How do you match colors......aaah?

Question

I don't understand this whole complimentary, analogous, dark/light color matching business. Somebody heeeelllppp..

Thanks

Answer 1

Monochromatic colors - sticking to different shades/intensity of the same color.
e.g. black w/ grey, mocha w/ camel, purple w/ lavender

Business suits. Current trend in menswear to have a blue shirt w/ a darker blue tie.

Analogous colors - colors next to each other on a color wheel.
e.g. turquoise blue, yellow blue, yellow
red, magenta, purple

Used in tropical prints, summer clothes.

Complementary colors - oppose each other on color wheel
e.g. purple & yellow like LA Lakers team colors
red & green - Christmas colors

Link to a color wheel w/ more examples: http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html

From your other question & the category chosen, I gather you are trying to figure out how to co-ordinate clothes.

One way to start is to look @ fashion magazines for examples of co-ordinating colors. Try to figure out why certain combinations work & refer to a color wheel to help you w/ the vocabulary.

Easy pairings are:
neutrals (e.g. black, gray, khaki, cream, white) + color

intense color + a lighter shade of same color (e.g. navy blue + light blue)

Analogous color sets are best if you stick to one patterned item that has such a palette & pair it w/ a neutral or the predominate color of the print.

Complementary colors are the toughest to pull off IMHO.

Answer 2

First it would help to know what kind of project you are working on. Color matching and mixing is an art, not a specific science. You can mix and match shades of the same color, opposing colors, or colors close in nature to one another. Clothing can be dull and muted or vibrant and flashy. You might want rich jeweled tones, or pastels or primary colors for your project. Some colors in deep tones give an aura of wealth, some are cold and stark. Again, it all depends on what you are coloring and where, and what kind of attitude you want to protray.

Answer 3

It really isn't about matching, it's about what goes together. For example, black & white match right? Do pink & brown match? No, but they GO together. It's kinda hard. Pink & red go together because red & white make pink, so pink & red are in the same color family. So if you think of it that way it's easy to see how they go. But when you do colors like green & blue matching, it's not really in the same color family, so that's where it gets hard. It's just something you have to know goes together. Like I said it's pretty hard, it took me several years to know what went together & what didnt.