own. Now, every color in here is an analogous color, because I was focusing on orange, and so I included lots of yellow and quite a bit of red. The yellow, I think, took up most of the both canopy space, while the Reds took up the bottom and the Browns kind of connected them, which I think is rather nice. And then I broke up their similarities with really heavy dark values and white mountains. Great. I can't wait to see your own class projects. Please upload them to the gallery so we can all admire them. 6. What We Learned: So when it's all told, analogous colors are very simple but powerful, simple enough that, honestly, it's hard to go wrong. Powerful enough that you can easily overwhelm your artwork and therefore your viewer if you don't counterbalance them, either with compliment colors or mixing in of why variety of values so that your analogous colors can stand apart from each other and not so easily overwhelmed your viewer. So I hope you enjoyed today's class. Please post your class projects to the Project Gallery. I would really love to see what you guys have created with the information from this class . If you have any questions, please just start a discussion or asked me a question down in the class discussion board below. Please follow me here on skill share. I do have more classes planned, including a sneak preview here. Next month will be all about complementary colors, which are honest to goodness the opposite of a gnarliest colors, and it's gonna be fun. Follow me here on skill share for information and alerts about the upcoming class, and if you're looking for my social media on Web site, all of those links can be found in my skill share profile. Well, that's today's class, everybody. So I'll see you next time. Bye