Contrast of extension

Contrast of extension theory relates to the proportion of colour used in contrast with another. The contrast of extension theory presents colour harmony to be a choice of colours, how much of a colour is needed to ‘balance’ out the opposing colour. Contrast of extension is formed in relation to the visual weight of the colour of which Goethe created numerical values for each colour ; yellow=9, orange=8, red=6, violet=3, blue=4 & green=6. This allowed him to create colour proportion using complementary colours. Itten states that the harmonious proportions of area for the complementary colours is ; yellow:violet= ¼:¾ , orange:blue=⅓ :⅔ and red:green= ½ :½ . Itten’s ‘the art of colour’ portrays the way proportions of colour are arranged can significantly alter the harmony as having a green square with smaller red squares inside it makes the colour red more vibrant compared to it being shown in a normal proportional scale. I used the idea of contrast of extension in order to test whether using the harmonious proportion with the complementary colours or blue and orange will work with the denim. The denim tasks incorporates the ratio of 1:3 orange and 2:3 blue, with finding that the more denim used in the imagery the more the orange is active.