What Are Complementary Colours?

Complementary colours are colours that sit opposite each other on the colour wheel. When placed together they create strong visual contrast; when mixed they produce a range of muted tones and greys. For this reason complementary pairs are often used to build simple, controlled palettes in painting.

Palette Solutions: Colour Roles in a Painting

Many painters struggle with colour because they try to use too many colours at once.

A useful alternative is to build a painting around complementary colours and assign each colour a role within the composition.

Instead of asking:

What colour should this object be?

Try asking:

Which colour in my palette will represent this object?

Working with complementary colours simplifies colour decisions and often produces a more unified painting. With the palette established, you are freer to explore composition, structure and the relationships between elements in the image.

Example 1: Complementary Colour Roles in a Still Life

This still life by the French artist Pierre Coquet (1926-2021) shows how effective this approach can be.

The palette is largely built from:

• Blue

• Yellow-orange

• Greys mixed from the two colours

Rather than describing objects literally, the colours take on specific roles within the composition.

Colour Roles in the Painting

• Focal object (the teapot)→ Blue

• Secondary objects → Muted yellow-orange (also greys, very light blue)

• Background and supporting areas → Mid grey mixtures

• Table surface → Light greys

• Shadows → Darker greys

Because the palette is restricted, the painting feels calm and unified.

Controlling Colour Intensity

It is also worth noticing that the blue used here is not a strong primary blue. A small amount of its complementary colour — in this case a yellow-orange — has quickly softened or “knocked back” the blue.

The same works in the opposite direction.

If we imagine an orange placed in front of the teapot, adding a small amount of blue to the yellow-orange would also reduce its intensity. In this way two strong colours can be gently adjusted so that neither overwhelms the painting.

This is one of the most useful qualities of complementary colours: they allow the artist to control colour intensity while keeping harmony within the palette.

Value Contrast and Focal Point

Another interesting aspect of this painting is where our eye is drawn.

Even though the blue teapot is the strongest colour, it is not the first object we notice. Instead, the eye moves immediately to the small ornamental ginger jar.

This happens because the jar contains the strongest value contrast in the painting: dark blue decorative marks placed against a light white surface. Our eye is naturally attracted to areas where light and dark meet sharply. In this case, value contrast is more powerful than colour. This shows that even within a restricted and muted palette, a painting can still contain a great deal of visual variation.

It also raises an interesting question.

• What might happen if the teapot carried the strongest value contrast instead?

• Or if the teapot remained blue but one of the other objects took on that role?

Small shifts like this can change the entire visual balance of the painting.

Example 2: Complementary Colour Roles in a Landscape

While the Coquet still life demonstrates how complementary colours can organise a small group of objects, this harbour scene by Paul Signac (1863–1935) shows how the same principle can structure an entire scene.

Although the scene contains many colour variations, much of the painting is structured around a complementary relationship between:

• Yellow

• Violet

• Greys (visually mixed)

Unlike the Coquet still life, where the colours are physically mixed on the palette to create greys, here the greys emerge through optical mixing. Small dots of yellow and violet sit side by side, and when viewed from a distance the eye blends them into soft neutral tones.

Colour Roles in the Painting

• Foreground slope → Yellow and yellow-orange

• Foreground rocks → Violet and blue-violet

• Water and distant boats → Cool blue-violet mixtures

• Sky → Very pale mixtures of yellow and violet

• Reflections and transitional areas → Soft grey mixtures of the two complements

Warm and Cool Colour Contrast

Another interesting feature of this painting is the warm–cool contrast created within the complementary palette.

The foreground slope and the rocks are painted with a similarly dense application of colour. However, the two areas behave very differently visually.

• The yellow vegetation appears to advance in the picture space because yellow is a warm colour.

• The violet rocks appear to recede because violet is cooler.

Even though the areas are treated in a similar way, the difference in colour temperature creates a subtle sense of spatial depth.

Exercise: Using a Limited Palette

The two examples above show how painters can organise a composition using a limited palette and by assigning colours clear roles within the painting.

Step 1— Choose One Colour

Start with one colour you enjoy working with, preferably something slightly muted.

Examples:

• Muted blue

• Dusty rose

• Soft olive

• Warm ochre

This becomes the anchor colour of the painting.

Step 2 — Find Its Complement

Use a colour wheel to identify the complementary colour.

Complementary colours sit opposite each other on the colour wheel.

Examples:

• Blue → orange

• Red → green

• Yellow → violet

This complementary colour will form the second colour in your palette.

Useful Colour Tools

These tools allow you to select a colour and see its complementary colour directly on the wheel.

