Contest time!

A new month brings a new environment with it - Albeit trickling in slowly, so much so we don't truly notice its advent with each passing day, the gentle coolness and stirrings of a chill wind and ocean fog have crept under the shutters and into the haze of my room.

As it is for you, I do not know, but I hope it is as joyous and wonderful in the ways it comes about. It smells of sea breeze, fig leaves, and the vanilla rising with crushed coffee beans from the beach shack cafe down the road. It is dear.

Which brings us to a challenge! Grab your sketchpads or tablets, you cup of tea or coffee, and let us purvey the world around us. In our aesthetic appreciation of our natural environment, how can we use it to test our own colour palettes and broaden our senses? For those of you who are interested, what I propose is simple.

Snap a picture of somewhere near your home, devise a colour palette that is distinctly different from the one in the photo, and recreate the photo.

As an example:
I went out earlier in the day and took a quick shot in town - The lighting was lovely, but the shot is just off my iphone.

:thumb536963191:

At home, I dissembled a colour palette on my computer of several cool colours and some sienna to work with from my watercolours. After putting down a sampler, I did up a simple sketch working from the original image, but with the new colours.

If you're doing it traditionally, I recommend listing out the actual names of the colours - Getting to know what you're working with can help you pick out colours from the environment with ease, and trains you to be visually 'fluent'. If you're doing it digitally, keeping a tab to the side of different swatches is just as effective.

:thumb536963949:

You can use whatever colors you want, but it's not a bad idea to look for colours that fall within the same triangle on the color wheel. I recommend a couple of the following sites for deciding -

Paletton.com
(goo.gl/6LkBKv)

Lays out the palette for you in a really neat selection. You can also change the shadows and tones, which is sweet.

Adobe Color
(goo.gl/eSGlQt)

Quite similar to Paletton, but a different layout which some might prefer. You can also upload an image, and get the original color palette isolated for you. I haven't used this much before, so I don't know how effective it will be.

Rewards - Keep in mind that the judging will occur in collaboration with some friends and myself, and will come down to aesthetic and technical appeal. We're not looking for masterpieces, but simply work that has been given obvious thought and consideration. It's a learning opportunity, and a growth curve - Give it your best shot, and you'll win no matter what in the experience.

But regardless of that, a bit of buttering up is still nice. So -

First place will receive 500 points, and a small interview and feature on their own creative processes.

Second place will receive 200 points and a feature.


Third place will receive 100 points and a feature.

Posting - Please ensure you post in the correct challenge folder in the gallery, along with your reference photo either with it or linked on the deviation itself! Challenge will close on June the 25th. Good luck!



Features

From deviants both old and new, here are some colorful splashes of delight, either bright or muted, to bring a little joy into your visual world.

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