Hue, entry 3.

This will be my third entry on the use of hue in composition.

In my last entry, I attempted to glean the intent behind the use of hue in Pablo Picasso's 'The Old Guitarist'.
as mentioned, the piece features a simple blue-orange complementary colour composition, However, the power of the use of hue, even with an apparently simple combination, is undeniable.

With the use of basic complementary colour schemes established, I will now cover Spit complementary schemes, use of only analogous colours in building a composition, and finally triadic colour palettes.

Split complementary schemes are a very effective way of limiting your usage of hue (to control focal points and increase scene readability),Whilst keeping a third, highly contrasting hue reserved for picking out certain key features and details of your image.

Today, the first image I would like to discuss is a piece of cartoon work from Hanna-Barbera's 'Yogi Bear'.

It takes little work to assess the split complementary hues in this image. The green within the shade is abundant, and the dominant hue. Sitting across from green on the colour wheel is red, which we see most vividly in the small flowers dotted about the base of the large tree in the background. Sitting between red and green on the colour wheel, are increment hues that are represented in many places throughout the scene, We see the large tree is a very desaturated and tinted reddish pink, we see darker areas of green that tilt towards red and red-orange, a good example being the small smattering of wild grass beneath the character on screen, and some of the leaves in the tree at the top right.

With the complementary hues identified, and their range spoken for, we can turn out attention to the product of the split complementary, in this case, green has been split to provide us a final hue to work with, we find the central character and focal point of the scene is blue, a hue sharing its cool temperature with the green it was split from.

The 'complementary range' as I've found myself calling it, (namely the complementary hues and their increments of combination to produce the varied greens and reds in the scene) all work to provide depth and atmosphere in the scene, establishing forms, scene depth (even in simplified cartoon space) and items of tertiary interest (the tree and little flowers particularly). All of this is staging for the character and focal point of the scene, whom is constructed primarily from various shades of blue, some dipping slightly into green a little for variety.