• Coolors Color Wheel

• Canva Color Wheel

• Sessions College Color Calculator

Step 3 — Create Colour Strips

Create three horizontal strips, each divided into nine equal squares.

Middle Strip

1. Place the pure colours at each end of the strip.

• Square 1 → your chosen colour

• Square 9 → its complementary colour

2. Next mix the two colours in equal proportions and place this mixture in the centre square (square 5). This mixture should produce a neutral grey or muted colour.

3. Then, fill the remaining squares between the ends and the centre.

4. Moving from square 1 toward the centre, gradually add increasing amounts of the complementary colour.

5. Moving from square 9 toward the centre, gradually add increasing amounts of the first colour.

Each square should contain a slightly different mixture so the colour gradually shifts from one end of the strip to the other.

Upper Strip

Repeat the same sequence of mixtures.

This time add a small amount of white to each colour.

Lower Strip

Repeat the sequence again.

This time add a small amount of black to each colour.

Observations

Together these three strips create a small family of related colours.

Even with only two colours, a surprisingly wide range of muted tones and greys can be produced. This exercise shows how much variety can emerge from a very limited palette.

Step 4 — Choose a Simple Structure

Begin by making several small thumbnails of a simple composition.

You might choose:

• a small still life with two or three objects

• a simplified landscape with foreground, middle ground and sky

• an abstract arrangement of shapes or bands

Keep the structure simple so you can focus on the colour relationships.

Step 5 — Assign Colour Roles

Use the colours from your strips to organise the painting.

For example:

• Main object or dominant area → anchor colour

• Secondary elements → complementary colour

• Background areas → grey mixtures from the strip

Stay within the colour family you have created and using the still life teaching diagram as a reference, try making small changes to the composition.

• add another object

• shift which element uses the anchor colour

• change where the strongest value contrast occurs

Step 6 — Make a Small Painting

After you have made one or two pages of thumbnails, choose the most successful composition and use it as a guide to make a small painting. Do not try to copy the thumbnail exactly; use it as a starting structure for exploring colour and design relationships.

Exercises like this reveal how much variation can emerge from only two colours. Limiting the palette often produces a more unified and coherent painting, allowing the artist to focus more carefully on structure, value relationships and the balance between elements in the composition.

Your Turn

If you try this exercise, please share your experience in the comments.

• What did you learn from working with a complementary pair?

• Did anything surprise you while mixing the colours?

• Was anything more difficult than you expected?

You can also leave a comment about any aspect of colour, mixed media painting or drawing you would like to explore further.

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Work by the artist, 2024

Defining the artist’s eye

An artist’s eye is not simply the ability to see. It is the habit of noticing what repeatedly draws your attention — and choosing to respond to it.

At different stages of artistic development — early or late — many artists find themselves collecting: photographs, sketches, scraps of magazine pages, texture and colour notations. Consciously reacting to what interests or inspires you is an important part of artistic development. It sharpens attention and begins to reveal preference.

What often feels less clear is what comes next.

What follows is not invention, but distillation — the gradual refinement of what has already been there.

Literal beginnings

In many cases, the first response to source material is more literal. We try to translate what we see directly. There is nothing wrong with this. Every piece teaches you something. It helps filter your interests and refine what holds your attention.

A well-known example of this gradual shift is Piet Mondrian (1872–1944). Early in his career, he was absorbed by the structure of trees — the rhythm of branches against the sky. The motif stayed with him for years, but the form steadily simplified. By the time we reach the grid paintings — black lines intersecting with blocks of primary colour — the trees are no longer visible, yet the underlying rhythm remains.

The subject did not disappear. It was distilled.

Distillation results in different forms for different artists. For Mondrian, it was structural rhythm. For Mark Rothko (1903–1970), it became colour and atmosphere. For Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964), it was tonal restraint and spatial quiet. What remains is not always structure. It may be colour, tension, repetition, surface or scale — whatever element held the strongest pull from the beginning.

A personal turning point

A pivotal moment in my own work came when I encountered a derelict house during a short period at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse. Three outer walls had been demolished. What remained were marks — traces of a stairwell, outlines of doors, fragments of patterned wallpaper clinging to exposed surfaces.

My early responses were overly literal and not especially successful. I was attempting to reproduce what I saw. Over time, I realised I was not just drawn to texture, but to the idea of fragments — partial histories, structures revealed through loss.

With a handful of poor-quality photographs, I returned to the subject repeatedly and began noticing similar spaces elsewhere. Years of sketching, layering and reworking followed before I understood how central this theme of deterioration had become. It was not a decision made in advance. It accumulated gradually through working.

