The Art of Color: Color Wheel & Color Relationships

If you’re studying fine arts or design as part of a liberal arts degree program, it’s important for you to have a solid command of color theory. Color theory is the art of combining colors based on the color wheel, an organized illustration of the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Accurately combining colors, using the color wheel, and understanding how colors relate to each other are critical skills for artists, designers, marketers, and brand owners.

Primary Colors

Primary colors include yellow, blue, and red. These are colors that can’t be created by mixing of other colors. Instead, they combine to create secondary colors, which in turn combine to create tertiary colors. In effect, all colors stem from the three primaries.

• Using Primary Colors in Art

• Introduction to Color Theory

• Are Red, Yellow, and Blue Primary Colors?

Secondary Colors

Secondary colors include orange, purple, and green, and they’re derived from mixing equal amounts of two primary colors at a time. Red and yellow combine to make orange; blue and yellow yield green; and red and blue create purple. Keep in mind that the ratio of each color you use when mixing them affects the final hue. For example, combining 1 part red with 1 part blue will create one shade of purple, while combining 1 part red with 2 parts blue will create a darker, more blue-tinged hue of purple.

• Simplifying Mixing Colors for Artists

• Create Secondary Colors From Multicolored LEDs

• How to Mix Bright and Dull Secondary Colors

Tertiary Colors

Tertiary colors, also known as intermediate colors, are made by combining equal parts of primary and secondary colors. Sometimes they’re named after the two colors that created them, such as blue-green or orange-red, and sometimes they’re called by their own name. There are six in total: vermilion (red-orange), magenta (red-purple), violet (blue-purple), teal (blue-green), chartreuse (yellow-green) and amber (yellow-orange).

• How to Mix Color: Mixing With Tertiary Colors

• The Great Tertiary Color Debate

• Oil Painting Techniques: Why We Need Color Theory

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are hues that contrast with each other and are positioned exactly opposite one another on the color wheel. The color wheel is an arrangement of all colors on the spectrum based on their relationships, and it’s useful in creating harmonious color schemes. Complementary colors enhance each other’s intensity when placed right next to each other, which is why they’re often used to create bold, high-contrast images that pop.

• Let’s Make Mud: Understanding and Mixing Complementary Colors

• Complementary Colors

• Complementary Colors, Afterimages, Retinal Fatigue, Color Mixing, and Contrast Sensitivity

Analogous Colors

Analogous colors are adjacent to or near each other on the color wheel. Together, they look aesthetically pleasing and produce a calming effect, as opposed to the intensity of complementary colors. Typically, one color in a scheme of analogous colors is the dominant hue, a second color supports it, and a third color acts as an accent. Analogous schemes are often used in artworks that depict nature or calming scenes.

• Analogous Color Schemes: What They Are and How to Use Them

• Understanding Analogous Colors

• What Is an Analogous Color Scheme? Your Design Secret Weapon

The Color Wheel

The color wheel, sometimes called a color circle, is a circular arrangement of colors organized by their chromatic relationship to one another. The primary colors are equidistant from each other on the wheel, and secondary and tertiary colors sit between them. It’s used in art and design to choose colors and color schemes based on their relationships to one another.

• Learn the Basics of Color Theory to Know What Looks Good

• Essential Color Guide for Designers: Understanding Color Theory

• Using the Color Wheel: Color Theory Tips for Artists and Painters

Color Relationships

The color wheel is the most common depiction of the basics of color theory. However, there are other ways to portray color relationships. Some alternative representations of color relationships include the painters’ color triangle, the printers’ color triangle, and the nine-part harmonic triangle of Goethe.

• Color Scripts: Color Relationships in Support of the Story

• Triangle vs. Circle

Pop Art Painting - 

• Divide painting surface into 4 equal spaces.

• Draw simplified (abstracted) image of iconic product - see examples.

• Repeat drawing into remaining spaces.  Try to make the copies accurate to the original in proportion and spacing.

• Use a different triadic color relationships to paint in the spaces for each image.  You should have three colors for each image.

Acrylic Paint Demonstration