Fellow illustrator and blogger, James Gurney, has routinely spoken at great length about the benefits of ‘Gamut Masking’. Now, artist Richard Robinson has created a very simple, easy to use, and totally free Gamut Masking Tool. With a variety of pre-existing masks to choose from, and the ability to create your own custom masks as well, you can see what color scheme will work best for you very quickly! Try it out HERE.
Be sure to check out the rest of Richard’s site, Painting Lessons: Beginner to Advanced, it is chock full of valuable information.
For more information on Gamut Masking, read James Gurney’s blog posts on the subject here:
Intro, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Thanks, Dan, for mentioning gamut masking, and thanks Richard for figuring out how to translate it to digital. It's a pretty old idea, going back at least to the 1920s. I adapted the method from a book by Walter Sargent called “The Enjoyment and Use of Color.”
big big thanks! great method and now even easier to use!
this will make my color selection so much easier. now i wont even have to learn anything about color theory ever again!
…kidding, but this really is a neat tool, i look forward to using it to assist me in color selection, and to get a feel for why those colors work with the other colors in the mask.
Great resources – thanks Dan.
Wow, this is so tremendously helpful tool. I was familiar with Gurney's teachings about gamut masking from his books & blog, but this website/software makes it so easy to use!