Fact: Contrast and tone more important than the number of colors. Mixing a lot of colors together in a painting is a recipe for creating mud.
It’s easy to fill your paintbox with lots of colors – and it’s certainly tempting given the range that is available. But every color has its own ‘personality’ or characteristics and you need to know exactly what it’s like before moving onto another, or mixing it with another. Knowledge of how a color behaves gives you freedom to concentrate on other things.
Start with two complementary colors, such as the blue and orange in the digital watercolor shown here (plus white if you're not using watercolors).
Not convinced? Then spend some time looking at the paintings of Rembrandt, full of earthy browns and yellows. I don’t know anyone who’d argue that he should’ve ‘livened’ up his paintings by using more colors. Rather, his limited palette adds to the moodiness.
"Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul." -- Kandinsky
"Nature contains the elements, in color and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick, to choose, and group ... these elements, that the result may be beautiful." -- Whistler
"A colorist makes his presence known even in a simple charcoal drawing." -- Matisse.
