Analogous colors sit next to each other on the wheel, usually three in a row, such as yellow, yellow-green and green. Because they are close relatives, they look calm and unified.
Key idea
Analogous = neighbors on the wheel. They share a common hue (yellow, yellow-green and green all contain yellow), which gives them harmony.
Why it works
Neighboring hues share some of the same color. That shared part ties them together the way a family resemblance does. To keep an analogous picture from feeling flat, artists vary value and saturation, or let one hue lead.
Many of Claude Monet's water lily paintings lean on blues, greens and violets, neighbors on the cool side of the wheel. Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888) goes the other way: yellows, yellow-oranges and oranges, set against yellow.
Worked example: Build an analogous scheme
Make an analogous scheme with orange in the middle.
- Find orange on the 12-hue wheel.
- Its neighbors are red-orange on one side and yellow-orange on the other.
Answer: Red-orange, orange and yellow-orange.
Common mistake
Choosing colors that sit together in a crayon box but far apart on the wheel. Red, yellow and blue are not analogous: they are spread evenly around the wheel. Check by counting steps: analogous hues are each one step apart.