Color Relationships in Painting - Dominance

    In the previous entry I talked about how color transitions are part of a successful strategy in the painting process. Those transitions are what makes one color area visually flow into the next when you view a painting from a distance and makes it interesting upon closer examination.

   The other color concept that is very important to hold the whole painting together is dominance. Below is a painting that has a obvious dominance on the warm side of the color wheel. The large circle within the orange/red area on the wheel shows this range. Secondary to this is a range of yellow/gold, (shown with the smaller circles). There is nothing from the other areas on the wheel, which assures harmony. The black accents are neutrals, they don't count as color.

Here is another example: The painting to the left has an entirely different color palette. The dominance is in the warm green area as illustrated on the color wheel below. Second to this is the cool green area in the forground- the painting reads  as green dominant, warm-to-cool. There are small accents to this, cool reds and warm reds (oranges). 

Try this - get out a color wheel, put it in a plastic sheet protector. Using a felt tip pen draw on top of the sheet protecter with the color wheel inside. Start analizing the color dominance in your paintings.