Complementary pairs

Included in the final part of my series earlier this year (April, May and June 2021 issues) was a sheet of colour mixes, swatches of colour that demonstrated the transition from pure, saturated colour out of the tube to a range of subtle and de-saturated colour mixes.

Each colour in a pair of complementary colours is found opposite each other on the colour wheel (red – green, orange – blue, yellow – purple) and will, when mixed together, begin to neutralise each other and will eventually produce a coloured ‘black’ as each colour is de-saturated.

By carefully mixing colours taken directly from the tube, the mixing of complementary colours together along with the addition of white, we observe how a subtle and more delicate palette of colours can be successfully achieved