Note: Worksheets are attached as PDF files at the bottom of this page along with video instructions.
Complementary Colors
Why are they important?
Complementary Colors are any two Hues positioned exactly opposite each other on the Basic Color Wheel. To be sure, knowing where they lie on a Color Wheel is basic. But even more important, is understanding what this means in a practical sense.
As you can see directly above, the most commonly used pairs of Complementary Colors are:
YELLOW / PURPLE
RED / GREEN
BLUE / ORANGE
Take another look at each mixture, both from left to right and right to left. You can see that when you gradually add a speck of each color's Complement, the resulting mixture becomes less and less intense. Eventually the color is totally neutral.
This is the perfect way to easily knock down the intensity of any color if it's too vibrant. Sometime beginning artists try to reduce the intensity of a vibrant color by adding black. This works too, but it also creates a Shade and the underlying vibrancy of the original color is often lost.
But you must be careful when mixing in a color's Complement. The color changes super quickly so be sure to add extremely small specks at a time.
So why do Complementary Colors react to each other the way they do?
If you look closely at the Color Wheel at the top of this page, you'll notice a few things.
As you can see directly above, the most commonly used pairs of Complementary Colors are:
YELLOW / PURPLE
RED / GREEN
BLUE / ORANGE
Take another look at each mixture, both from left to right and right to left. You can see that when you gradually add a speck of each color's Complement, the resulting mixture becomes less and less intense. Eventually the color is totally neutral.
This is the perfect way to easily knock down the intensity of any color if it's too vibrant. Sometime beginning artists try to reduce the intensity of a vibrant color by adding black. This works too, but it also creates a Shade and the underlying vibrancy of the original color is often lost.
But you must be careful when mixing in a color's Complement. The color changes super quickly so be sure to add extremely small specks at a time.
So why do Complementary Colors react to each other the way they do?
If you look closely at the Color Wheel at the top of this page, you'll notice a few things.
- First, each of the six pairs of Complementary Colors always contain one cool and one warm Hue. This means they are the colors with the most contrast.
- Each pair of Complementary Colors always contain some combination of all three Primary Colors. For example, in the pair Yellow and Purple, Yellow is one Primary and Purple is a mixture of the other two Primary colors Red and Blue.
- When you mix all three Primary Paint Colors together you get a dark neutral. So because Complementary Colors always contain all three Primary colors, they quickly neutralize each other when mixed together.
Complimentary Color Worksheet Instructions
Pages 1 & 2:
Page 3:
Page 4:
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Worksheets:
complementary_basic.pdf |
splitcomplementary.pdf |
colorintensity.pdf |