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Definition of color wheel in art


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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Painters’ Color Triangle

The painters’ color triangle is an arrangement of colors in a triangle shape, with one primary color at each corner and their secondary and tertiary colors in between. In contrast to the color wheel, the painters’ color triangle puts more emphasis on the primary colors and makes it easier to see the combinations between them due to its three-sided shape.

Printers’ Color Triangle

The printing process uses different core colors instead of the red, yellow, and blue used in painting. In printing, the primary colors are magenta, cyan, and yellow. The printers’ color triangle is modeled after the painters’ color triangle, but the three corners are occupied by the printing primary colors instead.

Nine-Part Harmonic Triangle of Goethe

Goethe’s color triangle is another way of depicting color relationships with an emphasis on the three primary colors. In it, both the painters’ primary colors and printers’ primary colors are represented. The three printers’ primaries are located at the three main vertices on the triangle. With dark neutral tertiaries between the primary colors, the way the triangle divides allowed Goethe to choose colors based on moods.

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colour wheel, a diagram used in the visual arts to represent the colours of the visible spectrum and their relationships to one another. The colours are arranged systematically into a circle, with each hue usually falling into one of three categories: primary, secondary, or intermediate. In fields such as painting, fashion, film, and design, artists use the colour wheel to assemble colour schemes and visualize how colours appear beside one another.

There are a number of colour wheels, each representing a different colour system. Colour systems are based on three primary colours from which all other colours in the system can be produced. The set of colours produced from the primary colours is known as the colour gamut. Although elementary-school students are typically taught that the primary colours are red, yellow, and blue, there is in fact no set standard of primary colours; any three colours can be assigned as primary colours to create a colour system. However, there are sets of primary colours that are more effective—that is, produce a more extensive colour gamut—than others. A couple of the best known are the subtractive colour system and the additive colour system.

The traditional painters’ colour wheel is one example of the subtractive colour system. Its primary colours are red, yellow, and blue (hence, it is also called the RYB colour model, after the first letter of each primary colour). The colours are called primary because they cannot be created by combining other hues. Any two of the three primary colours can be mixed to produce the secondary colours: green (made by combining yellow and blue), orange (yellow and red), and violet (blue and red). Mixing a primary colour with an adjacent secondary colour creates an intermediate colour. In this model, the intermediate colours are vermilion (red-orange), amber (yellow-orange), chartreuse (yellow-green), teal (blue-green), indigo (blue-violet), and magenta (red-violet).

If all of the colours of the RYB colour model were combined, theoretically they would create black. This is because colorants, such as pigments or dyes, selectively absorb and reflect light to create colour. For example, a yellow pigment absorbs blue and violet wavelengths while reflecting yellow, green, and red wavelengths. Blue pigment absorbs primarily yellow, orange, and red wavelengths. If the yellow and blue pigments are mixed, green will be produced, since it is the only spectral component that is not strongly absorbed by either pigment. In a sense, the yellow and blue pigments take colour away from one another, leaving only a green colour; hence, the RYB colour model is also called a subtractive colour system.

Digital artists and those working with coloured light use the RGB colour model, an additive colour system named for its primary colours red, green, and blue. The RGB colour model has a larger colour gamut than RYB, and it works in the same way that the human eye detects light—by adding wavelengths of red, green, or blue together to create all other visible colours. It is thus considered more accurate than the RYB colour model in modern colour theory. Additive mixing can be demonstrated physically by using three slide projectors fitted with filters so that one projector shines a beam of saturated red light onto a white screen, another a beam of saturated blue light, and the third a beam of saturated green light. Additive mixing occurs where the beams overlap (and thus are added together). Where red and green beams overlap, yellow is produced. If more red light is added or if the intensity of the green light is decreased, the light mixture becomes orange. Digital displays that emit light, such as computer monitors or televisions, use the RGB colour model to produce images.

