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Color wheel masking helps you create new color schemes that feel complete but are really limited.

 

The mask reveals only the colors we want in the picture and leaves out the colors that are absent. That selection is called a "gamut." Consciously leaving out sectors of the color wheel is what produces interesting and subjective color environments.

 

You can create these subjective gamuts digitally or with painted colors. Thinking about color in this way is especially helpful if you're creating an animated film, an illustrated storybook, or a graphic novel.

The mask can also be a small triangle in one part of the wheel. Here I’ve taken two paintings from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara and mapped out their color schemes by digitally defining a shape on the wheel and ghosting the rest.

The swamp scene has dull yellow-greens and browns (browns are really dull oranges). The colors can be contained in the small triangle.

I explain and demo this idea in my book Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter.

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Previous blog series on gamut masking with more examples.