How Chinese Colour Theory Changed My Art Forever (the t… — Transcript

The truth is that all these things we've been taught about complementary colors and analogous palettes are probably harming us more than they are helping us. Because after meticulously studying from the Chinese YouTuber Billy Billy, I've discovered that Chinese artists tend to approach color theory in a completely different way. So just stay with me until the end of this video, and you'll learn knowledge that I'm pretty confident you'll struggle to find elsewhere on YouTube. So, first up,

let's talk about an important art concept you've probably never heard before, ti, which describes the energy or vibe of colors, but not in a hippie way. While Western artists often obsess over perfect hue matches, Chinese artists tend to care more about capturing the mood and emotion of their subjects using saturation and brightness. But what does that actually mean in practice? Well, instead of trying to decide if blue and orange are complementary in the offer, Chinese

artists ask the most important question of all: What feeling do I want my viewers to feel when looking at my art? They then pick colors accordingly, not just based on hue, contrary to what we've mostly been taught. Instead, they mostly base it on saturation, which matters much more to the mood of a scene than you might expect. For example, think about pastels. You've likely noticed how soft pastel colors often feel calm, comforting, and serene. But have you ever wondered why? It's because

lower saturation and higher brightness naturally soothe the viewer. Conversely, colors with high saturation and a lower brightness often feel more powerful, more intense, and often signal drama or tension. This makes sense to our monkey brains because we would rarely ever see such saturated colors out in nature unless it was something important like a ripe fruit or blood. Our brains would stay more alert because of that. And here's the part most people miss. Saturation doesn't just change how

bright something feels. It changes how much attention it demands. The human eye is wired to seek out the most saturated point in any composition. So even if your overall scene is perfectly composed, a single overly saturated spot can hijack the viewer's focus entirely. That's why masters use saturation sparingly as a form of a visual hierarchy. They let the calm muted areas do the heavy lifting, then place one or two areas of a richer color exactly where your eyes want to land. Meaning to

apply this to your own artworks, you can just throw away all the concepts you've been taught about complementary colors and analogous palettes to build visual intrigue. So rather than strictly sticking to color wheels, ask yourself, is this scene calm or intense? Should it feel gentle or energetic? And adjust the saturation and brightness first instead of playing into the Western cliché of red for danger and blue for calm. Then watch your work instantly level up in

emotional impact. But let's keep going deeper because the next layer of this concept reveals another hidden gem of Chinese color theory, which is sole. This is a game-changer because it completely ignores rigid color theory rules in favor of storytelling and emotional authenticity. The direct translation doesn't do it justice, so I'll explain what it would involve. Imagine painting a serene river scene in a quiet countryside. Some Western-trained artists might default to complementary

blues and greens, creating something technically correct. But Chinese artists might do things a bit differently, using whites for the river and choosing softer muted greens, creating a more empty and airy feeling to the painting which immerses the viewer. So instead of thinking of coloring objects in a simplified way of tree okay green water okay blue, you can try thinking of what should the water feel like in this scene, and this can often mean that you don't even choose blue as the color for the

water. So the general idea of futai is that colors should be assigned based on the nature of the subject, not just visual balance. This is why you would often see rivers painted in earthy grays rather than the textbook blue or skin tones built with muted pinks and grays rather than high saturation peach. So next time you paint, instead of picking colors based purely on harmony, think what story or emotion am I trying to show? The result might surprise you because the goal isn't accuracy anymore.

The simple trick to this is to remove color from your reference entirely. Yep, we're removing the color to paint color. Let me explain. We'll convert it to black and white, then reimagine the colors from scratch based on emotion rather than what you see. Ask yourself, what temperature fits this emotion? What saturation level supports it? When you start thinking that way, you're not copying the world anymore. You're reinterpreting it. That's the heart of sole futai, using color not as

description but as expression. Now this last concept is where the real mastery comes in because what most people think of as gray doesn't actually exist in real life. Every gray takes on the qualities of the light and color around it. This means the same gray can appear warm in one context and cold in another. You've probably seen this with various famous examples such as this one where the background of the gray makes it look slightly orange or blue even though it's actually the same

gray. It's not just about picking the right color. It's about letting the color react to its environment. This is yet another reason why all these realistic and artistic portraits by Chinese artists have a distinct type of just style about them. The colors are simply based on a different concept and objective. Instead of trying to push colors into the portrait like you normally would, you know, choosing orange for something that's orange or blue for something that's blue, the

masters will often utilize this concept of to instead use grays to represent a certain color. This way, you're able to have a more harmonious color scheme since the colors are closer together. Think muted lavender and shadow or softer peach in skin tones. So, how can you actually apply this to your own work? Start by thinking in temperature, not hue. When you look at a subject, don't ask, "What color is this?" Instead, ask, "Is this area warm or cool?" Then, pick a desaturated color

that fits that temperature. You'll notice that your colors start to react to each other more naturally instead of clashing. Next, stop using neutral gray straight from your palette. Mix your grays from the colors already in the scene. If your painting has a lot of warm tones, let some of that warmth bleed into your shadows and backgrounds. That shared pigment makes everything feel like it exists under the same light source. You can also use colored grays to control how saturated

your painting feels. A painting where every color is bright and intense quickly feels chaotic. But when you surround those vivid areas with subtle colored grays, your eyes finally have space to rest. The saturated spots suddenly feel richer and more powerful without you touching their brightness. But if you want to actually try to incorporate some of the teachings of Chinese artists, then be sure to check out this video here and check out the description for my brushes. Don't forget

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