Patti Mollica - Special Subjects: Basic Color Theory: An Introduction to Color for Beginning Artists

Color is a universal gift of beauty. Because it requires no effort to perceive and enjoy it, we often take it for granted. However, its absence in our lives is unthinkable. Consider a world wherein brilliant sunsets, vivid flower gardens, shimmering butterflies, and tropical fish shed their multicolored hues and morphed into monochromatic shades of gray. The experiences that we love and live for would change drastically! Would we still plant flower beds? Bird-watch? Sightsee? The implications are immense; such is our love affair with color.

Patti Mollica

Artists must understand color to know how to use it properly. Although there will always be some personal influence in the way we interpret and display it, we must understand color relationships before we can organize it in our paintings.

In the late 1600s, Sir Isaac Newton (16421727) conducted and published a series of experiments involving prisms, light, and color, which form the basis of our current understanding of color. These experiments involved refracting white light through a prisma simple triangular glass object that separates light waves into individual colors. The results revealed that light could actually be broken down into seven individual colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Until this discovery, it was assumed that a prism somehow colored the light passing through it. To prove this wrong, Newton reversed the process: He projected the colors back into the prism, which resulted in pure white light. Artists and scientists alike were amazed by this breakthrough discovery that light is the source of all color.

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As white light hits a prism, the light refracts and separates into the colors of the rainbow.

Scientist Sir Isaac Newton provided the foundation for color theory as we understand it today.

UNDERSTANDING LIGHT

The colors that we see when light strikes an object are the result of certain wavelengths (individual colors) being absorbed by the object while other wavelengths are being reflected back to us. Those reflected back to us are the colors that we see.

LIGHT & REFLECTED COLOR

As light hits a yellow object, yellow is reflected; all other colors are absorbed.

As light hits an orange object, yellow, orange, and red are reflected; all other colors are absorbed.

As light hits a purple object, red, blue, and violet are reflected; all other colors are absorbed.

THE COLOR WHEEL

A color wheel is a visual representation of colors arranged according to their chromatic relationship. The basic color wheel consists of 12 colors that can be broken down into three different groups: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

One of the easiest things to create is a 12-color color wheel with just the three primaries: red, yellow, and blue. All colors are derived from these three. Beginners should mix a color wheel with both the primaries and secondaries. This can help you understand how to create additional colors, see how colors interact, and see your palette of colors in spectrum order.

Color wheel made with three primaries

Color wheel made with primaries and secondaries

THE BASICS OF COLOR

Primary Colors

The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. These colors cannot be created by mixing any other colors, but in theory, all other colors can be mixed from them.

Secondary Colors

Secondary colors are created by mixing any two primary colors; they are found in between the primary colors on the color wheel. Orange, green, and purple are secondary colors.

Tertiary Colors

If you mix a primary color with its adjacent secondary color, you get a tertiary color. These colors fill in the gaps and finish the color wheel. Tertiary colors are red-orange, red-violet, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, and blue-violet.

COLOR SCHEMES

Choosing and applying a color scheme (or a selection of related colors) in your painting can help you achieve unity, harmony, or dynamic contrasts. This page showcases a variety of common color combinations. Explore these different schemes to familiarize yourself with the nature of color relationships and to practice mixing colors.

Complementary Color Schemes Complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel. Red and green (shown above), orange and blue, and yellow and purple are examples of complementary colors. When placed adjacent to each other in a painting, complements make each other appear brighter. When mixed, they have the opposite effect, neutralizing (or graying) each other.

Triadic Color Scheme This scheme consists of three colors that form an equilateral triangle on the color wheel. An example of this would be blue-violet, red-orange, and yellow-green (shown above).