A few weeks ago, Lovely Little Things subscriber and fellow wonderful artist, eggs, asked about how I select and stick to my color palettes.

This isn’t the first time someone’s been curious about my colors - and while I think you’ll find that my approach to color selection is similar to many other artists - I’m running with the opportunity to discuss my process anyways. Because I love color and love sharing things with you!

First and foremost, I do have my preferences. I’m drawn to sap greens, muted purples, and all shades of terracotta.

I often cater to these colors simply because I adore them. I draw mystical forests, scenes lingering right before dusk, mud, clay, and moss.

Of course, we can’t always choose color palettes because we like them. Sometimes color, unfortunately, has to make sense.

So how do we make sense out of color?

Visit Them.

Colors have homes, and if you’re looking for a particular palette, the first step you could take is visiting them.

Above is a photo of a garage I mentioned in my previous post Building Tiny Worlds. The garage is home to many colors, varying depending on the season, and whether or not anyone on our street has filed a complaint about the ever-growing botanical garden creeping up its walls.

You might visit these colors if you’re looking for something autumnal or even industrial, as the greys, greens, and reds reflect both the colors of changing leaves as well as rust and weathered copper.

Once you have the colors, and experience their real life context, you might be able to better apply them to your work. While the colors crawling across the garage aren’t particularly eerie - in fact, they’re quite warm, the garage itself is pretty eerie. So, while these colors might not initially seem like they fit the prompt of dark forest or haunted house, we can take advantage of context to make creative decisions that work for our projects.

Study other artists.

When I was working primarily with paints between 2013-2016, I spent a lot of time studying the works of painters I admired. This can be a great way to observe color pairings with certain themes or storytelling elements within a piece. Just remember that your ultimate goal is to find your own unique palettes. Studying other artists is a helpful resource no matter what your experience level is as an artist - but what will make your colors magical, is that you understand why you’re using them, and that you’re intentional with how you use them. Your colors tell your story, and no one else’s palette can do that for you - and that’s a very cool and beautiful thing!

As a student, I referenced one artist in particular, Brandi Milne, a painter I consider a master of her craft. Milne works with a palette of soft pinks and vibrant reds, layered atop shadowy violets and deep teals. Her colors are that of a delectable peppermint candy, waiting for someone to pluck it from its crystal plate and pop it in their mouth. And in the same breath, of blood, sinking in the vast sea. Her palette is bittersweet. Her colors are intentional. And she is a master of storytelling through the paints she strokes onto a canvas.

I don’t want to pack this post with images, so I’ll just mention quickly that in terms of digital colorists, Zac Gorman is someone I also consider a master of color. I referenced Gorman’s colors frequently when I was first learning digital illustration and dipping my toes into the world of comics.

Use Resources.

Color selection is a skill, and a difficult one at that. We’re lucky to live in a time where we have an endless amount of resources at our fingertips, and I encourage you to find ones that work for you. Here are some resources that I find extremely helpful in my practice:

Let’s start with ol’ reliable - the color wheel!

I normally reference the color wheel that’s built into Procreate on the iPad Pro, but you can find color wheels anywhere online. You can also make your own using whichever medium you’re working with. This can provide you with a more accurate understanding of which colors you’re working with, since hue will vary depending on medium, brand, etc.

For me, using a color wheel works best when I already have at least one color in mind. Let’s say my starting color is orange. I can start there on the color wheel, and then use color theory to help me choose the rest of my palette.

When I have full reign over my palette, I tend to go for warm hues (red, orange, yellow) and cooler hues on the warmer end of their spectrums (red-violet and yellow-green). I also prefer muted tones over pastel or vibrant ones. The image below illustrates some of my usual culprits, a cluster of hues, analogous on the wheel, spanning from indigo to yellow-green. While analogous schemes usually include only three hues, I like to use this extended selection to add subtle contrast with complimentary colors like the indigo and muted orange.

You can also try:

• Referencing pre-made color palettes. They are plentiful on websites and social media, but I tend to find a lot of luck finding them on Pinterest.

• Pulling colors from still frames of animated films or series. Some of my favorite color-work can be found in shows like Summer Camp Island, Bee and Puppycat, Steven Universe. But you can pull inspiration from any show you love! Keep in mind, colors in print will work differently than colors for the screen. Colors behave differently depending on how they’re displayed - so this might work for you, or it might not, based on your goal.

• Researching color symbolism. Some colors have predetermined symbolic meanings whether spiritual, literary, or otherwise. This is one of my personal favorite things to do - of course it usually ends up in me going down a symbolism rabbit-hole.

To sum it up, my palettes are inspired mostly by:

• Context. What feeling do I want to invoke in my audience when they look at my piece? Cozy? Frightened? Uncertain? Refreshed? Is the piece set at night? In the day? Near the sea? What information are we trying to portray? What story are we trying to tell?

• The real world. What hues exist in the world around me and how can I borrow and manipulate them to create something new?

• Color Theory. What colors simply look best together, given the piece I’m creating. Admittedly, I’m not really a color theory expert. I have to look this shit up basically every time I make a piece. And I had to look it up to make sure I was explaining it properly to you for this post. So it’s okay if you don’t have a degree in studio arts. If you can use the resources available to you, you’ll be good!

• What I love! What colors do I want to use because I just want to?

But at the end of the day, just like getting to know a new friend, spending time with your colors is going to make you more comfortable with them.

You’re going to create color combinations that are absolute disasters. Coloring is problem-solving. And sometimes you’re just gonna have a problem.

It’s okay! Messes can lead to successes, and even if they don’t, you’re creating art. And that in of itself is a success. As your style develops and evolves, and as you shift and change, as humans often do, your colors will too. You will experiment, and explore, and over time, your colors will be yours. And together you will create the most beautiful stories.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo Angela

Thank you again to eggs for inspiring this post!

You can check out eggs creative work and posts on their Substack, the archives of eggsandbanana here!"

"eggs uses visual, written, and auditory art forms to explore notions of humanity, love, self-exploration, tragedy, and solace. publications are churned out weekly.”