-By Megan Twomey

Welcome to Art Smart Part 3! Sorry for not having an issue last month, however we shall be continuing the series with this months issue, color palettes and color theory.

Color Theory

Color theory is one of the main topics we will be talking about in this issue. Color theory is basically a set of rules and guidelines when making nice color palettes. The 6 parts to color theory is Monochromatic color palettes, Analogous color palettes, complementary color palettes, split-complementary color palettes, triad color palettes, and lastly tetradic color palettes. I will go over each color palette in separate sub-chapters so lets get started!

Monochromatic and Analogous Palettes.

Monochromatic and Analogous palettes are similar in some ways but still very different. A monochromatic palette consists of 1 color however only changes in shades and brightness. Meanwhile Analogous palettes have more variety, but this variety remains around 1 color with only warmer or cooler hues. For example, an Analogous color palette would have colors like red with pink and orange. These are color palettes mainly beginner artists use since it's harder to make the color palette look weird or unrealistic. However while it depends on what your drawing I don't recommend these color palettes mainly because their isn't much variety in them.

Complementary and Split-Complementary Palettes.

Complementary and Split-complementary color palettes are both palettes which you choose a color, find it's inverted hue, then for split complementary there is an extra step of choosing another color like that opposite for example, Red inverts to Teal, then a color that looks like it such as Green or A blue-ish purple. These color palettes are usually more vibrant and distinctive. Color palettes like these mainly look good depending on what you're drawing. However there is 1 thing I recommend when using these palettes is choosing 1 color to be the main color then the other color being a accessory or secondary color. Like using purple for the main color then doing accessories with yellow/golden highlights.

Triad and Tetradic Palettes,

The last 2 color palettes we will be talking about are Triad and Tetradic color palettes. These palettes are very vibrant and contain many different colors, they are more advanced due to them having the most hues/colors. They mainly get used with 1 or 2 main colors and the others being accents/accessory colors. An example of a triad colors are the 3 primary colors; Red, Blue, and Yellow. Or the secondary colors; Orange, Green, and Purple. Tetradic color palettes use the color wheel then go in a rectangular shape. For example, Lime, Yellow-Orange, Dark Blue, and Magenta. Color palettes like these are harder to use but can look amazing if used right.