Mel guest judges #kidartlit

Starting today, I'm a guest judge for the #kidartlit challenge on Instagram! #kidartlit is a weekly hashtag challenge that inspires participants to share picture books, process art, crafts, and other learning activities on a theme. Every week features a new guest judge, and yours truly has chosen one of her favorite illustration topics: complementary colors! I hope you'll join me here and on Instagram as I guest judge and chat about my favorite picture books with complementary colors throughout the week.

As you'll remember from this older post, complementary colors are the two colors that sit opposite each other on the color wheel: red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple. Picture books that only (or mostly) feature a pairing of complementary colors are unique in that the two colors inherently highlight the best parts of each other in the illustrations: a mostly blue spread with three or four orange items will draw your eye right to those orange items because of how far apart orange and blue stand apart from each other on the color wheel. They're literally opposites, so using them effectively will enhance the visual narrative and tone of the illustrations. And (of course) the end result is beautiful.

To celebrate my stint as a guest judge, I'll be focusing this week's posts on each of the three pairings of complementary colors. Some books will be repeats from my older post, but a bunch will be new, so be sure to tune in all week long! 

Come back tomorrow for the first complementary pairing, red and green!