Color Inspiration - Purple and Gold Flowers

My cutting garden is full of Purple and Gold flowers, in a variety of shades and hues.

Want to create bouquets that glow with color? I live by my motto that all colors can work together! Just remember that if you want to pull together colors that are very different from each other, simply add transitions:

By pairing equally saturated versions of each of the complementary colors - intense purple salvia and buddleia with orange-yellow rudbeckia, I can then pull in the warmer, less intense hues - light yellow rose, beige-orange african daisy, red-purple spiky flower (which I can't remember the name of!). The african daisy works well in the palette not just because it is in the yellow-orange color family, but also because the center acts as a perfect transition from orange to purple.

p.s. Note that Radiant Orchid (#coloroftheyear) is included in this palette - 6th from the left

Have fun playing with color!
If you want to learn more: Artful Color for Creative Projects
All color wheels from: Eye For Color

Color Inspiration - Yellow Door

This bright yellow door caught my eye and is especially lovely paired with spikes of purple salvia.

Just as this scene has lots of colorful interest, depth can be added to any complementary color scheme by adding shadows and highlights of each color, and expanding with a second set of complementary colors to make a Tetrad (such as the grey-blue in the salvia stems and leaves of the curry plant)

Color wheels from Eye For Color

Color Inspiration - Skim Boards

Jack'd Skimboards hosts a skim board/music fest every summer on Whidbey Island during the lowest tide of the year. This colorful stack of boards greeted us as we headed out onto the sand.

Inspired by these colors, I mixed petunias and rusty bits to create this photoshop painting:

Petunia Rust