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Blue and orange wall art is artwork where warm light meets cool shadow: sunrise on a mountain, sunset over water, a city at dusk, a harbor at golden hour, desert sun against a blue sky. Blue and orange sit directly opposite each other on the color wheel, which makes this the highest contrast pairing in photography, and it is the one this catalogue holds more of than any other. Every piece is printed to order on museum quality canvas with archival inks that resist fading, stretched over a solid wooden inner frame, and shipped ready to hang.
Opposites on the color wheel produce the maximum contrast the eye can register in hue, and blue and orange is the pair with the biggest difference in warmth as well. Orange advances and blue recedes, so a print built this way has depth before any thought is given to composition. That is why the combination has been the default in film grading for decades.
The pairing is not applied to these photographs, it is what the world looks like at the start and end of the day. In the hour after sunrise and before sunset the low sun turns warm while the sky and any water still hold blue, and every landscape photographed then is blue and orange. That is why sunrise and sunset work dominates this collection.
Three groups run through the collection. Water is the largest: harbors, piers, coastlines and open ocean at either end of the day, where the sky repeats itself in the surface. City is dusk photography, where blue hour sky sits behind warm street and window light. Mountain is sunrise on a peak, where the summit catches orange light while the valley below stays in cool shadow.
In most pieces here blue holds the larger share of the frame and orange arrives as light. That is worth knowing when matching a room: a blue and orange print usually reads as a blue piece with warmth in it. If the room needs the orange to lead, look at the sunset and desert work rather than the harbor and coastal photography.
High contrast artwork carries further across a room than low contrast artwork, so it can be hung on the far wall and still read. Keep the piece to roughly two thirds of the width of the furniture below it. Hang the center about 57 to 60 inches from the floor, or 6 to 8 inches above a sofa back.
Horizontal artwork here comes as 1 Piece, 3 Horizontal, 4 Pop, 5 Star and 5 Pop, running from 24 by 16 up to 82 by 42 inches overall. Vertical artwork comes as 1 Vertical and 3 Vertical from 12 by 24 up to 24 by 49. Panoramic artwork comes as 1 Piece and 3 Piece from 36 by 12 up to 73 by 24. A sunset over open water is the clearest case for a panoramic shape, since the horizon is the subject.
Warm wood, leather and rattan pick up the orange. Navy and denim furnishings pick up the blue. Cream and warm white walls suit it better than cool white, which can leave the blue looking cold. Avoid putting it beside a second high contrast piece, since two focal points on one wall cancel each other out.
A living room takes the large water and city pieces, especially opposite a window. A dining room suits the warmer sunset work, which reads richer under lamplight. An office suits the mountain sunrise pieces, which have a clear focal point and stay legible small. A bedroom generally wants the quieter end of the range, where the orange is a band on the horizon rather than a full sky.
The first is choosing a piece where both colors are equally saturated, which reads as loud rather than balanced. One should lead. The second is hanging it on a strong blue or strong orange wall, which cancels half the contrast. The third is placing it directly beside a window, where afternoon light bleaches the warm half of the image.
A piece belongs here when blue and orange are both present in the artwork rather than one of them appearing as a sliver. Work that also carries strong green, pink or purple is left out, since a third saturated color breaks the complementary relationship the pairing depends on. National flags are kept out as well, because a flag can hold both colors without being about the light in a scene.
A single canvas keeps a sunrise intact, which matters when the sun itself is in the frame and a panel gap would cut through it. A multi panel set suits a harbor, a coastline or a city skyline, where the scene is already horizontal and the divisions follow the rhythm of the buildings or the shore. Panoramic shapes suit an open horizon better than either.
Blue Wall Art covers everything blue, from pale sky to deep midnight. Orange Wall Art covers everything orange, including autumn and desert work with no blue in it. This collection is the overlap, and it is the one to browse when a room needs both the calm of blue and the warmth of orange in a single piece.
Each canvas is printed to order rather than held in stock, on museum quality canvas with archival inks that resist fading. The canvas is stretched over a solid wooden inner frame and arrives ready to hang. Free Shipping applies, and returns are free within 30 days.
Because they are opposite on the color wheel, which gives the strongest contrast available in hue, and because skin tones sit in the orange range while shadows sit in the blue range. Film and photography lean on the pairing for both reasons. In landscape work it appears on its own at sunrise and sunset.
Cream, warm white and warm gray all work, because they stay out of the way of both colors. A cool white can leave the blue looking cold. A strong blue or strong orange wall is the pairing to avoid, since the wall cancels half the contrast the artwork depends on.
It depends where the orange sits. A full orange sky is too active for most bedrooms. A piece where the orange is a band on the horizon and the rest is blue water reads as calm, and it suits a bedroom as well as any cool toned print does.
Orange. On a twelve step wheel, blue sits six places from orange, which is what makes them complementary. The other two complementary pairs are red with green and yellow with violet, but blue and orange is the one that occurs most in photography.
Blue hour is the period just before sunrise and just after sunset when the sun is below the horizon and the sky holds a deep even blue. Street lights and windows are already on and read as warm orange against it, which is why city photographs taken then are naturally blue and orange.
