Friday, July 20, 2007

Making the Grade


I love putting gradation of color in my paintings. When the color, especially in the background, transitions from one shade to another (in this case though light and dark teal) or from one similar color to another (yellow, through orange, to bright red), I think it makes the painting a lot more interesting to look at. It's not something you would see in older comics, except occasionally on the cover. Now that there's a lot of computer assistance in comics, especially in the colorization and printing, so you see color gradation practically in every frame.
You would think that teal (green tinged with blue, as opposed to aqua which is blue tinged with green) would generally make a fantastic color for comic paintings, but almost every attempt in the past to use it has ended in disaster. Teal's complement is scarlet and you can't do a lot with scarlet and teal, trust me. A triad that includes teal also includes magenta and orange. Teal, magenta and orange? You're just asking for trouble.
But, I'm an experimenter (some might say tinkerer) by nature and threw out all attempts at color harmony and paired teal with cobalt blue. It's a pretty chilly combination, but it works.

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