Lesson 46 - Purple and Yellow

Purple and yellow are a particularly difficult complementary pair to work with because of the extreme difference in their values and tinting strength. For this exercise we first made a chart of light, medium and dark yellows and violets. It is tricky to get a dark yellow (brown) which does not read as either a green or an orange. We also experimented with various mixtures of yellow and purple. Next we chose a black and white landscape photograph with strong light and dark values. The challenge was to create a painting where the lights were both light yellow and light violet, the medium values were made up a variety of mixtures, and the darks were painted with both violets and dark yellows.



Sheauli created a predominately violet painting with yellow touches in the sky and trees as well as the obvious accents on the mountain and in the water.

Lois worked with various values and intensities of yellow with light violet in the mountains and water.


Alice found both yellow and violet in the buildings, trees and rocks and sky.

Jan created a beautiful gradation of yellow to violet in her sky, rocks and water.