Painting Color Schemes

My best advise is to practice these techniques on mixed media paper before moving on to fabric. Fabric is not as forgiving as paper. You can't erase anything if you make a mistake and covering it up may make it too stiff. Once you've built confidence, switch back and forth from paper to a scrap piece of fabric. Techniques that work easily on paper may require some modification to get the same effect on fabric.

The most common mistake is picking up too much paint with the brush. Too much paint causes a loss of placement control and interferes with blending. It also prevents the brush from working the way it is designed to. You only need a tiny amount. Lay the paint down in very thin layers and build the layers until you have the effect you want. You can add more layers, but you can never remove paint. There is nothing fast about painting. I've uploaded these videos so you can follow along and practice painting different color schemes. You'll even see my mistakes and how I correct them.

Monochromatic or Ombré

Monochromatic is a simple color scheme that moves from deep to pale or vice versa. It is used to distinguish light from shadow and works on any object, but it's flat and best placed in the background of a large scene.

I made the mistake of using Jo Sonja Retarder Medium in this video. It's supposed to slow drying time to aide blending, but all it did was spread my paint and I didn't want a watercolor effect. I had to let it dry and paint over it, and that's what you see at the beginning of the video. I later used aloe vera gel as a blender and it worked.

Gradation

A graduated color scheme is perfect for both focal objects and landscapes. This is the scheme used most often in craft painting because so much of craft painting focuses on simple subjects.

Paint should blend almost seamlessly from one value to the next. I used quite a bit of aloe gel on this one.

Realism

The Realism technique is a method of applying light and shadow to a gradation color scheme to create depth. Shadow is placed where light is absent and the highlight is placed where light would touch the object. It gives the object a three dimensional quality. Most eyeshadow is applied this way, so you've already done it a hundred times. Just as with eyeshadow, what makes the effect believable is blending.

Sometimes, the best blending tool is your finger.

Complementary

A complementary color scheme looks best on two separate objects. Red and green are complimentary, but they clash when placed together. A magenta colored rose works when combined with a green leaf, even if the green contains a bit of blue or yellow.

I didn't use any gel or glycerin for this one.

Analogous

Analogous color schemes work best when you're placing an independent object in a landscape. A palm tree with green leaves and yellow-green highlights would work on a blue-green sea landscape.

This is the second video I shot and I used aloe vera gel as a blender again. I also used vegetable glycerin for the line work and it worked really well. The paint flowed easily but when the paint ran out, there was some glycerin in the brush that flowed clear onto the painting. You'll see me dab this off with my finger and pick up more paint. I discovered that I need to dip the brush into the glycerin first and then, the paint.

The best book available on color schemes is The Color Scheme Bible: Inspirational Palettes for Designing Home Interiors by Anna Starmer.