The placement of colours on a colour wheel indicates important visual relationships. Colours of similar hue are grouped together, with warm colours (such as red, vermilion, orange, amber, and yellow) on one side and cool colours (including green, teal, blue, and violet) on the other. Colours that are side-by-side on the wheel are called analogous colours and are often used in paintings to evoke a mood or in design to create a sense of cohesion and harmony. Colours in direct opposition to one another, such as red and green on the RYB wheel, are called complementary colours. When viewed side by side, two complementary colours will appear brighter and more vivid than they would on their own or beside an analogous hue. The complementary colour of a primary colour will always be a secondary colour and vice versa. The complement of an intermediate colour will always be another intermediate colour.

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Isaac Newton was the first to arrange colours into a wheel; the illustration appeared first in his 1704 book Opticks. During his famed prism experiments, Newton discovered that by refracting sunlight onto a wall, white light was made of seven visible colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He then organized the seven hues into a wheel in the order that they appeared.

In the wake of Opticks, other scientists, artists, and writers composed colour wheels and theories of their own, including English entomologist Moses Harris, whose colour wheel in The Natural System of Colours (1766) shows a variety of colours produced from red, yellow, and blue; and German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who argued in Theory of Colours (1810) that colour is a result of light and darkness interacting—though modern physics does not accept this theory. Others catalogued colours in a variety of shapes, including a starburst (George Field; 1841) and a spherical system (Albert H. Munsell; 1915). The myriad of colour wheels and diagrams through the centuries shows that the effort to systematize the seemingly boundless array of visible colours always left room for improvement.

Emily KendallThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Color wheel in painting - warm and cold tones | ogivitel-art.com

The human eye is a unique mechanism capable of capturing millions of shades, so any artist understands that the colors he uses must be in harmony with each other. Some painters intuitively select combinations, others use a color wheel consisting of cold and warm tones, and still others skillfully combine these two methods, which allows you to get color combinations of incredible beauty. nine0003

What is the color wheel

The color wheel is a combination ordered according to the laws of color formation, based on which you can determine which shades are best suited to convey the emotional state in a particular work. The circle can be conditionally divided into two parts, where warm and cold spectra will be located. Each of them contains primary (primary), secondary and tertiary shades.

Primary art colors

Most artists use Itten's color wheel as the most convenient and well structured. The primary colors include blue, red and yellow, which are an integral part of all artistic paints, because they cannot be obtained by mixing other dyes. In the Itten circle, they are located in the very center and form a colored triangle.

Secondary Colors

Mixing blue and red produces purple, red and yellow produces orange, and blue and yellow produce green. These are the secondary colors. On color circle they are presented in the form of additional triangles that have common sides with the central triangle. The main spectra adjacent to these sides indicate which primary colors took part in the formation of the secondary.

Tertiary colors of the color wheel

Tertiary or secondary colors are obtained by mixing one of the primary colors with an adjacent complementary shade. These include:

It is easy to guess that yellow-orange is a mixture of yellow and orange, blue-green is a mixture of blue and green, etc., and the belt of the color wheel clearly demonstrates this. Primary, secondary and compound colors are called chromatic; black, white and shades of gray are achromatic. Since red and yellow are associated with fire, and blue with water and ice, their variations are called warm and cold, respectively. nine0003

How to create color harmony. Basic techniques for creating color schemes

There are several color combinations, the knowledge of which helps the artist to apply them as a color scheme in painting. Experts distinguish 6 main combinations: complementary, rectangular and square, as well as 3 types of triads - classical, analog and contrast.

