Tutorials

Color Selection in Illustration and Painting

Tutorial 2 with Bonnard Template – Exercise 1

This time we’ll use a slightly more complex template. For these exercises, we’ll gravitate towards vivid colors to push the boundaries of where this color selection method can take us. Try not to worry too much about making “safe” color choices.

(Method for coloring these special template layers in Photoshop.)

Before -- After

Step 1

Open the Bonnard template. You may download the template here.

Step 2

Hide all layers except for L1. Choose a color for the background rectangle. Here we chose a blue.

Step 3

A palette is created from the blue, range 40. A very dark blue, and layer L2 is filled using the special layer coloring method.

Step 4

L3 is filled with a dark blue, chosen from a 20 range from the blue.

Step 5

L4 is filled with a green, a 5 range from the color we just used.

Step 6

L5 is filled with a light blue-green, a 10 range from the blue.

Step 7

L6 is filled with a purple, also a 10 range from the blue.

Step 8

L7 is filled with a darker purple, a 20 range from the blue.

Step 9

L8 is filled with a bright green, a 20 range from the blue.

Step 10

We fill L9, L10 and L11 in succession here. L9 is filled with a similar color, a 5 range from the bright green. L10 is filled with an orange, a 10 range from the bright green. L11 is filled with a violet, a 20 range from the purple.

Step 11

Fill L12 and L13. L12 is filled with a light orange, a 10 range from the orange. L13 is filled with a red, a 20 range from the darkest color.

Step 12

Fill L14, L15, L16, and L17. L14 with a dark red, a 5 range from the red. L15 with a pink, a 20 range from the red. L16 with a light pink, a 10 range from the pink. And L17 with a green, a 20 range from the darkest color.

Step 13

Fill L18 and L19. L18 with a dark blue, a 5 range from the green on the left. L19 with a purple, a 20 range from the color just used.

Step 14

Finally, fill L20 with a purple, a 20 range from the darkest color. L21 is left black. You may notice there is some flexibility in which color we choose to create a palette from. This is a bit of a judgment call, depending on how much that color touches or is dominated by the new color you want to pick. It can also be about which color relationship you think seems most important, even if the two colors don’t seem to touch that much. You could also coordinate the new color with two existing colors rather than just one, using the three color combination method. This would make for an even more thoroughly controlled piece. We aren’t bothering with that for these tutorials though, for the sake of simplicity and rapid execution. Even so, it becomes clear that even a loose adherence to contrast proportions goes a long way.

Next - Exercise 2