Color Theory: Juxtaposing Colors

Video Transcript

"Following up with Juxtaposition a little further, I've kept the same background colors and I've changed the color on top. I've used a very intense light green. It seems very intense on here because of the difference in value, you've got a change of value here. It doesn't seem so intense on the orange, partly because the values are much closer together, than with the green or the blue. In here it looks darker and more intense, if that's possible, because it's next to its complimentary color. Red and green are complimentaries, there's a reason why they go together at Christmas. Complimentaries give you the biggest bang for your buck. Here we have the green and it does look like a more powerful green, than it does on the orange. Over on this side I tried a darker green and, again, it seems more intense here. It seems a little bit more neutral on this one and on this one, because it's close to the value, it sinks a little bit because they're both similar values. It stands out on this one more because of the value and in this one, the values are fairly similar and it shows up because it's a complimentary. Then I put the pink next to it because, again, pink is a form of red and so I wondered what the pink would do next to its complimentary color. Still doing what it did the first time, in that, this pink looks bluer and this pink looks more orange. Putting it next to the green, it makes the pink more vibrant because the green is next to it and it's sort of helping that complimentary bang come forth. It's never about one color. You can never mix a color on your palette and say "that's it," until you get it up on your painting, working with all the other colors."