Don't Be Afraid of Complementary Colors! - Acrylic Pour Paintings

You do not have to be afraid of complementary colors, and what I mean by that are the colors that are crossed from each other on a color wheel. So you're purple and yellow, you're orange and blue, and you're green and red. And throughout this video, I'm going to show you some paintings that I have used complementary colors in and some techniques that I use to stop them from going to a color that I don't necessarily care for. I will also show you a painting in which that happened and it turned out wonderful and someone actually purchased it. So you don't have to be afraid of using those colors together. In this painting, you can see my base color is a light periwinkle purple and on top of it, I immediately put down yellow and I used some other pastel colors. But one way to get around using complementary colors is to choose one of the colors as the base and choose one of the colors as the accent color and then mix that color with other colors that work. So the yellow was mixed with beautiful pinks and blues and it didn't have a chance to really mix with the purple that much. And that is one way I can use complementary colors together. Another way is to use both of the colors as the base but keep them predominantly separated from each other. And when you do this, you can choose accent colors that work with both of those base colors. Now another thing I will say here is choosing the right value and the right shade of your color when they're complementary is important. So here I chose two relatively dark color bases, so a dark green and a more almost maroon red. And this will help those colors, even if they do mix, blend to a beautiful shade. Again, still red and green but they work together and this one definitely gives me kind of holiday spirit vibes. So in the center, I'm using pretty neutral colors, a very light blue, a white, and a almost bronze kind of metallic. And so that really gives the colors in the center their ability to shine but you're still using complementary colors as the base. So that is another way that you can keep them a little bit separated, have them blend a little bit. You can see the red go into the green a little bit but you're using them together and visually they're pleasing but they don't have to mix completely together. My metallic took over a little bit in this painting but that's totally okay. I still got those holiday spirit vibes out of this one. The next one is actually one of my favorites and this is one I did more recently and this is using orange and blue together. When you're doing commissions and people have requests for certain colors, you do have to try to figure out how to use them together. And in this one I'm going to use a technique that I call a parallel swipe so that all the colors are there but they actually don't blend together that much. And you can see there I took the colors and I swiped them in the direction that they were already facing. So the orange didn't swipe over the blue, instead they swiped together in the same direction so they didn't blend. I'm also at times keeping a color in between them so I'm using a gold or a turquoise green in between the orange and the blue and that also helps them not blend together as much. And sometimes you may like the color that they blend to. For instance a beautiful bright orange and a light sky blue actually blends together to give a caramel color so sometimes you may not mind what those colors look like when they blend together. I personally think it's a myth that you shouldn't blend or use complementary colors together. This one I also used the swipe and scoop technique to kind of get more motion across the canvas and I definitely like that technique. So here you go orange and blue together and there is really not a color that I don't like on this canvas. There are some parts that blended to a beautiful green dark green color but that is totally okay. Next up I am going to use again purple and yellow in the same painting but in this painting I am going to keep the puddles entirely separate and I am using on top a pearlescent color which is an interference color by Amsterdam they're called pearl paints and those I'm keeping the same color on top so you're seeing the puddles of the purples and the blues and the yellows and the greens and on top of them I'm putting that same color. It's just in an interference color that will show up when it dries but in this I'm also using yellow and purple right next to each other but they're not going to blend that much together. Using complementary colors can be so visually pleasing and they don't you don't have to be afraid of using them in the same painting at all and I will show you a painting where I use them all together and I do get a color that most people would say I don't like necessarily too much but it was actually a painting that sold very quickly. So here you can see you've got them together but I've used some other analogous colors to the purple and they just work beautifully together. Now in this painting I am using actually two sets of colors that would not normally go together so I've got my orange and my yellow and I've also got a very deep magenta and purple and the blue so I've got my orange and blue and I've got my purple and my yellow both in the same painting and the colors that I'm using are very bright and when they are very bright a lot of times they do turn to a brown color but the addition of the magenta and the swipes with the white really helped this painting out and you can see those kind of murky kind of darker brown colors that are in this painting but as I swiped with the white over top of them and as I added that magenta as that kind of solidifying color that color that brought it all together you'll see as I stretch this out the colors just work together you don't have to be afraid of brown either you can see the colors the blue and the orange have mixed together and the purple and the yellow have mixed together but there is enough magenta and there's enough of the yellow and orange that have kind of come through in the painting with the white lacing that this painting color combination still just works and this one is in someone's home they did purchase it so you don't have to be afraid of mixing these colors together and brown is not a bad color so don't be afraid of mixing these complementary colors in this one I am using primarily oranges and blues again and in this one I'm keeping them on total opposite sides of the canvas I am doing what I call a side design and in these paintings you have seen me use paint and water which blend very easily together you have seen me use the swipe technique you've seen me use a puddle pour erect puddle pour technique so this goes for all kinds of different techniques so here I'm taking my oranges and I'm using analogous colors so red yellow and orange on the other side I'm using different shades of blue and I am keeping those colors separate from each other but when you view the whole painting you can view those colors together and the eye takes in the complementary colors together and that is yet another way that you can combine those colors without necessarily mixing them on the canvas and it has just a striking energetic type feel to it when you use those complementary colors together the last one that I am going to show you are all the complementary colors together as a base and that one is your purple and yellow your orange and your blue and your lime green and bright red so for this one similar to the other one I showed using them as the base but even on the same canvas can really have such a beautiful striking result on the inside I again am going to use just a touch of other colors that I know will mix together beautifully so I'm using yellow I'm using a little bit of the red a little bit of the purple a little bit of the blue so this is really like a rainbow throughout and then I am using a little bit of the white and the white really brightens this up and it keeps all the colors from going to a muddy color that you may not enjoy again there is nothing wrong with brown so I really love how these colors came out and you can see how the white just brightened everything up so adding a little bit of a light color or a white color can really brighten that up but you can see all those colors they stayed just as true as they were even though they're blended and mixed with paint and water well I hope that you enjoyed this video and don't be afraid of complementary colors