“Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before me, I make more arbitrary use of colour to express myself more forcefully … To express the love of two lovers by the marriage of two complementary colours … To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a dark background. To express hope by some star. Someone’s passion by the radiance of the setting sun.” Vincent van Gogh, 1888.
One of my favorite things in life is color. Colors are all around us and each color and color combination evokes a different feeling for each of us. When creating art, color choices should be made intentionally. Try working with a limited color pallet (three to five colors only) for your next piece. Depending on the colors you choose, you’ll find that this approach can help you produce either a bolder, more dynamic piece, or something much more muted than possible with a wider array of colors.
Two great resources come to mind when choosing and mixing paint colors.
- First, pick your colors. Adobe Color lets you create and save various color combinations, each of which consists of a set of five colors. Visit Adobe Color, click on the color circles and start creating your combinations! You can select that you want to create analogous, complimentary, or custom color combinations.
- Then, figure out how to mix your paints to produce those colors. Golden Virtual Paint Mixer allows you to virtually experiment with and explore color options within the GOLDEN palette. Visit Golden Virtual Paint Mixer, click on a color, then a tube, and slide the cap left or right to adjust the amount of each color in the mixture. The swatch will show you the color you’ve mixed, along with tints of that color. You can click on the numeric tab and see what the color would translate to in RGB, L*a*b, and CMYK, or reverse engineer a mixture from one of those formulas.
I hope this helps you when starting your next project. What other resources do you check for color inspiration?