Color Schemes
Analogous Complementary

Analogous Complementary Color Schemes use four to six colors on the Color Wheel.

Common sense will tell you this is a combination of an Analogous Color Scheme and a Complementary Color Scheme.

Selecting Hues on the Color Wheel
You begin by selecting three colors which are side by side. Three instead of four Analogous Hues work best to avoid over-complicating things.

The next step is to go directly across the Color Wheel and choose the opposite complementary of one of them, preferably the center color.

If you want more than four colors in your color scheme, choose the complementary of either one or both of the other two analogous colors. This will allow you to use either five or six hues all together.

Beware ! Complementary Hues cancel each other out. Analogous Complementary Color Schemes using more than four colors can easy look like one pile of brown mud.

In this example I've chosen
Red/Violet
Red
Red/Orange
Green - the complementary of Red

The best time to use this color scheme is when you want to work with closely harmonized, toned-down colors with a dash of surprising contrast.

Mixing Paint Colors


Going from Color Wheel Theory to the actual paint mixtures in this example, Green is the Mother Color and the three Analogous Hues are on the top row.

You also have the option of choosing any of the other three Hues as your Mother Color. This would give you entirely different paint mixtures.

Green is the direct Complementary of Red. Both Red/Orange and Red/Violet contain Red, so they are also toned down by Green in very similar ways.

Be careful to add only the tiniest amount of the Green to each. Otherwise they will all look Brown. Notice how the bottom row of paint colors have been dramatically neutralized. Believe me. I hardly added any Green at all. The Neutral Brown to the right of the Green is a mixture of all four colors.

Tone down the Green a little bit to create a dash of bright contrast to this color scheme. For a warm accent, add the tiniest amount of Red/Orange. For a cool accent, add a tiny amount of Red/Violet.

And of course you can extend your range of paint colors even further by adding different amounts of White, Black or Gray to tint, shade or tone down the colors even more.

Color Scheme Tips

1. Analogous Complementary color schemes always work best if you limit the number of basic hues to four.

2. Avoid adding too much of the Complementary or your mixtures will be dull.

3. Use different brightness intensities of your mixtures plus the neutral mixture of the three colors. Change the way they look by adding white to lighten for pastels or black to darken to shades and tones.

4. For contrasting focal points and accents such as pillows and art, choose variations of the non-dominant color which will most likely be the Complementary.


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