Do you all remember those golden times when the most you could do with your 4 megapixel-photos was add a Sepia, Black and White, or Negative effect to them? Phones weren’t that advanced and nor were our expectations. Nothing was cooler than having an edited picture taken by someone else. Selfies weren’t a thing back then. Nostalgic for those good times, artists challenged each other to draw pictures based on the Negative effect, and they called it “The inverted color challenge.” Today, we are talking a look at their results and you are the judges.

Some of you might be asking what does the negative effect or inverted colors (aka. complementary colors) mean. When somebody mentions these concepts they refer to the opposite colors in the color wheel. For example, on that wheel, green is opposite to red, blue to orange, black to white, etc.. Several talented YouTubers recorded their progress as they were drawing different images using the inverted color technique, curious to see how difficult it is to find the correspondent shade and still have a good quality result.

The negative originates back in photography when a camera film would capture pictures inverted, being later transformed into colored pictures, when developed. We’ve decided to feature these works on our website, because firstly, they are a lot of fun, secondly, we wanted to shed a light on talented artists who have gained a reputation online through engaging videos. So if you’d like to see how the inverted color challenged changed the artists’ idea about drawing or painting, check these videos out.

The INVERTED COLOR Challenge! – Can I PAINT a NEGATIVE?

After four hours of painting, this is what I have. I’m looking forward to see what it looks inverted. Even before inverting it I’m pretty happy with how this dude looks… I love it! It’s exactly what I was expecting I’d be wrapped with this if I painted it just like that.

OPPOSITE COLOR CHALLENGE & Art Goals 2018

My goal is to make this look like a real actual portrait when I invert the colors back to normal again. At first, I thought, well… it can’t be that hard, I will just pick a blue and color the face. Well, it is more advanced than that!

Inverted Colour Drawing Challenge ????

Well, wasn’t this fun; I was having enough trouble figuring out how to use gouache for the first time.

I think the most successful part of this was the sky, which is kinda pathetic because it’s kinda easy, but even putting down the colors for everything in this image, I just felt like I have never painted in my life.

INVERTED COLOR ART CHALLENGE Vexx Competition Entry

We hope you enjoyed this blog post! Stay tuned for more daily spinets of creativity and inspiration!

Read More at The Inverted Colors Challenge