How do artists choose colours?

Do you have a favourite colour? Is it the same colour you are drawn to when you paint, or when you choose clothes, or decor? Does that colour show up in art you enjoy looking at? Do you ever wonder how artists go about selecting the colours they use?

Or course, many colour choices are dictated by what is being painted. Sparrows are always various shades of brown, summer leaves tend to be green, the sea is a variation of blue. But even when a subject dictates colour, there are choices the artist can make that ensures the finished piece is cohesive, and has the desired effect. How did Van Gogh make his cafe scene glow? How do the odd colour choices in Matisse’s portraits somehow create the effect of skin in sunlight? What do the colours of Picasso’s Blue and Rose Periods mean?

Myself, I don’t really have a favourite colour. In Summer I love to gaze at the yellowy greens of grasses blowing in a breeze. In Autumn the intense colours of changing leaves always have me excitedly mixing paint. In Winter, the contrasts of lights and darks on a bright day fascinate me. And in Spring the pink and white blossom lifts my heart. Throughout this, the many colours of a bird’s feathers pull me in. Sparrows are brown; but I also see purples, creams, yellows, deep reds, and blues. Magpie feathers and their oily rainbows are amazing!

Complementary colours, the colours that come opposite each other on the colour wheel, create great contrasts and glowing effects. This is how Van Gogh’s orange-yellow cafe glows against the blue-purples of the night around it. These colour choices can jar and feel uncomfortable as well, but used carefully they can provide a feeling of freshness, as the zingy yellows and purples do in my painting ‘Sing!’

Choosing similar colours bring aspects of a painting together. In ‘Murmuration’, the starlings move en masse, as if telepathically linked, and the range of similarly toned blues and purples reflect and magnify this feeling.

I often lean towards blues and purples in my painting, and these cool muted shades can be a great background to bright pops of colour such as in my series of swallow paintings, or glimmers golds as in my current work of jackdaws.

Colours can reflect emotions as well, strongly shown by Picasso during his moody Blue Period and more upbeat Rose Period. In ‘Embracing Joy’, the warm colours are an expression of the joy of flight that swallows exude, as well as the heat of the summer sun. Whereas in ‘Long Tailed Tits’ (below), a painting from the other end of the year, the cool colour palette reflects the winters weather, broken by the bright pink of the tits’ feathers and a few splashy grasses. 

Colour choice is such a vital part of creating a painting, and for choosing a piece of art to own. What colour choices do you make in your art, and why?