Time to Play: Using Hue Contrast

In this exercise, you’ll get to apply what you’ve learned about hue contrast. You’ll also get to experiment a bit with saturation and value.

To use the color mixing tool in this exercise, click anywhere on the first image to select Color #1, then click anywhere on the second image to select Color #2. You will see the results in the drafts below the images.

Here’s what to do for this exercise.

Part 1: Create a fabric with an analogous color scheme.

1. Using the color wheel on the left, choose two analogous colors (colors that are within two steps of each other on the color wheel) for Colors 1 and 2. These colors will have very little hue contrast.
   How do the resulting drafts look and feel?
2. Work your way around the color wheel, choosing analogous pairs of colors each time. The mood of the fabric will change as you work your way around the wheel, but the harmony of the fabric should remain.

Part 2: Create a fabric with a complementary color scheme.

1. Using the color wheel on the left, choose two complementary colors (colors that are opposites on the color wheel).
   These colors will have very strong hue contrast, and their cocktail-party conversation will be very opinionated indeed!
2. Work your way around the color wheel, choosing complementary pairs of colors each time.
   The degree to which the colors “argue” with each other will increase as the value (light/dark) contrast between the colors increases.
   
   Yellow-green/purple and blue/yellow will have the highest value contrast, and will vibrate violently against each other. Magenta and green and cyan and red, on the other hand, have much lower value contrast, and should feel much more compatible.
   
   Notice how, in the three drafts, having larger or smaller amounts of Color #2 has a profound effect on how much the colors “clash”. Often, the solution to a color-clashing problem is simply to decrease the amount of the overly-assertive color.
3. Experiment with switching Color #1 and Color #2, so the proportions are reversed. Are you finding that some colors are more assertive than others?

Part 3: Control the amount of dramatic tension in the cloth through choice of colors.

Here’s your chance to go down the rabbit hole!

1. Choose one color from the left-hand color wheel for Color #1.
2. Now, from the right-hand color wheel, pick one of your color’s complementary hues. For Color #2, choose one of the colors in the column opposite the hue you chose.
   How does changing the lightness, darkness, or saturation of the complementary color change the “conversation” the colors are having?

See what happens as the colors get closer together in darkness, and as they get further away. See what happens as the colors get duller, and as they get brighter.

Spend some time just playing with the colors, then see if you can:

• Reduce clashing of complementary colors by choosing duller colors
• Reduce clashing in a color scheme by reducing hue contrast (or by reducing light/dark contrast)
• Make a color scheme more lively by adding hue contrast (or adding light/dark contrast)

Pick Color #1

Pick Color #2

Drafts