COLOR BASICS by Dres
Someone asked me: “How do you choose certain colors for your art?”
That’s a bit of a vague question. Truthfully, I just lay down random colors and then I tweak and twiddle them until I’m satisfied. It’s a lot of trial and error and “I’ll know it when I see it.”
However! I am always MINDFUL of why certain colors are more appealing than others in a composition. The way I choose my final colors depends very much on these categories:
SATURATION: How vibrant or grey is it?
Saturation can be really fun and eye-catching! Careful you don’t go overboard, or it can be a strain on the eyes. You can double check your Values and Contrast (see below) by adding a grayscale filter.
HUE: Which color of the rainbow is it?
I try to pick colors that complement one another! Note how purples & blues pair well next to yellows & oranges. Study up on color theory so you can experiment with complementary colors, triads, analogous combinations and more. Remember every color you pick has a corresponding hue- a dark brown is probably an orange, lilac is a purple, and so on.
VALUE: How light or dark is it?
Every color has a corresponding value. When you have several colors (and values) in a piece, make sure they complement one another. Pay attention to your scenery and the lightest and darkest colors in it. A daytime scene will have high CONTRAST (see below) while a nighttime scene will be darker– it shouldn’t have any near-white values unless its nearby something glowing. Note how even the lightest colors are still a medium gray.
TEMPERATURE: How warm or cool is it?
In general, warm colors include certain reds, oranges & yellows while cool colors include certain greens, blues and purples. A lot of this depends on the surrounding color scheme. You can BOOST the warmth of a color by placing it in the vicinity of cooler colors, and vice versa. Remember, blues & purples complement orange & yellows!
CONTRAST: Is it clear or competing for attention?
If your colors are too low-contrast, your details will start to lose clarity. If your colors have too much contrast, it could end up way too busy and straining on the eye. You definitely don’t want the subject of your composition to be competing with the background for attention, so be mindful of your background even if it’s just a solid color.
And lastly, MEANING: Does this color have innate qualities or implications? For example, red can be very symbolic of passion, danger, or violence. Green is symbolic of growth, energy, and nature. Blue is calming, Purple is extravagant, Pink is intimate, Orange is warm, Yellow is positive, etc! These are only some of the meanings they have, and they may differ among cultures. Many reactions to color are universal, especially natural colors like red, green and blue. I try to incorporate these color associations into my work whenever I can. This particular character is very flashy, feminine, and outgoing, so I chose lots of purple, pink, and gold to complement her design.
One last note: if you’re taking an illustration to PRINT, be sure you work with CMYK-SAFE COLORS! I made another post about that >here<
For example, these are my business cards! I made sure to use CMYK-safe colors and they turned out really well!!! (Note– this photo is being back-lit by a bright white light, so the colors only appear to be washed out– They look much better in person 😊)
I hope this helps! 💗💛💚💙💜
