Paint schemes of various types, as well as two tone possibilities, can be deliberately applied to your painting to manifest coherent color harmonies. What is useful about these predetermined harmonies is that you can be more secure that the final work will hold together color-wise, leaving you to focus on other aspects of the painting.
Square Harmony Scheme
Square harmony uses colors that are equidistant on the color wheel which, if connected like dots, would show a square. An example of the four colors in a square harmony would be red, blue-purple, green and yellow-orange. In effect, this scheme combines two complementary pairs. The scheme offers wide varieties in the selection of warm and cool colors. Use all the colors indicated by the harmony, but select one of the colors to be the main color (and take up the most area) for best effect. You can choose any one of the four as the main color, and make the other three subordinate or accent colors.
Triadic Harmony Scheme
In the same way that the square scheme is constructed, connecting the dots between colors, a triadic harmony would make a triangle of the three colors in this harmony scheme. This means that you will be working with either the primary colors alone, the secondary colors alone or three tertiary colors. This scheme will be vivacious and striking. As with the square harmony, assign the chief role to any one color of your choice, and use the other colors as subordinate or accent colors. Using pastel colors will also keep this scheme from getting too wild.
Monochrome Scheme
Monochrome is a great option for learning about value. When you use a sole color, combining it with only black, gray and white, you have an instantly harmonious scheme. The great thing about this is you can cease to fret about harmony and focus on value. The result is a scheme that has integrity, though it may want for boldness.
Two Tone
The simplest two tone technique is to use two color boldly opposed, like black and white. This stark contrast will be dynamic. When you eliminate the gray or any middle tones from such a scheme, compositional elements also come to the fore. For a softer two tone technique, try putting a color down on the canvas, and then painting into it softly with a badger brush (or like soft bristled brush) using a similar color. This produces an evanescent, satiny effect.
Related posts
Create a color scheme for a vehicle using a drawing and colored pencils.Creating a paint scheme for a vehicle requires an understanding of color. The primary colors (red, blue and yellow) along wi...
Add other primary colors to your red car.Driving down the road, most cars blend in with one another, looking similar with monotone paint schemes. You may decide to be different and drive a car tha...
Yellow paint can easily turn out brighter than you imagined.It's frustrating to paint a room in your home, only to discover the yellow shade you chose appears much brighter than you thought it wou...
Choose bold colors for an accent wall.Painting accent walls is easy once you determine the colors you are going to use. However, figuring out just what kind of color is right for you room is a bit...
One popular design trend is to use more than one color to paint a bedroom. The traditional way of doing this is to paint the walls the primary color and the trim in a different color or with a hig...
