How to choose your colours 101

Hiya! 

I decided to make a post about colours and touch on colour theory. I've always liked using colours that contrast in my work (because I'm a rebel like that!) So this post is for anyone who needs some tips on picking contrasting and complementary colours.

1) Secondary Colours VS Primary Colours

The easiest way to pick contrasting colours is going back to basics. This means looking at secondary colours and using their primary hues to determine the contrasting hues. For example, to make Orange you need Yellow and Red, the odd primary colour out is blue. This means that the contrasting colour of orange is blue.

primary colours

2) Complimentary Secondary tones

Another layer to colour theory is choosing a warm or a cool tone A lot of people (myself included) often place a warm and a cool colour together to make a complimentary colour palette. For example, there is orange & green. One is made with 1 warm primary colour (yellow and red) and the other with a cool primary colour (yellow and blue). But because both colours include yellow in their hue they work well together.

secondary colours wheel 

3) Tertiary Colours

Placing warm and cool colours together is a good start; however, this can be quite confusing as all colours can come in both warm and cool tones. A good example is purple. A basic purple is made by mixing primary colours blue and red, however blue is a cool tone and red is a warm tone. So is purple a cool colour or a warm colour? Well, that depends on the mixing ratio. If you added more red than blue, you would get magenta purple, which is like warm pink-ish purple. If you add more blue than red, you would get an indigo cool purple.

tertiary colour wheel 

4) Primary and Secondary Colour Mixes

As always with colours, there are many hues that can make colours overwhelming but means you have plenty of hues to choose from. A good example is yellow. Even though it's a primary colour, Yellow on the colour wheel can be considered a warm and a cool colour. When blended with its neighbouring secondary colour, green, it can create a tertiary yellow with green tones. In that case, it could be considered a cool colour. However, if turning towards the other side of the colour wheel, with the other secondary colour, orange, when mixed will create a more warm yellow.

And there you have it! Some tips on picking colours for your art, home, clothes, pretty much anything you like.

If you guys have any other tips for picking colours, please don't hesitate to comment down below!

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Thanks for reading & keep being creative!

Glo X