Hello Artist, painter, maker, creative extraordinaire!

Do you usually spend a lot of time deciding on your colors or unable to start because you just don't know what color to choose?

Well, ME too, lol!

Constantly having to think about color can be tiring. Decision fatigue is real! That's why I decided to create a few go-to custom color palettes to make getting started easier. That way I can get right into painting something that I enjoy without overthinking or worrying about the endless color options.

Okey-doke! let's get into it.

Here are the steps I took to make my color palettes. And we aren't going to overthink this. We're going with our gut and looking forward to seeing where it takes us!

1) Understanding Color

COLOR, it's freaking AMAZING! And for artists, it can be a powerful tool. Using it is an amazing way to express yourself because it can create different moods and experiences. Depending on how you put them together you can create an infinite possibility of "feels" (hmm, I think another word may fit better here, but this one will work..hmm.. "vibes" maybe? Whatever, VIBES! FEELS! MOODS! all these words work! :)

2) Find Your Inspiration

Ok! Keeping FEELS! and VIBES! and MOODS! in mind, let's collect some inspiration! Color can be linked to emotions, memories, things, and places. We are going to use these color connections to create a mood board with color inspiration. I recommend choosing at most 5 things for each inspiration section (1. The Favorite, 2. Emotions, 3. Memories, Things, and Places) that way you won't be overwhelmed and run out of space on your mood board. *BUT, if you know you would prefer more or need more please ADD them; you are a unique human and deserve to be able to customize stuff to work best for you. :)

1. The Favorite: Do you have a favorite color? If a color you LOVE keeps popping up in your life, clothes, art, and more, let's embrace it. Let's add this as the first thing on your mood board. For me, this is blue. Most of my clothes are blue and I am constantly drawn to things that are blue. As Marie Kondo would say, IT SPARKS JOY! (lol). And, we're moving on...
2. Emotions: When you make art do you notice if you prefer specific emotions, moods, or feelings? What do you feel when you are making or looking at a finished piece? Do you prefer soothing, playful, warm, cool, bright, etc? Write down the emotions you prefer onto your mood board and connect them to colors you associate with them. For me, I love a combination of soothing (blues), playful(yellows and pinks), and bold (blues, and mixes of contrasting colors like blue and orange).
3. Memories, Things, and Places: Do you have any favorite things, places, or memories? Collect some colors and/or images that represent these things and add them to your mood board. For me, I am often awe-inspired by nature, especially the vast blues of the ocean and the sky. Mesmerizing schools of fish in the water and flocks of birds in the sky. Pink sunsets and sunrises. The movement of hundreds of gold and green leaves moving as the wind blows through the trees.

3) Create your custom Palettes

Whooo! Time to pick colors!

Now that we've gathered our inspiration, we can use our inspiration mood board to pick a few go-to color palettes that bring us JOY!

1. Palette 1: Your favorite Color Choose Your favorite Color, the color that feels best to you, out of those inspirations you just gathered in your mood board. Which color do you keep coming back to? Choose that color for this palette (Most likely it will be your "1. The Favorite " color you first choose. But maybe not, you may surprise yourself and choose a color from the other inspirations you found.) With this Palette, You can either use one value of your favorite color, or choose to use a range of values of that single color. This one-color palette is an example of a monochromatic color scheme. It's easy to work with and you can create stunning drawings and paintings with it. For me, it's Blue. I really enjoy the mix of boldness, and soothing qualities blue creates in my work. And, it is super easy and low stress to dip my brush right into some blue paint and get painting.

2. Palette 2: 2 to 5 colors Now try choosing 2 to 5 colors from your mood board. This palette will have more colors so you can play with a little more variety. Do these colors feel good as a collection? If not, keep mixing and matching until something feels good to your eyes and mind. For me, this is blue, pink and orange. It is a mix of some of my favorite inspirations.

3. Palette 3: 2-6 colors (Optional) Create a 3rd go-to palette with 2-6 colors! For me, this is blue, green, and yellow. It's a soothing analogous color scheme that combines my favorite emotions and nature inspiration.

4) Play with them!

It's time to use them!!! EXCITING!!!

Paint something! How did it feel? How did it look? If you’re feeeeeling gooooood keep on painting!

If it doesn't quite feel right, make a slight adjustment. For example, Not feeling blue and orange together? Switch out orange with a similar color like pink OR the opposite color like blue. You can keep making minor adjustments until you find something that is right for you. Just remember not to get sucked into the adjustment phase, it may take a bit of practice with your new custom palette for you to master it and feel good using it.

Now next time you sit down to paint you can get right into it without overthinking color. :)

*Oh! and before you go, keep in mind that if you start to feel bored or limited by these color palettes you can always choose to create a new one! These go-to custom palettes are meant to help you have more JOY when making art, so if they are no longer serving their purpose it is OK to change things up. :D

 Hope you have fun palette creating!!!

- Kelli :)