Complementary colors are on opposite sides of the circle and contrast strongly with each other, such as green and red. A less pronounced contrast is obtained when using adjacent to opposite shades (for example, yellow-green + red-violet + red-orange - a contrasting triad). The analog triad involves the use of the three closest shades and allows you to get smooth transitions. In a square and triangular combination, 4 colors “scattered” around the circle are used - these schemes are used to create rich compositions. nine0003

Traditional painting techniques also use the color wheel to determine the final shade when mixing paints. However, the result will not always be satisfactory, since the primary colors from different manufacturers have different temperatures, lightness, hue and saturation. In addition, mixing paints on a palette is incredibly difficult to accurately match the color, which makes the picture scattered and unnatural. The finest semitones, not to mention the inner glow, cannot be obtained at all with this method. nine0003

A quality alternative to modern methods, including mixing paints on a palette, is the optical gap technology (TOT), in which colors appear naturally due to combinations of glazes, imprimatura, optical mixtures and fine work of the canvas with sandpaper. This mechanism includes the experience of the great masters of the High Renaissance, when the perfection of artistic solutions approached the ideal, and the best tools and techniques of contemporary art. Recently, the technology of optical gaps has become available to everyone, and in the practical part of the master class, we show the mechanism for introducing color. More about TOP is described in the book, which can be downloaded here. nine0003

What is the color wheel for and how to use it?

07/03/2019 18:37

Artists and designers, as well as people of creative professions associated with fine art - photographers, stylists, decorators and others, often refer to working with the color wheel. It is sometimes called the color wheel or closed spectrum. nine0003

Beginning painters often simply ignore this tool, preferring to mix and match colors in the picture “as I see it” or based on their own taste. Hundreds of books have been written about color theory, in each of them work with the color wheel is the main part. This is the basis of coloring, color science for artists and designers, simple color schemes - tips and coloring.

In general, the color wheel helps to choose color harmonies and contrasts for painting or design, structures the colors in the picture and subordinates the shades of color to the logic that corresponds to the laws of human color perception (the way a person sees and perceives colors and shades). Of course, this is a whole science that cannot be contained in several articles. Here I will show the simplest possibilities of the color wheel, in relation to painting, design and illustration. For a modern visual artist, they are critically important and necessary, because a competent and confident use of color makes paintings and projects not only professionally literate, but also in demand by buyers and customers. nine0101 Color circles are different, but they are all built according to the same principle: the colors of the spectrum are in a certain sequence and correspond to the exact position relative to each other. The difference is in the number of colors in the color wheel (there are 12-, 24-part and more), in the visualization of the number of shades that make up the color (for example, Itten's classic color wheel contains mechanically mixed colors, and Shugaev's color wheel contains proportional-quantitative colorings of mixed colors) and additions (separate primary and secondary colors, adding lightness scales of color shades - color change not only by mixing with pure, spectral, but also with black and white = brightening and darkening). It is most convenient to start with Itten's 12-part color wheel. With him, we will begin our analysis. nine0003

All colors of the spectrum are pure, chromatic.
That is, these are colors obtained by mixing primary (primary) colors with each other in different proportions. I already wrote about color properties in detail in the article - https://jotto8.ru/blog/osnovnye-harakteristiki-tsveta-shpargalka-po-zhivopisi . You can write only with them, without using or little using achromatic colors (black, gray and white). Such a painting will look bright, cheerful, decorative, but not entirely realistic. But this is not the most important thing for a creative idea. nine0101 Most often, artists use the harmony of primary colors for such painting - a combination of yellow, red and blue colors. Such color harmony is especially successfully used in the design of printing and ornamentation, as well as in the development of children's clothing and toys.
In the color wheel, these are the colors that form a regular triangle. By shifting such a triangle to the sides, you can get a beautiful harmony of different contrasting pure colors.

Detection of color saturation (cloudiness) and lightness (darkening and highlighting). nine0020

By adding black or white to any hue in the spectrum, as well as different shades of gray in a wide variety of variations and proportions, you can get many shades based on one dominant color. For example, as in Falk's "Red Furniture" - shades of red, cloudy and darkened / brightened https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/mio_89/44862551/6811/6811_900.jpg . Small inclusions of neighboring colors of the color wheel in the main one are acceptable - this will give the picture some intricacy, whimsicality, and relieve excessive color rigor. But these shades should not be overly active. The monochromatic harmony of colors is especially loved in design. nine0101 https://i2.wp.com/dizaynlab.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/5/sochetanie-cvetov-v-interere-kuhni-na-chto-vlijaet_44.jpg
You can determine the quality of the color batch , by applying a coloring of a complex color to the closest pure color of the spectrum. This technique is used when copying paintings.

