I talk a lot about
primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, as well as
warm colors and
cool colors, so I wanted to take the opportunity today to give you a visual reference of what I mean when I use these terms.
There are two types of ways to think about color - additive and subtractive.
Additive
color is the system you probably learned in science class as a kid and
deals with the visual light spectrum - when you add all of the colors of
the rainbow together, you get
white light; if you use a prism to
refract these colors, you see individual hues. The primary colors of
the additive spectrum are
Red, Green, and Blue, which is why your
computer monitor uses "RGB" color.
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| Additive Color |
For the purposes of the artwork I create, however, I use the
Subtractive color system - the one you probably learned in art class.
The subtractive color system is used when mixing paints (or inks on
your computer's printer) - when you mix a dab of every color in every
paint tube, you get
black instead of white.
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| Subtractive Color |
Subtractive color predates modern scientific color theory and has been used in art and art education since the dawn of civilization. In the subtractive color system, the three primary colors are
Red, Yellow, and Blue. The secondary colors (Violet (or purple), Orange, and Green), are formed by mixing equal amounts of Red & Blue, Red & Yellow, and Blue & Yellow, respectively.
[Side note: In the 20th centuries, the more versatile CMY (Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow) triad was adopted for the purposes of digital printing (Cyan is sometimes referred to as "process blue" and Magenta is sometimes referred to as "process red") - but artists who use a traditional method (like painting) continue to use the standard RYB color wheel.]
On the color wheel, colors that are exact complements of each other are placed directly opposite. Each primary color's complement is the
secondary color created when combining the
other two primary colors - so Red's complement is Green (Blue + Yellow), Yellow's complement is Violet (Blue + Red), and Blue's complement is Orange (Red + Yellow).
In between each secondary and primary color is a
tertiary color, created by combining the two colors on either side - for example, Blue-Green is (not surprisingly) created by mixing Blue with Green, and Red-Orange is formed from the mixture of Red and Orange. (When naming the tertiary colors, the primary color is always listed first, followed by the secondary color.)
There are six tertiary colors, and each tertiary color also has a complement on the color wheel. Blue-Green and Red-Orange are complements, and lie directly across from each other.
So the color wheel is comprised of twelve colors - three primary colors, three secondary colors, and six tertiary colors. You can draw a line across the color wheel to cut it in half (in between Violet & Red-Violet on one side, and Yellow-Green & Yellow on the other, as I did in the picture above), designating six of those colors to be "cool colors" and the other six to be "warm colors."
The
cool colors, therefore, are Violet, Blue-Violet, Blue, Blue-Green, Green, and Yellow-Green. Each of these colors requires the use of
Blue to mix the color. For example, Violet is
Blue + Red, and Yellow-Green is Yellow + Green (which in turn was created from Yellow +
Blue).
Blue and all colors similar to it are "cool" colors.
The
warm colors are Red-Violet, Red, Red-Orange, Orange, Yellow-Orange, and Yellow. Each of these colors requires the use of either Red or Yellow, because
Orange and all colors similar to it are "warm" colors.
You can create
tints by adding white to any of the twelve colors on the color wheel, and
shades by adding black to those colors. These tints and shades fall into the "warm" and "cool" color categories based on their parent color. For example, Pink is a tint of Red (created from Red + White), and as such, falls into the "warm" color bracket with Red. A dark olive green color would be a shade of Yellow-Green (created from Yellow-Green + Black), and would therefore be included in a list of "cool" colors along with Yellow-Green.
In the image above, I've listed several tints and shades in each category to give you a sampling of the wide range of colors included.
Next week I'm going to start celebrating spring by listing examples of flowers that fall into the warm and cool color categories - so check back soon! :)
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Shameless Plug Time:
I design custom stationery in whichever color(s) you love! Visit Invites by Andrea to view samples, download a catalogue pdf, or fill out a design request form. Or shoot me an email to ask me your questions or learn more information.
I also paint watercolors! Send me an email and let me know if you're interested in purchasing or commissioning a piece! :)
