How to choose a LIMITED COLOR PALETTE / 6 exercises to find your colors / Plus my FAVORITE combo!

[Music] hello and welcome back to my channel my name is Koo I'm a mixed media artist and watercolor paint maker based in Hawaii in my latest YouTube Community poll you guys voted for a video about limited color palettes which as you know if you've been around my social media for a while is one of my favorite topics to talk about first we'll look at why you want to choose a limited color palette then I'll share my favorite tips about how to choose your limited color palette that fits you and or the project you're currently working on I'll also show you my favorite mini palette with Indian yellow Opera pink Deo turquoise and indigo and what you can do with it this video focuses on watercolor but naturally you can apply all the tips that I give you today to other media as well okay let's Dive Right In why would anybody want to paint with just three colors for example the three CL classic primary colors when there are so many pre-made colors available and out there first of all the learning Factor having just a few colors at your disposal will teach you about color mixing and color Harmony When I rediscovered my love for painting 7 years ago I worked with a limited color palette from the get-go and it made me understand how colors work together and how to mix colors and as a side note it also helped me with my bread and butter job of creating colors palettes and sets for my Aloha watercolors paint making business even outside of painting think interior design clothing making greeting cards designing a website knowledge about colors always comes in handy two color Harmony a limited color palette will lead to a more balanced painting let's say you use a classic primary set of red yellow and blue and you mix your orange greens and neutrals from that these greens oranges and neutrals will automatically go well with each other as they all stem from the same three colors so you could paint a whole series of artwork with different subject matters but using the same colors and their mixes will unify the series and create Harmony and cohesiveness and even if you don't mix your colors and you take the colors right and straight from the palette that you picked your series of artworks will still look unified color-wise three simplify your decision-making process especially for challenges like a 30-day challenge I love having my color palette set and ready to go so that everyday I can just reach for my toolbox with all my supplies and colors right there no more pondering which colors to choose that jobs already done and I can get started with painting if you want to know more about how to set up a daily art challenge check out my video from last week and I put a card up here so you can have a look if you like I do want to say at this point that I know that it can be challenging and frustrating to mix all the colors all the time so let's say you have a three color limited palette very small palette and you really like this Mossy green that you mixed but you have a hard time recreating it in that case I can recommend either you make a whole huge puddle of that color you know you can let it dry on the palette you can reactivate it or if you find that color in a store somewhere you know a convenience color premixed color like that then just go ahead and add it to your palette if you know that you're going to use this color a lot and it keeps you from sitting down and painting daily and I did that myself back in May in my 30-day mix media challenge this was my palette I based it on three colors the yellow and the blue and then instead of red I chose a magenta this is Oprah pink and I added for example this avocado green even though I could have easily mixed that with yellow and blue but I'd say especially when you're traveling and you know that you only have a limited amount of time and in this case also because this was a mixed media Challenge and I also added you know crayons and CED pencils and all different typ types of media it was good to have a few convenience color added to the very basic three color palette to recap why choose a limited color palette you'll practice your mixing skills and will learn which colors work best to explore your creative voice for more balance and cohesiveness in your painting to make it easier to get started with your daily art session now that we've looked at why to choose a limited color palette let's look at how to choose one when it comes to choosing a limited color palette there's no wrong or right or not just one method but there are a few good ones to try out when you don't know where to begin one let's start with a more general idea of what you like are you drawn to calm and cool scenes not just in art but in general like looking at the ocean or a Serene Lake and Forest gives you all all the Good Vibes or maybe you love all the bright colors you even love wearing them or you feel more drawn to muted and warm colors in the yellow and Peach range or you're wild and just love to mix it all up cool blue colors in the background and then something really Punchy neon pink in the foreground maybe understanding what you feel drawn to might make your decision on what to paint easier or where to take your art in the future you might already know what you love to paint and how to paint it is it animals portraits Landscapes or do you love sweet more simple illustrations maybe children's books illustrations or maybe you're a pattern designer do you like to paint more realistically or do you like to stylize your art or maybe even paint abstract the combination of finding out about your favorite colors and also knowing or feeling out what you like to draw raw might make it a lot easier for you to find your favorite and go to color palettes two let's get a bit more specific okay let's say you love Cool Blues and greens and you would like to paint ocean scenes or you love bright and vibrant colors and you decide to do a 30-day challenge and paint tropical flowers next step you can choose some reference photos and pick some nice blues and greens for the ocean and some vibrant Reds and yellows and pinks and greens for the tropical flowers you can use the free tool Adobe color to upload the photo and have the app pick a color palette right from that photo you can change the colors by moving the little round swatches here around the photo you can move the swatches down here and even choose from different modes here in the left panel from colorful bright to muted deep and dark this Adobe site is free to use however the free version doesn't let you save your palette so I recommend that you take a screenshot before you start uploading your next photo and choosing another