Understand the secret of colour
You know why I am still on instagram? Even with all this stuff about it giving up on still life photography and making us do the reel dance thing. It’s because sometimes, a picture absolutely halts me in my tracks and makes me catch my breath. This picture of a hand tie by Anna Potter of Swallows and Damsons was one of them. It just felt so incredibly fresh and dramatic and different and just… breath-taking.
Because my every waking thought is devoted to the replanting plan of the flower borders around the edge of the edibles growing beds, I caught on to this photo and I held it . As if it might guide me towards the answer to all of my questions, as if it might give me a framework for planning. I started making a list of the plants (is that astrantia at the very far left a ‘Moulin Rouge’ or ‘Washfield’ do we think?) and then I thought, maybe I want to understand why I like this so much.
In fact, I was a little baffled about why I did like it so much. I know from long experience that I have a tendency towards very analogous colour schemes, preferably on the warmer side of the spectrum and this is quite diverse in terms of my taste.
Analogous means that, if you plot what colours have been used on the colour wheel, they would be very closely bunched together. This picture was put on Sarah Statham’s stories (it was made under her expert eye by John Kennerley) and I loved it so I captured it. It ticks all my boxes. Have a look at it and then look at the colour wheel; see how closely the colours are together.
But Sarah is a very talented person, and a very clever stick. At first glance, this is an analogous colour scheme, all around the pink, purple and red segments of the colour wheel. But look at the ribbon. It picks up the ruffled Rudbeckia, and the central cones of the echinaceas. The pink of the daucus (at least I think it is daucus, and it is definitely one of the pinker ones, not the dark red) lifts and lightens and stops it being too rich. Have you noticed though? No actual red. Actually, there is a persicaria flower at the top right and I will take some challenge as to whether this would be counted as red-red.
And those tiny scabious buds? Sharp fresh green. Just a tiny tiny touch. Just enough to shift it from analogous to triadic. Just a highlight.
(Erin of Floret talks about this as the squeeze of lemon on a cooked dish that just sharpens and lifts everything.)
I know, you have to slightly shift the points round a segment, but I couldn’t find a picture that was quite right. But is explains why this bouquet is so gloriously balanced; it makes perfect sense in terms of the colour wheel.
Going back to the idea of a tiny touch of a colour that is on the other side of the colour wheel as a means of lifting a warm, rich analogous design, have you noticed how much tweedia there is around at the moment? I adore tweedia. It is such an incredibly perfect, clear, clean, pure blue. Not only is it the only furry flower I can think of, it does blue so uncompromisingly and it complements (this means it is ‘opposite to’ in colour wheel terms) all those fantastic rich warm reds, purples and oranges. I have only recently discovered derletztewolf on Instagram but what a genius. I could have analysed every single one of her arrangements. Put your thumb over the blue tweedia flower and look at what a difference it makes. How flat and how boring it is without this one touch of fizzy, sharpening, lemon-spritzing, lift. There’s also a touch of borage on the left hand side which mirrors the star like shape of the tweedia.
Extra marks if you picked up that the blackberries make the centre of the rudbeckia seem even blacker.
Top prize if you didn’t have to scroll up to the Swallows and Damsons picture to know that it isn’t a coincidence that the ribbon is blue.
A slight aside, but I hate Zinnias. They are so hard and so unhelpful in terms of combining with other flowers to make anything analogous, or even complementary, but I think this might be something about hue too. Just too plastic looking. The one exception is featured in this picture; the Queen Red Lime zinnia is an absolute workhorse because it subtly and exquisitely combines complementary colours of red and green. It means it is a wonderful transition flower. It can pick up all sorts of other flowers or, as in the photo above, it links the rather lime shades of the roses and the pale central dahlia, and the stronger, redder, blooms and the gorgeous alpine strawberries.
It is the exception that proves the rule. What happens when you dial up the blue and it because a fully balanced triadic or tetra-dic scheme? I get a headache, that’s what happens. There is a theory purported by Alain de Botton that we seek out what we lack. I do not need jollying up, I need soothing. I can bring enough chaos to the party on my own, I crave soothing. If you put too much colour in a design, I feel anxious and uncomfortable. Plus, I am a dreadful snob. This image is just randomly taken from Pinterest. I have not credited the florist because only the photographer is named and they seem to have disappeared, but I am casting no shade on any individual in particular.
And if you adore these sorts of colour schemes, that’s all wonderful too. It suggests you have significantly more internal equilibrium than I do.
Oh my eyes. To cleanse our visual palettes, another from derletzewolf. This time missing the blue. Still utterly gorgeous (and it makes me glad I have just done another sowing of Digitalis ‘mertonensis’) but a step towards more soothing. Truly analogous. The range of pinks, red and creamy yellows stops it from being monochromatic, but the limit to the colours lets the eye appreciate the full variety in terms of forms and textures.
And so back to the beginning. How can we use this knowledge to plan a planting scheme and to create arrangements that make our hearts sing? I have taken the Swallows and Damson’s picture and made a list of all the plants it involved. And then I made a list of all the colours on the colour wheel and used that as a guide to supplement this. Noting the role of hues and tones here as well; the reds are warm, deep and strong, the pinks are soft and muted and the yellows are golden and rich, not zingy or sharp.
I have a feeling that, like missing out a key part of a recipe and thinking one knows best, if I ignore the purple (I strongly suspect this is Scabiosa caucasica 'Clive Greaves') it will lose what makes it magic and the whole scheme will fall flat.
Purple though. I just don’t think it is my thing.