I can only answer for myself, but those who know me have probably already guessed the truth: I get my color schemes straight from the wholesome outdoors.
I wander through farm and field, across mountain path and alongside alpine lakes, camera and sketchbook in hand. From these I sift a palette.
Sometimes it's as simple as a duckling. I might take one hue from the creamy tone on the top of his beak and a deep brown from his feathery underside, a bright chartreuse from the blade of grass clinging to a webby foot.
Here I'll share with you my jog through the woods by my house this afternoon and the color palettes that hour inspired. A branch here, a bloom there...
...and my hour in the woods has given me several color palettes which will appear in my spring collections.
That's just me... maybe my artist friends use a completely different method, but I almost always derive my palettes straight from the outdoors. I may use a palette for a subject completely unrelated to the one that inspired the colors, but I've observed that God was really smart in the way He placed colors together, and drawing from the natural world is almost completely fool proof.
