TIP: Harmonizing Colors in Artwork

[Nancy OShea]

When you need a pleasing color pallet and don't know where to begin, this old painter's trick can come to your rescue. It's a simple method for creating color harmony that works equally well in digital or tangible artwork.  Here's how it works: 

• Pick any random paint colors and combine in swatch layers to form a 'mother' base color.
• I layered 3 color swatches each at 33% opacity. For 5 colors swatches, use 20% opacity, and so on... 
• The value in the middle where all swatches overlap is the 'mother' of all your colors. 
• When 'mother' is added to primary colors, voila!  Instant color harmony.

It's a foolproof way to create harmonizing colors without a lot of tedious guesswork.  I hope you'll give it a try.