Color Harmony

I just finished a week of intensive study about color harmony. We had to do three paintings in a week. I thought I'd share them with you. This is the Louisville, KY, skyline from a friends condo 17 stories up. I'm not a city person, but the sunset was pretty from this level. I picked the 5 colors in the sky and then identified their complements and used those to create the build colors from the sky colors.

This is a hiking trail near my house in northern NY. When the painting was almost finished, I did a watercolor wash over it on a new layer with a red -orange to bring harmony between the trees and ground. It is essentially the same technique I do when I put an transparent glaze over the final layer of a WSO painting with a color that brings all the colors into harmony.

This third was from a morgue file photo using multiple values of only two colors. I took a little more freedom with my brush strokes. I also focused on not cloning the trees around the deer which was what the photo showed, and I added more darker values to the right side to balance the weight of the right to the left.

Judy

Wow, these are really good! You are getting some beautiful textures in these paintings, and of course the colour harmony. And the buildings are very good; a tough subject.

Always love the colors you use. Are these watercolors, or did you do them?

These were all done with oil brushes that blend and run out of paint just like real brushes. The only watercolor I did was a glaze layer over the hiking trail to help harmonize the trees and ground and then that layer is dropped down onto the canvas layer.

Judy

Ooops! I meant to ask you if you did them digitally. They're are gorgeous!

Thanks Crystal,
Yes they are all digital

The second one I changed the composite method to "difference"

It converts all the colors to their exact complementary color. I think it looks better than the actual color of the first one. It is a great way to identify the exact complement if you are doing traditional painting and using these digital ones for reference. I'm definitely having fun.

Judy

Hi Judy,

These are really great. Especially the woodland... You are getting very good at this. Thanks for sharing.

Faisal

Isn't digital painting fun? And I'm sure it's a relief for your allergies. These are all beautiful.

Definitely fun and hypoallergenic. LOL

Judy