SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Monochromatic: In theory, a monochromatic color scheme only uses variations of a single color. In practice, you should probably choose a color that is inherently dark, such as blue, green, brown, violet, crimson, etc. That way you only need one other tube of paint--white--and you'll still be able to get a wide range of lights and darks.     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Mother Color: A mother color composition uses at least a little bit of one color mixed in to all the other colors. This unifies the colors by giving them all a slight tint of that color. In our example here, the mother color is green     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Analogous: In theory, an analagous color scheme uses colors found next to each other on the color wheel. Since the colors are similar in temperature and hue, they produce a unified overall composition.     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Analogous: Here is a second example of an analogous color scheme.     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Complementary: A complementary color scheme uses variants of colors that are directly across from each other on the color wheel. We refer to these colors as "complements" or "complementary colors".     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Complementary: Here is a second example of a complementary color scheme.     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Triad: A triad color scheme uses three colors evenly spaced apart in the color wheel--for example the primary colors: red, yellow, and blue.     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Triad: A triad color scheme uses three colors evenly spaced apart in the color wheel--for example the secondary colors: orange, green, and violet.     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Accented Neutral: This color scheme uses various shades of neutral (whites, blacks, and grays) with a touch of a single color (in our example, red.)     SIMPLIFIED COLOR SCHEMES: Accented Neutral - Warm: This color scheme uses various shades of warm neutrals (whites, browns, and half tone browns) with a touch of a single color (in our example, blue.) COMPLEX COLOR SCHEMES: Case Study - Carl Bloch's Pool of Bethesda: In nature and in most great artwork, color schemes are never as simple as the examples above. Often artists use combinations of color schemes to create color relationships that work. Take, for example the two sides of Carl Bloch's Pool of Bethesda. Left of the dotted line, the color scheme may be interpreted as a warm accented neutral color scheme, because the composition consists of shades of neutral brown with a few red accents. However, upon closer observation, we can see that these browns actually have a tint of green, which makes this section a red-green complementary color scheme. In order to achieve a unity of colors, Bloch may have used a mother color approach, tinting his browns with green. Let's look at the right-hand side of the image. It mirrors its left-hand counterpart in that it too can be read as an accented neutral color scheme, but a cool one rather than a warm one. Over all, this side of the canvas has a violet-gray hue. The yellow scarf serves as the color accent. Again, the violet tint of the neutrals creates a complementary color scheme with the yellow accent. To complicate this color scheme even more, the red in the woman's scarf creates a triad of color with the yellows and violet-blue grays. Many of the color choices made in this composition were likely a result of Bloch's intuition. Others were likely conscious choices to create eye movement, balance, and atmospheric perspective within the composition.