Complementary Blends 3 - Yellow and Violet

Complementary Blends 3 - Yellow and Violet

.

Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
.



When colors are chosen and organized in particular ways, they can give a three-dimensional sense to a picture. Colors that are complementary to their background tend to "pop out" or to occupy a space in front of the background.

Yellow is a high-value warm color and at its most saturated, it appears to "advance" or be closer to the viewer. Violet is a cool color and at low intensity it tends to "recede." In this drawing, the triangle of bright yellow appears to be floating in front of its background. The background of the various greyish-browns resulting from mixing the single spectrum-yellow and spectrum-violet seems to fall back behind that central rectangle.

Knowing how colors behave in combination with other colors is vital when an artist wants to emphasize an area of an image, or wants to develop a composition that leads the viewer's eye through the picture.

.

.

Complementary Pairs 3 - Yellow and Violet

Complementary Pairs 3 - Yellow and Violet

.

Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
.

Yellow and violet are the final pair of complementary colors. Like the other two complementary pairs (blue/orange and red/green), these two colors show high contrast against each other, especially since yellow is a high value or high key color and violet is a low value or low key color. Like the other complementary pairs, yellow and violet also blend together to yield a neutral tone.


To set up this drawing I sliced a lemon into quarters, revealing the pale yellow fruit inside the bright peel. Then I arranged grapes on the same plate, showing dark rich violets and paler tones of pinky maroon. I used three different colors of yellow pencils and three different colors of violets pencils to show the colors of the fruit and the neutral tones of the highlights and shading in the still life.

.

.