2D Design Limited Palettes Project

How to complete this project- Find a black and white photo of an actual thing/scene, ideally with a nice range of light and dark tones. Use pencil to divide a sheet of your 18"x24" paper into 4 equal quadrants. Do a basic compositional sketch of your photo in all 4 boxes. Then use your acrylic paints to color all four, using these combinations:

1) Monochromatic- Any one color of your choice, plus black and white. Match the exact values in the photo.

2) Complement Pair- Choose a pair of complementary colors. Use the warm color to represent lights in your painting, the cool color to represent darks, mix the two for middle gray. You may use white and black to push values toward highlights and deep shadows.

3&4) For the two remaining boxes, choose 2 of the following 4 options:

A) Blue/Yellow/Black/White- Use blue (with black as needed) for darks, yellow (with white as needed) for lights, and various green mixes for the middle tones.

B) Split Complement/Black/White- Any color, plus the two adjacent to its complement. (For example, yellow/red-violet/blue-violet) Choose appropriate warm and cool colors to represent lights and darks.

C) Analogous- Any 3 adjacent colors on the rim of the color wheel (such as blue-green/green/yellow-green or red/red-orange/orange) plus black and white. Choose appropriate colors to represent lights and darks.

D) Triad or Quad- A triad is any 3 equally spaced colors on the color wheel, such as the primary or secondary colors. A quad is any 4 equally spaced colors (every 3rd along the rim) such as orange/red-violet/blue/yellow-green. Again choose appropriate colors to represent lights and darks.

In all 4 combinations, use the colors to match the original values as much as possible. Be consistent from one to the next. For example, if a background is a light color in one, it should be in all of them.

Above and below are some examples of completed student projects.