You can find entire classes and books about color theory but it boils down to how colors interact and how they make the viewer feel. Hue, intensity, and value contribute to that feeling with warm colors energizing and advancing and cool colors calming and receding, bright, high value colors attracting the eye and dull or low value colors blending.

I recently painted a 16x20” oil painting of a vase of red/orange tulips. I had set the original flowers against a neutral background and had painted a small study using beige for the background. It was pretty but I wasn’t convinced this was the best option for the large painting. I did a second, more detailed painting with the pale background and again, I liked it in the small painting but wanted to test other options.

I ended up masking the background in Photoshop and tried out options: analogous vs complimentary hues and high intensity vs low value.

I really love the gold background and when I posted the question on social media many people voted for this one. The analogous hue gives it a lux, rich feel that I really liked.

With the complementary colors, I quickly decided against the traditional, duller blues and focused on the turquoise (my office is painted this color with orange accents so I might be a bit biased!). My concern was that it seemed a bit less high end, more juvenile. Votes were definitely divided between the regal gold and joyous turquoise.

Which would you choose? (See the final painting here which will be for sale at Art on the Avenue on October 5, 2024)