Colours

COLOR THEORY

Color in Art

Color Terms 1

A knowledge of color terms helps us to appreciate the different ways that color may be used in art and design.

THE SPECTRUM

The spectrum is the colors of the rainbow arranged in their natural order: Red - Orange - Yellow - Green - Blue - Purple - Indigo.

HUES

The Color Wheel

Click here for an A4 outline of the colour wheel to print and colour.

A hue is one of the colors of the spectrum. Hues have a circular order as illustrated in the color wheel above. The color wheel is a useful device to help us explain the relationships between Primary, Secondary and Tertiary colors.

PRIMARY COLORS

Red, Yellow and Blue are the primary colors. These are the three basic colors that are used to mix all hues.

SECONDARY COLORS

Orange, Green and Purple are the secondary colors. They are achieved by mixing two primary colors together.

TERTIARY COLORS

Tertiary colors are more complex hues that are achieved by mixing primary and a secondary colors that are adjacent on the colour wheel.

OPPOSITE and COMPLEMENTARY COLORS

Opposite colors are diagonally opposite one another on the color wheel. You can work out the opposite color to any primary color by taking the other two primaries and mixing them together. The result will be its opposite or ‘complementary’ color.

ANALOGOUS COLORS

Analogous colors sit next to one another on the color wheel. These colors are in harmony with one another.

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