Artistic Polar Bear Challenge: 100 Ways In 100 Days. #77 - Gamut Mask

This is an interesting and helpful digital tool if you're looking for color schemes for your painting.  It's called a Gamut Mask.  The original concept was developed by James Gurney, and the digital tool was created by Richard Robinson.  Take a look through James Gurney's blog, and see how he puts the masks to use in his art, it's very informative.

This is the mask I decided to use for this study.  Since I normally lean toward using warm colors, I went the opposite way today.

The wheel is off kilter because, when making your color range selection, you rotate the outer color wheel, not the shape that delineates the color choices on the inside.  This throws me a bit, because I get all crazy when color wheels are all cattywampus;  Right Brain insists that yellow needs to be on top, red on the left, blue on the right.  Any other variation than that makes my head spin.

Using this mask, the most chromatic color will be the yellow-green, with less intense versions of the other colors being used.  I found it to be a very helpful reminder when creating color mixes.  

Gamut Mask Bear

I'm normally an unabashed Chroma Fiend, but this particular exercise helped to corral that beast.  Even with  non-realistic colors, the scheme works well with the warm, muted colors in the shadows.  This is definitely a tool I'm going to use more in the future.  

And I'm still waiting for more creative, artistic suggestions from y'all for this bear!  Think weird, think unusual, think odd, just something that can be done in a few hours time.