The slow work of distillation

The development of a personal visual language is rarely dramatic or instant. For most artists, it takes years. Distillation rarely happens quickly. It often becomes visible only in hindsight.

In my own work now, what holds my attention most strongly are layers of time — surfaces that have accumulated change, weathering, removal and addition. The interest is not in the object itself, but in what has shifted.

These fragments are not copied directly. They are absorbed, layered and reworked until the source is no longer obvious — though its influence remains.

This is not about style as surface. It is about personal visual syntax — the structural habits that emerge through repetition. Even during periods when there is little time to make work, the habits of noticing and refining continue quietly in the background.

A few thoughts

Literal work is part of refinement.
Repetition is a form of investigation.
Distillation requires patience.

Questions to consider

■ What keeps resurfacing in your work — a colour, a surface, a structural rhythm, a mood? Try to identify three elements you consistently gravitate towards.

■ Are you still reproducing what you see, or beginning to translate what draws you to it? What feels like the strongest pull at the moment?

R. B. Kitaj, Where the Railroad Leaves the Sea, 1964, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid — image used for commentary and educational purposes

First impressions

I first came across R. B. Kitaj (pronounced Kit-eye) at Hong Kong Art School, when a lecturer brought in a richly illustrated book. My History of Art degree hadn’t taken me much beyond WWII, but this didn’t feel new so much as different. What struck me immediately was the strength of colour, the architectural structure of the work, and the ease with which he moved between painting, drawing and printmaking — a quiet level of competence and craftsmanship that avoids tipping into display or virtuosity for its own sake.

It’s hard to think of many artists where this movement across media feels so fully absorbed into the work, rather than presented as skill. It felt like a distinct voice. He remains an artist I return to.

Background and position

Kitaj was an American with Jewish roots who went to England to study and stayed for 35 years. He was associated with the British pop art movement and, indeed, had an influence on it. However, his strong love of figurative painting, coupled with an academic interest in the history of art, made him — as with David Hockney — unfashionable at a time when pure abstraction and minimalist aesthetics ruled the day.

Alongside Patrick Caulfield and Ridley Scott, Kitaj first met Hockney at the Royal College of Art (1959–61) in London. Hockney became a lifelong friend and supporter of Kitaj, and support was something the painter couldn’t have too much of in 1994, the year of his first major retrospective at the Tate.

Criticism and backlash

What should have been a proud, lifetime achievement was destroyed by the critics. The attacks were both brutal and personal, and not solely from the likes of the acerbic and elitist Brian Sewell. Andrew Graham-Dixon, one of my all-time favourites, weighed in, calling Kitaj “a small man with a megaphone pressed against his lips.” I remember finding that surprising at the time — not because critics can’t be savage, but because it felt so pointed.

The “vicious” assassination, as Hockney described it, could not realistically have been a comment on Kitaj’s artistic output. A year later, the artist received the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale (1995), where Robert Hughes (author of The Shock of the New) commented that he drew better than almost anyone alive.

It seems more likely that the critical hostility arose from the lengthy written explanations Kitaj provided — on the advice of the then Tate director. Perhaps the critics felt that words and explanations were their domain, or they simply disliked the sometimes large and unpleasant ego that Kitaj could project in his writing.

R. B. Kitaj — Smyrna Greek (Nikos), 1976–1977, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Image used for commentary and educational purposes.

Aftermath

Whatever the reasons, in many ways Kitaj never really recovered emotionally. His wife, Sandra Fisher, who had been heavily involved in the setting up of the Tate retrospective, died two weeks after the show opened from brain damage. Kitaj blamed the critics, returned to the USA, and took his own life in 2007.

Separating artist and work

I don’t believe you have to like an artist to admire their work. If racism, misogyny, immorality — and the occasional over-bearing ego — were to decide an artist’s role in history then most by now would be “cancelled” and the art history books very empty indeed. The same thing could be said of art critics too.

However, it’s a more complicated question now than it once was.

R. B. Kitaj, Drancy, 1984–86, pastel and charcoal on paper, 39 × 30¾ in., Jewish Museum Berlin, Berlin — Image used for commentary and educational purposes

A few thoughts

It’s worth considering the role of writing in a painter’s practice. Kitaj saw painting as “a great idea [he carried] from place to place / like a refugee’s suitcase”. Reading and writing were central to both his life and his work.

The question is not whether the writing was good or bad, but what it does. At what point does explanation begin to direct the work too heavily, or close down interpretation rather than open it?

