As an illustrator who works in a very limited, consistent colour palette, I take the notion of “how to work with colour” rather for granted. I don’t typically have to make colour decisions, because I made one a long time ago and decided to stick with it. But it hasn’t always been so.
How did I choose colours at that point? What made me so sure that these were the colours I would want to stick with for the rest of my life?
Today, my colour palette is a key component of my style. I use the same colours everywhere, at every opportunity. I quite like them too. They’re distinctive, and for me, hit all the right notes. And I often receive compliments on how I use colour. Even my mom likes my colours. It may come as a surprise, then, that I don’t consider myself to be very good with colours. While over time I have developed an understanding of colour theory and found certain ways of using colours that I would consider tasteful, colour has always presented to me one of the most difficult challenges: infinite possibility. Some artists love limitlessness, but I am not one of those. I need constraints. I need some way of narrowing down to one small set of options, lest I succumb…
