Analogous Color Schemes – an Easy Method to Create Them

I know what you’re thinking, “What’s so hard about creating an analogous color scheme?” Just take a bunch of colors near each other on the color wheel and go.

Yes, this works just fine to create charming and effective color schemes. In the heart twinchy above I used violet, red-violet, and a somewhat violet pink to create a bright vibrant color scheme. I really like the way the solid and hand-dyed threads highlight the more violet Watercolours.

But then I moved on to the second heart, this one based on a hand-dyed Flair (I dyed it myself) of yellow, white, and, I thought, pink. When combined with this peach Dinky Dyes silk, the little bits of pink look peach and I discovered a new version of analogous — the skipped analogous.

The color scheme her uses yellow and red-orange (he base color in peach). Traditionally an analogous color scheme would use three or four colors near each other on the color wheel, making this color scheme red-orange, orange. yellow-orange, yellow.

But I took out the middle two colors and got something quite pleasing.

I still didn’t realize I had hit on something until I began the third heart last night. I wanted it to be mostly green with a pop of an accent color, in this case bright blue. Working on my use up the stash philosophy I found the pretty spring green I’m using for the background. I picked two other similar threads and this is the result.

Once again I had done the same kind of scheme. The analogous series is yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue. Remove the two middle colors and the scheme of yellow-green and blue emerges.

Totally cool. I have, in general, avoided analogous color schemes because I think they look too busy. But I just love the open feel of both these Twinchies.

You can easily do it yourself. Find a series of four colors next to each other on the color wheel. Pull out the middle two colors and you have the Skipped Analogous color scheme.

As you can see from the samples, if the colors are close in value you get a restful scheme (like the yellow and peach heart). If there is more variety in value you get a vibrant scheme which is not harsh (the yellow-green and blue heart).

Such fun, I can’t wait to do more.