Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Complementary colours

Single tomato study
9 x 12 coloured pencil on bristol smooth
copyright Jeanette Jobson

Although my love of art is in graphite and drawing, sometimes I do crave colour too and this fit the bill nicely. I always enjoy drawing tomatoes. That hot colour against a complementary one, the blues in the background, works well.

I was thinking about complementary colours and just why they are pleasing to the eye and how the eye sees them. Its a complex process, explained nicely in Wikipedia.

I also found a little video called Crazy Colors that provides an interesting visual experiment about complementary colours. Try it and see what your eyes pick up.

4 comments:

Robyn Sinclair said...

It seems the more one learns about colour, the more there is to know. That's a great little teaching video, Jeanette.

Lovely colour blending on your tomato.

janie said...

great tomato, love the softness of the pencils and the beautiful sheen you captured.
That crazy colours is quite amazing.

Jeanette Jobson said...

Its such a complex subject and I don't profess to know a lot about it. I just know what looks good (sometimes). I believe I've gone past the 'theory' stage and into something more intuitive.

Thanks Janie. It was an interesting study to complete. I hope to try it again tonight in acrylics.

Jo Castillo said...

Jeanette, that is one luscious tomato. I could eat it! We shall see if it is as tasty in acrylics. Ha.

The crazy colours is fun.