Understanding Color: Primary, Secondary, Intermediate and Color Schemes, Summaries of Painting

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The Color Wheel

An Introduction to the Color Wheel and Color Theory

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The Color Wheel

• The color wheel shows relationships between the colors.
• Artists often use the color wheel to help understand how colors relate to one another.

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COLOR MIXING

Primary + Secondary

When you mix the Primary Colors together, you get the Secondary Colors. What colors do these make?

Red + Yellow =

Red + Blue =

Blue + Yellow =

Orange

Green

Purple

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The Color Wheel

Primary Colors

Secondary Colors

Intermediate/

Tertiary

Colors

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Primary Colors

• Can you see the primary colors in this painting by Piet Mondrian?
• What shapes did Mondrian use in this painting?

Boogie Woogie By Piet Mondrian

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Secondary Colors

Tertiary Colors

Secondary Colors

• The secondary colors are orange, green, and purple.
• Secondary colors are made from mixing the primary colors.

Primary Colors

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Tertiary Colors

Warm Colors

• The warm colors are red, orange, yellow, and anything in between.
• They are called warm because they remind you of the sun or fire.
• Warm colors seem to come out at you in space.

Cool Colors

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Warm Colors

• In The Fighting Temeraire by William Turner, the warm colors of the sunset give a feeling of brightness and heat. Look at the red spreading from the setting sun and the deep golden glow on the water. If you're feeling cold, looking at colors like these can actually make you feel warmer!

The Fighting Temeraire by William Turner

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Cool Colors

Cool Colors

• In this painting by Claude Monet,^ The Walk, Lady with a Parasol (^) , the cool colors of the ground and sky contributes to the peaceful feeling of the painting. Imagine how different the painting would look with a bright red sky—it might seem more exciting or energetic than restful.

The Walk, Lady with a Parasol by Claude Monet

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Warm Colors

Neutrals

• Neutrals don't usually show up on the color wheel. Neutrals include black, white, gray, and sometimes brown and beige. They are sometimes called “earth tones.”
• There are a few different ways to make neutrals. You can blend black and white to make gray. You can create brown in two ways—by blending two complementary colors together or by blending all three primary colors together.

Snow in New York by Robert Henri Indifferent neutrals. You can see a few glimpsesSnow in New York, Robert Henri uses many of red paint, but the overall effect is of naturalbrowns, whites and grays--like those you might see in rocks, sand, dirt, or clay.

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Analogous Colors

• Orange, yellow-orange, and yellow are also examples of analogous colors. They are blended nicely inSunflowers, a painting by Vincent Van Gogh. How do you know that these colors are closely related? They share a color—each of them contains some yellow.

Sunflowers By Vincent Van Gogh

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Color Schemes

Complementary Colors

• Complementary colors are the colors that are directly across from each other on the color wheel - Blue & Orange - Red & Green - Purple & Yellow

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Color Schemes

Making Tints

and Shades

• A shade of color is made by mixing that color with black.
• A tint of color is made by mixing that color with white. NEXT

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COLOR MIXING

Tints and Shades

• This painting by Vincent Van Gogh,

Fields in a Rising

Storm, has tints

and shades of blue in the sky, and tints and shades of green in the fields. Fields in a Rising Storm By Vincent Van Gogh

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COLOR MIXING

Tints and Shades

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