When using color in a coloring page or illustration, have you ever felt
"somehow it looks cluttered" or "the whole thing looks flat"?
In many cases, the real cause is the balance of brightness and saturation.
Just by understanding these two concepts, you can make your work much easier on the eyes, whether you use few colors or many.
It might sound a little tricky, but don't worry — we'll walk through it step by step so it's easy for beginners to understand.
Common Color Struggles
Have you ever experienced any of the following while coloring a piece?
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Adding color makes it look cluttered and hard to see the design
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You get stuck trying to decide on a color scheme
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Individual parts look nice, but the whole piece looks somehow flat
These struggles can often be improved by understanding "brightness" and "saturation."
What Is Brightness? What Is Saturation?
Brightness refers to how light or dark a color is.
It's expressed by how close a color is to white or to black.
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Closer to white → higher brightness
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Closer to black → lower brightness
Saturation = Vividness of a Color
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Clear, eye-catching colors → higher saturation
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Muted, calm colors → lower saturation
Together with "brightness" and "saturation," the type of color itself — hue (red, blue, yellow, etc.) — makes up what's called the
three properties of color.
These three properties are the essential basics for getting comfortable with color.
Every Color Is Determined by These Three Properties
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Hue: the type of color (red, blue, yellow, etc.)
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Saturation: the vividness of a color
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Brightness: the lightness of a color
Every color is made up of a combination of these three elements.
For example,
high saturation creates a vivid tone,
while high brightness creates a pastel-like tone.
When you're unsure about color choices, it can help to refer to a chart summarizing the three properties of color
and think about "what kind of mood I want the piece to have."
The Balance of Brightness and Saturation Shapes the Impression of Your Work
Simply using lots of colors you like won't solve the struggles mentioned earlier.
Balancing brightness and saturation is extremely important when coloring or finishing a piece of art.
You could almost say, "whoever masters brightness and saturation masters coloring"
— that's how important this point is.
What Happens If You Don't Consider the Balance?
Let's say you take the same line art and, wanting to give it a "bright, energetic feel,"
you use highly saturated, vivid colors all over. What happens?
At first glance, it looks colorful, but:
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Your eyes get overwhelmed
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It looks cluttered, and the main subject doesn't stand out
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Even though it should feel bright, it somehow feels heavy
These are common results.
This happens because everything is competing for attention, with no sense of contrast.
Keep the Hue, Adjust Brightness and Saturation
So, let's try keeping the hue the same, and only adjusting brightness and saturation.
What happens then?
The piece becomes much easier to view, and the impression changes significantly.
For example, even with red,
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The pocket in a darker tone
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The sketchbook in a lighter tone
By adjusting the brightness and saturation of the same red like this,
each element's role becomes clearer.
Adjusting the tone of skin color, too, can give a brighter, more natural impression.
Tips for Making the Main Subject Stand Out
If you want to make your main subject stand out even more, adjusting the brightness and saturation of the background is effective.
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Main subject: increase brightness while keeping saturation moderate
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Background: lower the saturation a bit, or adjust the brightness
Doing this naturally draws the eye to the main subject, even without changing the hue.
The Cause of "Flatness" and How to Fix It
The main reasons a piece looks flat overall are usually:
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Everything is the same tone
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You're coloring with the same pressure throughout
That's the crux of it.
Even with a limited number of colors,
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Varying your pressure
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Layering colors
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Changing the direction or motion of your strokes
can create variation in brightness and saturation.
The "snowy landscape drawn with just 2 colors" we introduced previously
also uses few colors, but achieves depth and dimension purely through adjustments in brightness and saturation.
When Things Aren't Working, Revisit "Brightness and Saturation"
When you feel like "something isn't quite working,"
don't just look at hue — also check:
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Whether your brightness levels are too uniform
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Whether your saturation is too high or too low
Keep these in mind.
Even a small adjustment can make a big difference in how easy your piece is to view and how polished it looks.
Recap
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Color struggles can be solved with "brightness" and "saturation"
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The impression can change a lot even without changing the hue
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The balance between the main subject and background matters
By keeping brightness and saturation in mind, you'll be able to color more works, and enjoy it even more.
Please give it a try in your next piece.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end.
See you again next time.