Elements of Art

In addition to color and value, COLOR THEORY will be addressed, focusing on five basic color schemes though there are more! The relationship between colors, or hues, can be seen represented on a color wheel and is referred to as color theory. The color wheel, and thus color theory, revolves around the three primary hues: red, yellow and blue. The secondary hues are then a mixture of two, adjacent primary hues, creating orange, green and purple. The secondary colors are placed on the color wheel between the two primary colors that were mixed to create the secondary color. Any further mixing of hues are also placed in the same fashion.

There are FIVE basic color schemes that come out of color theory and can be seen on any color wheel. For our classes, we will consider a 12-color wheel when determining our schemes.

1. MONOCHROMATIC schemes only use one hue, but take advantage of value changes within that hue. An example color combination would be red, white and pink.

2. TRIADIC color schemes match three hues that are equally spaced in their placement on the color wheel, such as red, blue and yellow. 

3. COMPLEMENTARY schemes use two hues that are opposite each other on the wheel, but are careful in using various values within those hues as differing intensity amongst the two hues can soften the impact of using complementary colors. 

4. SPLIT COMPLEMENT schemes use three hues; any hue and the two adjacent hues next to its complement. An example color combination would be purple, yellow-orange and yellow-green. 

5. ANALOGOUS schemes use three to five hues that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel, such as yellow, yellow-orange, orange, red-orange and red.