Color Theory

Color theory, so I already knew about color wheels, primary colors and all that stuffs but then our lecturer introduced us to complementary and split complementary colors, analogue colors, triad tetradic and square colors which has blown my mind!

Lately I've got myself interested with abstract art and been doing a few canvas just for my own pleasure before coming to Malaysia but if only I knew about these color theory before, that would have been such an amazing thing to use to add concept to my little projects.

So basically you can use these theory to add, remove contrast and if used correctly it can create or highlight a certain mood and add more definition in a concept or an illustration.

So this is a little exercise we did to try to implement the use of these color theory in class...

So well looking at it again made me realize that the first 3 paintings looks like normal erasers because they are all 3 monochrome haha.

But well the first one is a monochrome study with green and of course green give off the happy vibes and it kind of looks dull apart from that though... yeah... monochrome is dull...

The cool colors could also be dull but the light green that I used as the first layer and the purple I added for the highlight kind of makes if looks sad, empty, lonely and cold... cool colors are sad and depressing...

The warm colors however looks bright and powerful (but the yellow I used for the highlights kind of soothe the power down so it doesn't looks very strong as such). Warm colors have a really dominant and prideful look kind of.

Then there's the complementary which is a very confusing look. I used green and red and it seems like the eraser has a happy and strong personality, kind of a mature look. Some people gonna say that it does not work together at all and looks bad but it looks bad in a good way kind of, so to me it's an amazingly good strong contrasting look that can create discomfort and confusion to it's viewer.

Then there's triad which has a very smooth contrast that can create depth. Analyzing it now made me realize that it kind of make sense because I've used 2 warm colors and only 1 cool color that is not in the total opposite of the color wheel, that's why it's contrasting but it's so light that you might not even feel it or notice it at first glance. It's kind of a "peaceful contrast" I would say. In terms of feels, I would say that the blue supports the 2 other warm colors perfectly and give them strength.

Now the last one, it kind of bring us back to the same feelings of the complementary colors but this time we have like 2 pair of colors fighting each other. The way I've used it made it looks like the blue colors are drowning the warm colors really badly! Well, back the feel, it's a rigid look but not as rigid as the complementary, it's a bit smoother but still it creates discomfort and confusion because of the distance between the colors that we are using.