See what I mean?

These are the Arhelon needlepoint yarn colors (minus the yellow, which ran out, and the black, which is on a cone). They're all fingering weight wool, hand dyed (by me, for a former project- this is all leftover yarn).

In person, and in the ball, there are 5 distinct colors- red, brown, white, green and blue (with two shades of blue).

Look what happens when I remove the color- how many shades do we have now? Amazing, isn't it? The red and brown are also very similar, tonally, and if I had been doing a Fair Isle project with just those two colors, the end result would have been a vaguely mottled bit of mud. It wasn't such a big deal for the red and brown on Arhelon because they never touch each other, so their real life coloration is distinct.

Further proof- here's Arhelon, pre-sharpie. If I was to guess how many colors I'd used, based on this photo, I would have said black, white, and 2 shades of something...

When in reality, I used black, white, yellow, brown, red, green, and two shades of blue. What amazes me is that the most distinct color difference is between the two blues, rather than either blue with the green.

Next time, I'll scan the yarns before I start a project (unless subtle is the point, which it may be for the Mucha design).