When I took my first art class, we spent couple of weeks painting and discussing the Color Wheel. I had wanted to learn to draw, so I confess: I was a bit impatient with color theory.
But when I started to study biology … I realized that understanding the color wheel was helpful. It makes sense that the markings on flowers almost always are complementary colors.
This time of year, most wildflowers tend to be yellow or purple. These two colors are found across from each other on the color wheel. When placed together, designers might say “they pop.”
Not coincidentally, yellow and purple are the pair of colors that are visible and most attractive to bees.
This time of year, wild native bees and domestic honeybees are frantically gathering nectar and pollen. Bright complementary colors no doubt make pollinators more efficient.
Currently, many migrating birds are searching for fruits and berries. They are most likely to find red fruit among the leaves of green. Because green and red are complementary, ripe fruits such as apples, cherries and raspberries have evolved to be red.
It may be more than complementary colors. Some birds have little oil droplets in the cone photoreceptors of their eyes. Presumably this makes the color red vibrantly obvious to them.
Complementary colors pop for us…and for the birds and the bees.
