Using Complementary Colors

James Gurney explores opposite color pairs

- James Gurney

WHAT ARE COMPLEMENTARY COLORS?

Two colors are called complementary when they have opposite or balanced color characteristics, such as blue vs. yellow-orange or green vs. red-violet. Complementary hues appear across from each other on the color wheel. When you mix two such pigments together, they make gray or black. Mixing two complementary sources of light yields white light. When you stare at one hue for an extended period of time, the afterimage that emerges is the complementary color. These oppositional pairs are related by their antagonism. One balances the other, like riders on a seesaw. They cancel each other out, but they also amplify each other when used together in a picture.

Let’s examine complementary relationships by doing some paintings composed entirely of the two colors in the complementary pair, and leaving out the rest of the hues. So in the color wheel here, we’ll only use the blue/orange colors inside the central rectangle, and we won’t have access to the greens and magentas. We’ll start by doing some experiments in the studio and then applying what we learn in a few demonstrations.

EXERCISE 1: TRAN-OPAQUE COMPLEMENTARY BLEND