Choosing a color combination for your layout is very important. The colors you select for your papers and embellishments will set the tone for the entire layout. The colors you use become your "palette", and they establish your finished layout's mood and intensity. Thus, it's useful for you to know which color combinations put out which messages.
Colors have temperature. Warm colors - red, orange, yellow, and variants of these - have vibrancy. They convey energy and movement. Cool colors - blue, green, purple, and their variants - are calm. They impart a sense of serenity. When you look at a layout that has both warm and cool colors, the warms will seem to "advance" and the cools will seem to "recede."
A complementary color palette is made up of two colors that are directly opposite one another on the color wheel, such as red and green or purple and yellow. Because this always results in a "cool" paired with a "warm", complementary palettes are usually very balanced, in terms of color - there is both excitement and tranquility.
Analogous palettes consist of 2-4 colors that are adjacent to one another in the color wheel, such as blue and green, or purple and red. This generally results in a stronger mood, whether the color choices are warm or cool.
A layout that uses a triadic color combination is made of colors from three points - all equidistant - on the color wheel. An example would be the three primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), or the three secondary colors (green, orange, purple). This is a more sophisticated palette choice than either complementary or analogous - you must be careful not to "overdo it" with too many patterns and textures when you have this many colors.
A color palette made entirely of different shades of the same color is called monochromatic. It is especially striking with black-and-white photos, but can look beautiful with color photos, as well. Using a monochromatic palette makes it more important that you vary the scale of your papers and embellishments, to make sure you hold the viewer's interest. This is a great time to break out the textured and handmade papers. You will also want to make sure that you use a range of values and intensities of your theme color.
Create a layout using one of the color schemes explained above.
Please respect the ScrapMentor copyright in using this courseware. You are welcome to print a single edition of courseware for your own personal use, but you are not permitted to copy, distribute, or reproduce - in whole or in part - any of the courseware for others, without the express written permission of the owners of Scrap-Poodle. You may not charge for ScrapMentor courseware, nor present it as your own.
** This content was previously published at www.Scrap-Poodle.com . It is presented here for the convenience of former members of that site, and scrapbookers and stampers at large. Please do not reproduce this information in any format (except for printing a copy for personal use) without permission of Dana Jones, original publisher of this information. **