It’s something I’ve gone back and forth on over time.

Questions to consider

■ As artists, how much do you want to explain your work — and at what stage?

■ Does writing alongside your work help clarify what you’re doing, or does it risk fixing meaning too early?

Suzanne Valadon, The Blue Room, 1923 (oil on canvas). Public domain.

First encounter

In 1996, while living in Switzerland, I visited an exhibition at the Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny. It was a retrospective of Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938), and I was struck by the power of her work.

Despite having an MA in History of Art, I had not come across Valadon before. More broadly, I realised how unfamiliar I was with many female painters of that period.

Better-known contemporaries include Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. Both had to fight hard within the male-dominated world of Impressionism. Morisot is quoted as saying that all she wanted was to meet a man who treated a woman as an equal. Yet both Morisot and Cassatt came from relatively wealthy backgrounds and benefited from private tuition. Their entry into the art world, while far from straightforward, was more supported than Valadon’s.

Valadon’s beginnings were very different. The illegitimate daughter of a laundress, she was raised in far less stable conditions. She showed an early ability to draw, using whatever came to hand, including coal. By around the age of fifteen, she was working as a circus acrobat, a profession she is said to have loved.

But a fall put paid to this career, and she became — as many vibrant and beautiful women of her time did — an artist’s model. She modelled for painters such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, moving within the artistic circles that would later shape her own work. Her personal life was equally complex. Her son, Maurice Utrillo — himself a painter — was widely thought to have been fathered by one of several artists in her circle before being recognised by the Spanish painter Miquel Utrillo.

What is striking is that Valadon did not remain a passive presence within that environment. She absorbed what she could, learned through observation and gradually shifted from model to artist.

In her work — particularly in her treatment of the figure — there is a robustness and directness that set it apart. The use of colour is often more assertive, and there is a grittiness that feels absent not only in the work of Morisot and Cassatt but also in that of many of their male contemporaries. There is little idealisation. The figures feel present rather than arranged.

Despite periods of difficulty, including an attempted suicide, there is a sense that she did not dwell on her circumstances. From early on, she was ambitious to be recognised as an artist in her own right. She absorbed what she learned as a model and, coupled with a strong and determined personality, developed a distinctive visual language — particularly evident in her treatment of the nude.

Suzanne Valadon, Self-Portrait, 1898 (oil on canvas). Public domain.

In her words:

“I had great masters. I took the best of them, of their teachings, of their examples. I found myself, I made myself, and I said what I had to say.”

Valadon was not an artist whose life ended in obscurity. Her work was exhibited at major salons, including the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, and in 1924 she secured a significant contract with the Parisian dealer Bernheim-Jeune.

A few thoughts

Valadon offers much for consideration. She clearly had natural ability, but without formal training it was her tenacity — and her ability to learn through observation and experience — that carried her through.

She did not follow a defined path into the art world. Instead, she worked from within it, gradually shifting her position and building something of her own. There is a level of independence in that which is not imposed, but developed over time.

Questions to consider

What carries more weight over time — natural ability or persistence?

How much do you rely on structure e.g. courses and workshops to improve, and how much comes from what you choose to explore on your own?

Untitled, studio photograph.
© Jane McAulay

When no one asks

This comes up often in conversations between artists — that feeling that family or friends never ask about your work, or don’t seem interested in it at all.

I have family and friends who love me but rarely mention my art. And I have art friends where that’s the main bond. The ones who don’t mention it — so what? We can share a dinner, have a conversation, joke about things. Do they care about me? Yes.

And if I’m honest, I don’t take a deep interest in everything my friends do either. I might ask a fisherman how he stays warm, or an accountant if AI has affected their workflow — but often I don’t. It doesn’t mean I don’t value them. Not everyone needs to be interested in the same things.

Where it starts to interfere

The issue isn’t really family or friends. It’s when that lack of interest starts to affect how you see your own work. This isn’t like sport — there aren’t winners and losers in that sense. Comparing yourself to other artists, especially those at a different stage or level of experience, serves no real purpose if you’re trying to develop your own work.

“More” not “better”

I tend to think in terms of becoming more, rather than better. “Better” suggests a hierarchy. “More” suggests something else — a clearer pull towards certain materials, subjects or ways of working, even when you don’t fully understand it yet.

Family taste and direction

The same applies to family opinion. Artists who move from representational work into abstraction often hear the same thing: we preferred your old work. That’s understandable. It’s a different language, and not everyone connects with it. But if your family doesn’t like abstract work, that has nothing to do with you.

