The Gamut Mask Tool

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What is it?
The Gamut Mask is a great way to created harmonic color schemes. It simplifies your color choices and saves you lots of time and paint in achieving unified color palettes quickly and easily.

Who made it?
This Gamut Mask Tool was developed by me (Richard Robinson) and is provided to you free to use. The original concept of the Gamut Mask was developed by James Gurney (www.jamesgurney.com), artist and author of the fantastically illustrated Dinotopia books (www.dinotopia.com).

How do I use it?
Below are some samples of harmonic color schemes achieved by using the Gamut Mask. First I designed an image with a limited value study. Then I decided my most powerful color would be the orange in the foreground and I made a triangular mask with yellow orange as the dominant color, supported by a grayed red and a grayed green. I could have mixed intermediary colors located midway along the sides of the triangle, but I decided to keep it simple and mixed just three color strings of five values each. Then I removed all other colors from my palette so I wouldn’t be tempted to dip into them, and painted the first little study (just 2.5” wide). Satisfied with that, I made two more studies, and you can see what different color schemes were achieved by the different gamut masks. Each painting is harmonious, yet each has a slightly different mood.

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Now, color theory… 
So you guys know what a color wheel is, right?

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How to use colors..
You don’t use black to darken (supposedly, if you’re a ‘real’ artist) you use complimentary colors, meaning just the opposite color on the color wheel.
(you can obviously use black, but if you want something to look ‘real’ you use complimentary colors)
For example, if you want to darken blue you use orange, and to darken yellow you use purple.
To darken red, you use green.

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I know, the green looks pretty ridiculous and it looks like I ruined the drawing, but the green is going to make the red appear darker when you color over it.

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Congrats, now you know how to color just a little bit better. :PPP

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