Using Direct Complimentary Colors in Quilt Designs

Working with complementary color schemes is a great way to make dynamic quilts. Here, we're using the painter's primary color wheel and direct complement pairs are directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Our first sample we're going to look at is red-violet and yellow-green. Here's the yellow-green, and here's the red-violet. The quilt is using mostly shades and tones, whereas the color wheel is showing a pure color that is highly saturated.

Here, as we're looking at the quilt, we can see that it's made with lots of small pieces with no neutrals separating them. That will push direct complements towards each other and as you look at the quilt for a really long time, you're gonna see gray. Our next sample is using the direct complement of red-orange, and blue-green. Here in this leaf, we have a really large selection of different red-oranges and blue-greens, mostly shades and tones, no real pure hues here. Here's the blue-green and the red-orange opposite each other on the color wheel.

These are very, very strong, temperature colors. The orange is very warm and the blue-green is very cool and they have a great contrast with each other, making a really dynamic quilt. Our last direct complement is blue and orange. This quilt features a really, really dark blue background with nice, intense oranges in the leaves and in the print. The direct complement of blue and orange, right here, opposite each other on the color wheel.

Blue is a very weak color and orange is a very, very strong color and they play off of each other really well in a combination. In addition to plain complements we also have complex direct complements. This quilt here is a double complement, and a double complement is any two colors next to each other on the color wheel and those two colors direct complements. In this quilt, we have red-violet and violet. Well, they're direct complements of yellow and yellow-green.

Now, when most people see this quilt they don't think that it has yellow in it, but here on the color wheel here, we can see what happens to yellow when you add black to it and turn it into a shade. It's this nice dark kind of olive color. And the whole background of this quilt is made up of that yellow. Each of the scarabs has all four colors in it, so you really get to see what they're doing as they interact. You can see the dark yellow-oranges, excuse me, the dark yellow-greens and the dark yellows, the red-violet and the violet.

Our next quilt is called an analogous complement. Analogous colorways are three to seven colors next to each other on the color wheel. This particular quilt has yellow, yellow-green, and green, with the direct complement of the center color, which is green, and its direct complement is red-violet. Here, the background has all three colors of the analogous run, along with the direct complement in it. So we're really getting to see what happens when those colors interact with each other.

Also quite dynamic, but because we have the analogous run, it's much more harmonious. Our last quilt is a double split complement. This quilt is called Ruby, and she was made by one of my students, Ruth Wolkoff. A double split complement is where you choose a color, skip the color next to it and choose the next color, and those two colors direct complements. This quilt is made from red-violet, blue-violet, and they're direct complements of yellow-orange and yellow green.

Ruth used all four colors in the face. She kept them similar by using all shades, so that she had the same part of the color scale. Working with direct complements or complex complements is a great way to make dynamic quilts. Here you have the opportunity of working with a strong color and often a weak color, and you could have all the control of balancing those colors together. It makes for a very, very good outcome.