CLASS TWO

Learning Intensity By Working With Complements

INTENSITY

The next stop on our road down the color path is to visit Intensity also known as Saturation or Chroma—it is the relative brightness or dullness of a color. A Cadmium Red Light straight from the tube is a “High Chroma” color with “High Intensity.”  The best way to make any color more neutral is to add its complement, the color directly across from it on the color wheel. Don’t worry—I will illustrate that in the next two videos. Learning to create beautiful neutrals with complements is a key to “Owning” your colors.

THE INNER CIRCLE

This short slide show presents a different way to use your color wheel. Color wheels can actually be really helpful in the artist's studio, and I often reference mine.

• VIDEO PASSWORD: Circle

PROJECT 2A

Using Complementary Colors To Mix Neutrals

• VIDEO PASSWORD: Project2A

I call this project “KALEIDOSCOPE“ as the result looks a bit like what you see through a kaleidoscope. In this demo I mix together red and green to make many neutrals and a harmonious palette. Mixing together complements to create neutrals and greys can be a much better option than just mixing black into your color. In other words, if you want to grey down a red (make it less bright) add green instead of adding black. 

Neutral colors created with mixing complements are often much richer.  Play around with all of these combinations to see how many colors you can mix!  I guarantee you will find surprises.  Feel free to use any complementary color combination in your Kaleidoscope: Orange/Blue, Purple/Yellow, Yellow-Green/Red-Violet, etc.

Before you begin this project, you might want to scroll back up to the Introduction and in the ABOUT THIS COURSE section and take a look at Paul Klee’s mesmerizing painting to see how you can turn this exercise into “art.”  

WORKING WITH A COMPLEMENTARY PALETTE

The gallery below includes paintings that use the concept of complementary colors. Things to note:

• There are MANY DIFFERENT reds and greens (for instance) in Brian’s paintings. You can use Alizarin Crimson, Cadmiums, Quinacridones, just to name a few. Plus the combinations that they make all mixed together. Don't feel stuck with just one tube of paint for each color.

• You CAN definitely use additional colors other than the two complements that you choose. The complements are just the predominant colors.

• It's often best to choose one color or the other to be predominant. For example mostly reds and then some greens.

PROJECT 2B

Use Your Kaleidoscope Palette To Paint A Painting

Paint a painting using the color palette that you created in your Kaleidoscope. Per the instructions above, it is fine to include some additional colors as well. The intention is to use the Complementary palette as the predominant palette. Use both Intense colors and Neutrals in your painting.