COLOR HARMONY

Color Harmony And Using it to the Best of Your Ability


Whether digital art or traditional art is your forte, the color coordination of your art is VERY important! Don't just think you can pick a green from a crayon box and then a yellow. And you can't just change the hues of the colors to make them fit together either. You have to use complementary, secondary, primary, triadic, and related colors. Now, most of us want to take all the colors in their purest, most dominate stage and stick them together, like pure green and pure purple. We think that because they're both nominate colors that they'll fit well. Or that two cools and too warms make a great combination. Again, this accusation is false.

What Are the Color Coordination and Harmonies?

First off, the Color Coordination

You may want to skim this article about the coordination of color. The most basics are primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Primary colors are of course you red, blue, and yellow. Secondaries are what you get when you mix two of the primaries: purple, green, and orange. Tertiary colors are what are what you get when you mix one primary with one secondary: orange-yellow, yellow-green, green-blue, blue-purple, purple-red, and red-orange. 

Now, the Color Harmonies and Schemes

There are three simple simple color harmonies: complementary, analogous, and triadic. Complementary is the two colors right across from them (i.g. red is across from green). Analogous is when you have colors right next to any color (yellow-green, next to green, next to green-blue). Triadic is when three color make a sort of triangle (orange, green, and purple). 

Then there are the three more complicated harmonies: Split Complementary, Rectangular (tetradic), and Square. Split Complementary is just like the complementary colors, but the diagonal is split into two. So if red is a color you pick, yellow-green and green-blue would be your Split Complementary. And then Rectangular (tetradic) colors are colors are two complimentary pairs (red and green, yellow and purple). Square harmony colors are almost exactly like Rectangular, but supply a wider variety of colors, as they are evenly spaced. The hardest to tackle is the Square harmony colors. 

 How Do You Use Them?

With this tool, they are quite easy to use. This tool uses the color wheel and gives you the basic Harmony chapes (triangle, square, oval, etc.) so it will over the hues that do not work well with the harmonies. For your art, only pick what is inside the shape. Continue to do this until you have learned well enough of what colors go well together, and what colors do not. 

I really hope this helped you! I know that when I started this technique and started playing around on it, I really did begin to understand the color harmonies and schemes easily! Though I still use the tool that is linked both above and on my sidebar (under 'Lists'), I know that I know my harmonies well enough to not use it (though I use it mostly for comfort as I want to make sure I have the color that best fits my art). Happy painting!

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