Complementary colors or harmony of contrasting colors.
Contrasting colors lying opposite each other form pairs of complementary colors. Based on them, a harmony of contrasting color shades is created. In addition to straight lines - red / green, yellow / purple, blue / orange - you can choose exquisite combinations of purple and yellow-orange, blue and orange-red or purple and yellow-green. The more sectors in the color wheel and the further from the primary and secondary colors the selected pairs, the more complex and interesting color harmonies can be obtained. nine0101 https://kvartblog.ru/blog/uroki-dizayna-kak-podobrat-sochetanie-tsvetov-dlya-interiera/ .
Such harmony is also called polar. Its main condition is that a straight line connecting opposite colors must necessarily pass through the center of the color wheel.

Color harmonies based on the color wheel.
In addition to the above, other harmonies of 2, 3 and 4 colors can be obtained using the color wheel. To do this, connect the colors of the spectrum with each other using a chord, triangle or quadrilateral. Let's consider this in more detail. Here it is more convenient to use the Shugaev color wheel (by the way, it differs from the traditional color wheel also in the arrangement of colors - blue is opposite yellow here, not purple) in order to understand exactly how much color to mix in percentage to get a shade. nine0003

Option 1. Related color harmony.
For her, choose 2 colors in Shugaev's circle, lying through one: for example, 11 and 13, 3 and 5, 19 and 21. For richer shades, add several achromatic colors (I took white, black and 2 gray). It is more convenient to mix colors in separate jars so that there is enough paint for a full-fledged painting: you dip the brush into a jar of color with one, the other and add the desired shades on the palette. You can also use laconic 2 colors without admixtures, for graphic and decorative works it is possible. nine0003

Option 2. Related-contrasting harmony.

We choose two colors in Shugaev's color wheel, located 5 color tones from each other. For example, 22 and 4, 6 and 12, 15 and 21, etc. Note that in each of the examples we compare only the color tones of the shades, and in turn, change them at will according to lightness and saturation.
In this harmony, the colors are united by one common shade, in my case, yellow and differ by an admixture of green and red, respectively. For such color harmony, you should not choose pure, primary colors: yellow (1), red (7), blue (13) and secondary green, which is presented here as one of the primary colors (19). Such color combinations are overly categorical, predictable and simple.

Option 3. Harmony of colors in a right triangle.
In Shugaev's circle, we take 2 colors through five, connect them with a chord. From one of the ends of the chord we build a segment perpendicular to the chord. He will point to the third color of harmony. Thus, for a given color harmony, colors will be chosen: 22, 4, 16 or 16, 4, 10 and others.
Also, try to choose secondary and tertiary colors of the spectrum for more sophisticated and interesting color combinations. nine0003

Also, you can calculate the harmony of colors from the color square. We talk about this and other schemes in detail in the new drawing course “COLORISTICS. How to competently solve creative problems with the help of color. Of course, all theory is supported by practical exercises.

This is not all the possibilities of using the color wheel and only a small part of obtaining harmonic color combinations. In a separate article on this topic, I will continue to talk about the theory of color harmonization - this topic is very extensive and multifaceted. I hope that now you will happily get yourself a working color wheel, or even more than one, and will use it effectively. I have such tips in every work area. nine0101 Of course, you can buy a ready-made color wheel for artists and designers or download it from the Internet and print it, but it is better and more efficient to make it yourself. Firstly, you will have truly accurate and correct color shades (printing defects and printing quality vary), and secondly, you will manually train to mix the desired colors and shades and evenly apply them to the paper surface. This is a very important, interesting and useful exercise for the beginning painter and practicing illustrator. And it doesn't matter if you work in digital or in real material.

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