Custom Search

When complementary colors are mixed in unequal parts , you can take advantage of them for creating a variety of darker colors of the dominant one without using black.

The perfect example is when you have put down green for foliage. If you add some red to the green, it will darken the green and give the appearance of shadowed areas.

In my DVD, "Painting with Acrylics: Sombrero Peak", you can see how I added permanent rose to permanent sap green to get a darker green for the shadowing and background of the foreground foliage.

This is an example of using complementary colors to darken the value of the color without using black.

The key to using complementary colors is that different ratios have different effects.

The best thing for you to do is experiment with the colors you have on your pallet to see what colors you get.

You also change the value by adding white to the color like we did when producing the grays.

This would be a good time to try mixing complementary colors to see how each react, and how you can alter their reaction by changing the ratio of the two colors.

Don't limit yourself to just the primary and secondary colors. Look at the color wheel. Blue-violet and yellow-orange, for example, are complementary. Just remember, any two colors opposite each other are complementary.