I’ve seen this repeatedly — and experienced it myself. People who knew my work years ago still say, “you used to make such beautiful pastel drawings.” And I did. I became very competent with pastel and drawing. But I stopped enjoying that work. I wanted something else.

When something shifts

If you start working more loosely, more expressively, or begin using materials that don’t immediately read as “art,” that’s not a loss of direction. It’s often the point where something starts to push beyond your comfort zone, even if you don’t yet understand why. It’s worth paying attention when that happens — especially if you’re finding some enjoyment in it.

A piece that feels alive to you can look unresolved or even wrong to someone expecting something recognisable.

Repeating what works

You see the opposite as well. Some artists find a way of working that gets a strong response and stay with it. It works — for a while. But if it’s pushed too far or repeated without real interest, it starts to flatten.

What actually matters

If you want to develop a personal visual language, you have to pay attention to what you’re drawn to — process, materials, subject matter, the things that keep returning. You can’t do that if you’re constantly adjusting to what other people respond to.

Family, friends, other artists — none of them can be the measure. You can’t serve all of that at once. You can listen — but you can’t build your work on other people’s taste.

Untitled (Study), 2025. Mixed media on paper.

Competition Brief

The competition theme was Urban Landscapes: Imagine, Trace, Reveal. At the time, I was already developing a small series of works on paper inspired by urban archaeology — layered surfaces, architectural hints and fragments suggesting what had been removed or covered over. The pieces were built through painted, printed and found paper, combined with dry media and paint.

I rarely enter competitions. This one offered a useful constraint.

The principal requirement was a four-colour limit. I chose black, white, blue and yellow. The colours were not arbitrary; they echoed works in progress and gave me a workable range of warm and cool blues and yellows. What they removed was my usual habit of allowing small flecks of colour to peek through layered surfaces. That option was no longer available.

The brief did not interrupt my enquiry. It introduced a contained problem within it.

Unlike many life problems, this one was useful.

Adjusting the emphasis

My process did not change. I still began by gathering fragments — scanned textures, printed surfaces, reduced silhouettes, pieces of lettering — and testing their relationships. What changed was how much responsibility colour was allowed to carry.

With a restricted palette, colour could no longer compensate for uncertain placement. Blue and yellow had to carry structure. Black anchored or interrupted. White became active rather than passive space. Hierarchy depended more clearly on value, scale and proportion.

Working within a limit doesn’t automatically improve the work. What it does is make your usual habits easier to see. Without the safety of additional colour adjustments, compositional weaknesses become harder to disguise.

Filtering the fodder

There is always more material than can be used. The restriction made that surplus more apparent. Some fragments lost relevance quickly; without variation in tone and temperature they could not sustain interest. Others strengthened because they operated through shape and proportion rather than atmosphere.

The palette acted as a filter. It reduced the visual fodder. Some fragments simply couldn’t survive without tonal variation. Others strengthened because they operated through proportion and placement rather than atmosphere.

When an idea fails structurally

At one stage an arch motif appeared repeatedly. It related to the wider urban vocabulary of the series and I wanted it to remain. I know it will eventually find its place in another piece.

But in this composition it began to dominate. Other elements stopped speaking to each other because the arch insisted on being the focal point.

It was less a problem of drawing and more a problem of balance. Sometimes in painting you have to cover up a mark you love in order to let the whole settle. This was a similar moment.

I removed the motif, but that was only one possible solution. The point was not the arch itself; it was recognising that I was protecting an idea rather than strengthening the whole. Once that became clear, other options were possible.

What remains

I did not receive a mention. That is incidental.

What stayed with me was the usefulness of the constraint. It created a contained space in which to test direction without committing it fully to the wider series. This piece remains slightly separate from the others, and may not sit within the final body of work. But it allowed me to explore how drawn elements might operate within abstraction without overwhelming it.

From time to time, narrowing the conditions under which you work can expose where structure is carrying the composition — and where you are compensating. That is not a dramatic lesson. It is simply a practical one.

I documented the full process behind this project — from fragment gathering through structural refinement — here:

Urban Collage: Andalucía in Paint and Paper

Traced Memory, 2025. Mixed media on paper.

A few thoughts

Limits don’t create ideas from nothing, but they can reveal what you were already leaning towards.

Removing something you rely on can show you what is really holding a composition together.

A restriction can expose whether colour, material or motif is strengthening the work — or quietly compensating for a weakness.

Questions to consider

■ If your work begins to feel unfocused, what might happen if you temporarily removed one element you regularly depend on?

■ What single restriction — of colour, format or material — might reveal how your compositions are actually functioning?