As a graphic designer or artist, finding the perfect color palettes for artwork is important. There is a strategy behind choosing color palettes that sell well. More color options make more expose your artwork and sales opportunities.
For every illustration I make, I create 4 to 8 different color variations out of the original artwork. This means I’m potentially increasing my opportunities for art sales.
Whether your artwork is watercolor, digital art, or acrylic, getting inspired by color is an integral part of creating artwork that is a commercial success.
Color is one of the core components of creating vibrant, memorable art. In this post, I will show how I find the color for my artwork portfolio and monthly magazine theme.
Before I start drawing, I always look for inspiration that catches my eye with the subject or my motif.
Let’s dive in!
Before we begin, I am sharing my color palate workboard template to find your color for artwork, branding, or social posts.
I am sharing the color palate workboard in Photoshop (PSD) template for our members.
Also for all visitors and subscribers, you can use a jpeg format template from our freebie vault.
Color trends and inspiration.
How I get inspiration
When I’m coming up with a palette from scratch, the first thing I want to start with is getting some color inspiration.
So to get inspiration, I look around me.
And I find inspiration, such as my garden, home decor, fashion magazine, etc.
I see color palette opportunities everywhere.
Such as nature, whether it’s a personal experience or a photograph that I’m looking at.
I also get a lot of color palette inspiration from Pinterest and Instagram from artists’ posts.
When I get to find inspiration, I scroll down pre-designed palettes and look at the designs, paintings, interiors, still lifes, fashion, and even food styling. There is color in everything.
Finding Trends
Most graphic designers are always keeping in mind the door trends. I need to know what’s on trend so I can incorporate it directly into my designs and artwork. That way my artwork stays relevant and I have a better attraction to my audience.
For colored trends, the first thing I look at is Pantone.
Every year, Pantone decides the color of the year.
It’s a really big deal in visual industries like fashion, design, interiors, and everything.
This doesn’t mean that your artwork just needs to be one color.
For example, this year(2023) Pantone color is Viva Magenta
In this year’s Color of the Year selection process, Pantone observed a heightened appreciation and awareness of nature represented by countless lifestyle trends. We’re incorporating more living things into our homes, such as plants, florals, living walls, and restorative outdoor spaces. We’re finding newfound enjoyment in travel, sports, and outdoor recreation after pausing these activities during the pandemic. We’re more careful to protect our bodies as a result of the public health crises — we look to apply and ingest trusted, life-giving ingredients. All of these lifestyle trends speak to the heartiness of natural forces. –The Meaning Behind Viva MagentaThe Pantorne
I also look at New York Fashion Week’s color projections for upcoming seasons.
This way, I can find opportunities to incorporate the fashion industry’s insights.
It helps me what colors will be my home decor or apparel graphic designs.
The knowledge of colors and trends is huge.
I am just explaining where I can find trends and inspiration.
You have your own method to find color balance for your design.
Whichever it is, before stating artwork, it is a crucial step to find your colors.
Let’s start work on color palettes!
Color palette workboard
I am sure you have downloaded the color palette workboard I provided.
It shows a PSD file for a template you can use over and over again whenever you want to find a color plate for your design.
Also, you will see an example of the color palette (.jpg) which I made in the PSD template.
Go ahead and open the PSD file in Photoshop.
For this workboard, I pulled together four different photos.
I found all of these photos on unsplash.com, where photographers contribute these royalty-free and commercial-use images.
This is an awesome resource in general, but especially for purposes like finding inspiration and color plates.
How to Create Custom Color Palettes
When I make my color palette from the inspiration image, I look for dominant(primary) colors, secondary colors, and neutral colors.
Pick a Dominant color palette
Let’s start up here on the left with this first image.
It’s a really great example of a complimentary color scheme.
If you like to love using minimal palettes, this is a perfect example of one that works well.
Zoom in a bit to look at the color variations.
In Photoshop, I get there by tapping “Z” on the keyboard and then simply pulling my cursor in.
If you press “Z” again, you can zoom out by pushing out, or you can pull in, it’s pretty intuitive.
