Pretty Analogous Colors in the Hand Painted Yarn I Made My Scarf With!

A signature of all of my artistic adventures is a masterful use of color. Seems like a big boast, perhaps? Well, I know that you can learn to combine colors with just as much finesse, because my secrets aren’t secrets! I’ve learned a few simple rules and I’ve taught myself how to play, and even to go ahead and break the rules and get away with it. But let’s start with the basics of using color and learn how to break them later:

Some basic ways to understand the properties of color:

1. Warm and Cool
2. Dark and Light
3. Neutrals and Colorfuls

How to Combine Colors Masterfully: Neutrals and Colorfuls in Beaded Necklaces I Created.

Now, there are some interesting properties of colors that the color wheel (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) teaches us and that can help you pick exactly which cool color looks best with which warm color, and these properties have a lot of fancy names (analogous, tertiary, secondary, shades, tints, etc) but really there are two extra, super-important principles to get you on the road to playing with color, and you can forget their names if you want to:

Watermelon Beaded Necklace

Opposites on the color wheel (use for contrast)– these are the colors on the opposite side from each other on the color wheel: red/green, orange/blue, yellow/purple. But it doesn’t stop with the basics. If you have, turquoise, for example (blue and green mixed), it’s opposite would be a reddish orange! and that sensibility can be refined as close or approximate as you want it to be, pink and lime is another classic example.

Analogous colors (use for harmony) – these are simply the colors that are next to each other on the color wheel: red/orange, orange/yellow, yellow/green, green/blue, blue/purple, purple/red.

Greenery Necklace: Analagous Colors

The other key to being able to combine colors like a pro, it to teach yourself how to play. Here are some basic techniques and guidelines to think about and use when you’re playing with colors:

The Principle of Yin and Yang: When you have a lot of cool colors happening in your creation, throw in a warm color or two and you’ll see how that makes it pop immediately, the same is true for dark and light, neutrals and colorfuls, harmonious (analogous colors) and contrasting (opposite colors).

Cantaloupe Earrings – Cool Lime Green With Splash of Warm Melon

Just keep going, you’ll find something that works: If you’re unhappy with how your color scheme is working out, put on your thinking cap and think about harmonies and contrasts and keep throwing color at it, eventually you’ll find what you’re missing.

There’s magic in the combination of three Analogous colors (the ones that are next to each other on the color wheel): purple/red/orange, yellow/green/blue, orange/yellow/green, green/blue/purple etc…

Magical Analagous Green, Blue and Purple in a Watercolor Painting

There’s another kind of magic in the combination of two Analagous colors and the color you’d get if you mixed their contrasts together: purple, red and greenish yellow; orange, yellow and a blue-ish purple; red, yellow and a greenish blue; etc.

Animal Vegetable Mineral Necklace: 
Analagous Red and Yellow with Their Opposite Color Greenish/Blue

When in doubt, go with a rainbow.

Little Rainbow Gemstone Earrings

Here’s where breaking the rules comes in: If you like it, then it’s good. When you see a color combination that grabs you, then remember it! The lady in the grocery store the other day who had a really pretty navy, powder blue and brown shirt on is perfectly legitimate  color inspiration. Use the colors that you see around you, it isn’t stealing. When you’re stopped dead in your tracks by a really beautiful landscape, jot down the names of the colors so you can remember them later. Celery green, forest green, baby blue, russet brown, rust, terra cotta, grey clouds.

There are wonderful colors everywhere!

Practice makes perfect: Combining colors is like exercising your muscles, the more you do it, the easier it becomes and the better you get at it! Every moment in your day is a possible time to practice your new color-combining skills, from choosing your morning outfit, to noticing the interesting color combinations around you.  For example, when I eat M&Ms, I eat each handful by subtracting colors in order to always have the most attractive color combination possible in my hand at any given moment. Silly but true!

I accidentally wore the same colors that I decorated my house in!  Good color combinations can be used for anything!!

Many happy and colorful adventures to you, color compadres!

~Jenny