orange and blue zing!

Orange Cattails, 7 x 11, pastel on paper

When orange and blue are close together, they hum and buzz like loud crickets.

Cattails -- featuring Yellow Green

Yellow Green Cattails, 7 x 11, pastel on paper

Probably like you, I have strong color preferences. When in doubt, I will reach for yellow orange and blue. Even if I have no doubts, I reach for these colors. They have become comfortable in my hands, easy on my eyes, and my good friends.

Not that there's anything wrong with that ...

But, I think it has left me weak with other color harmonies. Challenged. Uneasy. Sometimes I even experience "stranger danger" with other color combinations.

So, find a problem, figure out a solution, right? I took out my trusty Analogous Color Wheel, and dialed in a less-familiar main color: Yellow Green. And I worked the rest of this painting around the analogous and complementary colors. Not what I would normally choose, but it works. And I loved the challenge of putting together colors in a new way.

I just might have to do this again!

Tool -- new and cool

I'm pretty sure that I've seen it before, but at Dawn Emerson's workshop earlier this month, I saw this tool again. Not only saw it, but saw it being used. 

If you are working on tuning up your color harmonies in your paintings, like I am, allow me to recommend this tool to you. The "Analogous Color Wheel" lets you dial up the main colors in your painting, and shows you which colors complement and are discords. Is you painting mostly blue (as I have dialed in above)? Then orange is the complement and yellow green and red violet can offer some discord pops. Where to get this nifty tool? I bought mine through Dakota Art Pastels here.

And that brings me to a question Casey Klahn threw at me during his recent workshop in town: what would happen if you just turned the color wheel and painted this piece again, but one click to the right or left? I am working on that one.

Do you have a new favorite art tool? Do tell!