The way that I make color palettes in Photoshop, is by using the Eyedropper tool.
You can find it on your Toolbar.
It looks like a little dropper and goes ahead and taps that once to select it.
The process is like this:
Find a color from the image
Sample them
Fill them into a square box.
When you pick the color with an eyedropper, You’ll notice the foreground color has changed to the yellow that I selected in the toolbar.
Just keep an eye on that and that indicates what color you’ve selected.
Remember, if there’s some other icon selected, just click and select the paint bucket tool.
Now, I’m just going to click right there in that first box, and it is now turned to that yellow that I’ve sampled directly from that bus.
Secondary Color Palette
Now let’s get our secondary color, which is going to be this blue from the background.
There’s a little bit of a range of blues in this photo, but I want to start with a darker one.
you can press “I”, on the keyboard to get to the Eyedropper and tap somewhere in this dark blue on the left of the photo.
Please, make sure it’s changed foreground color toolbar at the bottom, and press “G” (Paint Bucket tool)
You can also get there over here on the Toolbar and just tap within the second square box.
The box has changed to blue.
Neutral color palette
Now let’s find neutral colors.
I always get my neutral color palette to balance my color palettes.
I want to start by getting this really dark cloud color using an eyedropper(Press “I”).
This is the base palette here, and the way that I like to build pallets is by using a light and a dark variant of the same color.
Color shade
This top row up here is going to represent the darker shades.
The bottom row will represent the lighter shades.
What that means is, this will be the darkest orangey-yellow that I use.
So I want to find a lighter color composition in the second-row color palette box.
Go with the same thing with secondary colors and natural colors too.
I want to find a lighter version and fill it in this area.
Let’s go ahead and do that next.
I’m going to click somewhere over here where it looks like it might be a little bit lighter.
Then press “G” tap and fill in.
As you can see, It’s very slightly different. The top color is a little bit darker than the bottom, which is a little bit lighter.
The reason I like having this option in color palettes is it’s nice to have a few different shades of that same hue.
Quick Photoshop trick for filling the color palette box.
Before I tap to fill in a similar color fill in the box, this is one of the tricky things with Photoshop.
You need to go ahead and adjust Tolerance on the top menu bar.
The default Tolerance is usually 32, and if I were to fill this in at 32, all of that background changes.
The reason that’s happening, this white is really similar to what’s going on back here with this white.
So go ahead and change this Tolerance to one.
Once you adjust tolerance, let’s fill in. You will see, it only fills that box.
Built your custom color palettes.
Now you have the first palette built.
From this one very simple photo, you have created a really beautiful palette that aligns with the photo, so the photo inspired the color palette.
Now, we can use this color palette in your artwork, designs, mood boards, or brand vision boards, whatever we want it for.
I created this workboard with custom color palettes.
What I want to do, is go ahead and fill in the rest of these.
To recap about color palettes.
Choosing the right color palette is essential for designers and artists.
Because colors can significantly impact how people perceive and interpret visual information.
Colors can influence the mood, tone, and message of a design, and can also affect how the viewer feels and responds to the design.
By carefully selecting a color palette, designers and artists can establish a brand’s identity, create a sense of contrast and hierarchy, set a specific mood or emotion, and ensure the design is accessible to everyone.
Overall, selecting the right color palette is critical for creating effective and impactful designs that effectively communicate their intended message and connect with the audience.
Therefore, I would like to try out the different types of color pallets.
There are many different types of color palettes, but some common ones you can try out.
Monochromatic palette: This type of palette uses different shades and tones of a single color.
Analogous palette: This type of palette uses colors that are next to each other on the color wheel, such as red, orange, and yellow.
Complementary palette: This type of palette uses colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange.
Triadic palette: This type of palette uses three colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel, such as red, yellow, and blue.
Tetradic palette: This type of palette uses four colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel, such as red, yellow, green, and blue.
There are also many other types of color palettes, and designers and artists often create their own unique palettes based on their preferences and the specific needs of their projects.
I hope this color palette workboard will help you find your unique color palette for your next project.
Comments