Color Combo Special #4: Complementary Color Schemes

Complementary color schemes mean pairing colors that are complete opposites, like red and green, blue and orange or yellow and purple! Crazy!

So far, we’ve gone into detail about three color matching techniques (the monotonal color scheme, the monochromatic color scheme, and the analogous color scheme), all of which use the same basic technique to ensure you end up with colors that don’t clash: pick colors that are similar to each other.  This is no coincidence: colors with similar zip codes on the color wheel almost always look good together, and if you know that, you can master the techniques of choosing a home base, and then venturing farther and farther from home.

But what about those color schemes that use completely different colors, but still manage to look good?  What about those color schemes that make you scratch your head, saying to yourself, ‘I would never have put those three colors together, but man, I like the effect!’

Our next three color combo specials focus on those daring techniques for matching colors that involve (drum roll please), jumping across the color wheel.  Leaving behind the conservative, these next three techniques offer formulas for bringing harmony out of chaos, creating color schemes that manage to bring together a much richer cast of complexity and texture.

The first is called the complementary color scheme.  It has been used in the creation of symbols for ages, giving us the red and green of Christmas, for example, or the blue and gold of many sports teams.  The formula for a complementary color scheme is simple: pick a color, and then find its opposite on the color wheel and pick that color too.  Vary the value and chroma of each color to get a subtler contrast than you’d get from two pure tones (going with red and green, for example, a dull maroon and a pale sage will hold the complementary harmony without looking so much like a Christmas card), and voila.

If you need more than two colors, pick a few that are clustered close on each side of the wheel, kind of like you’re creating two complementary monochromatic schemes.  Balancing your maroon with both a pale sage green and a dark earthy evergreen, for example, could increase the richness of the harmony while still maintaining the balance.  Also consider working in some pure neutrals (black, white, gray, or off-white): cream, in this example, could be a good addition to the warm, regal atmosphere of the reds and greens we’ve already chosen.  Be mindful of the tints going into your neutral colors; a cream, in this composition, because it holds red undertones that will resonate with the maroon, would be much more effective than a bluish silvery white with undertones that would clash.

The complementary color scheme requires you use your discretion in the final choices.  While the technique offers a scaffolding for picking good colors, some risk of clashing is introduced any time you jump across the color wheel.  So make sure to really study your final choices before committing, and as we have mentioned many times before, perhaps investing in a few trial quarts to test out in a sample area would give you a better projection of how your colors might look when painted on a large surface.  Blue Door Painters offers a complimentary color consultation service that can help you work out a good complementary color scheme, or just give your feedback and reassurance on whatever you’ve developed.  Trusting your instincts is also important.  With patience and your intuition, you might come up with something so clever and pleasing that you end up featured on HGTV!

In our next feature we’ll add yet another level of complexity to our formula, moving into a discussion of split-complementary color schemes!  Stay tuned!

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