Analogous colours are any colours that sit next to each other on the colour wheel. They create gentle, harmonious colour schemes that reflect those found in nature. These soft schemes are pleasing to the eye and are guaranteed to match beautifully, but as Danielle notes below, where the colours share similar hue and saturation they can lack the punch and contrast of a more dramatic scheme.
An analogous colour scheme uses colours that are adjacent to one another on the colour scheme. The number of colours used is mostly three to five and their tints and shades may also be utilised. In this layout, Danielle has chosen to work with pink, orange and yellow. With analogous colours schemes, one of the colours is chosen as the dominant hue - in this case, pink - with the remaining colours used to deepen and emphasise the design.
Danielle began with a Pink Paislee Nantucket patterned paper base, adding a touch of yellow chalkboard mist over lightly swiped gesso. A second Nantucket patterned paper, a Sassafras Sunshine Broadcast journaling sticker and an Anna Griffin die cut shape add touches of yellow to the page. Vintage buttons from Jenni Bowlin Studio add the orange details that complete the colour scheme.
Of analagous schemes, Danielle says she enjoys creating with such harmonious combinations, but had to restrain herself from adding a punchy contrasting colour! The black and white photo allows the colour combination to take centre stage.
When Iris started on this assignment, she had no idea what "analogous" colours meant. Put simply, these are colours that sit beside each other on the colour wheel. What Iris did was choose the colours Blue to green. She started with light blue colours going to dark blue colours and the adding on some greens.
When working with analogous colours, it is best to choose one focal colour and support it with two other colours. One may also use black, white, and brown for the highlights. In order to make this work for Iris who hoards loads and loads of colourful patterned papers, she decided to work on a Pink Paislee Mistable paper for her background. She slowly added colours using distress inks and blended and built on colour after colour until she was satisfied with the result.