color palette three another interesting way to explore what colors you like is to open up a magazine and mark the spots or even cut out a few swatches that you like intuitively then lay them out in front of you and start combining them until they feel right you can create a mini color mood board like this on Pinterest too coming back to Oceans or tropical flowers you can peruse the magazine with this idea in mind of course so you can try and find blues and greens for the ocean and bright and fun colors for the flowers but you can keep it more spontaneous too especially if you don't have a certain theme in mind and maybe just want to paint something abstract or just have a good time and play around with some colors four naturally you can find color inspiration all around you not just in Pinterest or in magazines if you love flowers and you see a flower that really speaks to you then take a photo and extract a color palette in Adobe color I have this method or I learned this method from the one and only Bonnie Christine a surface pattern designer she shares so much of her knowledge and I will link her website down in the description below she says that you can always rely on nature to come up with the most wonderful and cohesive color palettes and she recommends that you choose a few saturated colors as well as a couple of neutrals dark and light five if you've never worked with a limited color palette before and want to learn how to mix colors from scratch you can start with the classic primary colors red blue and yellow or with a more modern variety of that palette the printing industry standard of cyan magenta and yellow most of the big watercolor companies and also a lot of handmade watercolor paint makers offer basic color sets with both cool and warm primaries that let you mix a whole rainbow of colors if you're completely new to color mixing you might never have heard of the term warm or cool colors and that actually could be a whole big video in itself about color theory and warm and cool colors but very generally speaking and in a nutshell we perceive blue green and purple as cool colors and yellow orange and reds as warm colors but even these colors might lean towards the other side so let's say you have a blue that has a reddish Hue like like ultramarine blue for example then that would be considered a warm blue or naturally if you have a purple that has lots of red in it that would be considered more warm than a purple that has a lot of blue in it or a green with lots of yellow would also be perceived as a warm green there's a whole science on how to mix cool and warm primer is to create more muted or vibrant oranges purples and greens as I said could be a whole video in itself and the reason I'm mentioning these here at all is that they are extremely versatile you can mix so many colors with just a primary color palette for me personally I hardly ever use red I usually go for a pink magenta or my favorite Opera pink but I do stay close to the idea of primaries it's just that I change it up a little bit and I'm going to talk about that in my next point six My Method what I usually do is I choose colors that are close to the primary color palette but not quite and then I add two more colors in a more neutral range usually a light and a dark one I start building my palette with one color the hero color in this case it's Opera pink Opera pink on the color wheel would be somewhere between red and purple following the model of the primary colors arranged in a triangle or also known as a Triad I then substitute the blue for a FAO turquoise and the yellow with an Indian yellow I could work with just these three colors and create beautiful mixes these swatches here show a few examples of oranges purples and neutrals you can mix with just these three as I will be using this palette for my upcoming mix media challenge over on my Instagram account I want to add another type of blue to the palette to make it a bit more versatile the challenge's theme is ocean Vibes so Indigo feels like a very good color to add to the mix so a very dark color which will allow me to create darker values of all My Chosen colors for this palette as a side note when you work with watercolor you can utilize the white of the paper to create even more variations of color saturation for example you can water down this Pho turquoise to a very faded looking Light Blue for my own own palette creation I consider my love for bright colors but I also look at the things that I want to paint with that palette so having ocean Vibes as the theme of The Challenge with prompts ranging from ocean animals surfing to Ocean Landscapes I wanted to have a very versatile color palette that lets me mix all sorts of colors and then I added Indigo as a convenience color I might actually end up adding another blue maybe something like ultramarine blue cuz ultramarine blue is a very granulating color it's also great for mixing and the other four colors I've already chosen for the palette are all very transparent and non- granulating so I think it would be interesting to have a granulating blue in that mix as well I personally love granulating colors to recap one ask yourself what you like not just an art but in general two choose a theme and pick colors from reference photos three find inspiration in magazines or on Pinterest and create a color mood board four find inspiration all around you take photos and extract a color palette five experiment with the classic three primary color palette six start with the hero color then build up your palette according to theme taste and personal preference is I hope you find this video encouraging to try out a limited color palette play with it for a while maybe for a month and see where it takes you and what you can learn from it if you want to join me for the upcoming mixed media challenge hop over to my Instagram the Aloha Studios or check out the description below I'll link everything down there if you enjoyed this video please subscribe and leave a little comment down below I'll see you again next Sunday for my next video and until then happy creating and aloha [Music]

Channel: The Aloha Studios

Views: 712

Keywords: alohawatercolors, thealohastudios, keiko saile, swatches, watercolor swatches, palette, color palette, colour palette, limited colors, limited color palette, limited colour palette, limited watercolor palette, primary colors, cmy colors, how to choose a palette, how to choose colors, how to choose watercolors, handmade watercolors, watercolor tutorial, watercolor tips, creative voice, creative style, art style, improve your art, find your colors, color wheel, primary colours

Id: f15kKgm06HE

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 02 2024