Color 101

Ah...the joy of color!

The Color wheel

The Primary Colors:

a set of colors from which other colors are made

The Secondary Colors: 

a set of colors made from primary colors

The Tertiary Colors:

a set of colors made from the combination of one pirmary and one secondary color

i.e. blue-green, red-orange, blue-violet etc.

Colors are either warm or cool:

Warm colors tend to move forward in space, while cool colors receede.  

Hue is the name of a color:

"Cadmium Red Medium"

Straight "from the tube" colors are at thier highest Saturation.  

Colors are manipulated in a varitey of ways to take the level of saturation down. 

Tints, Tones, Shades

Tints are any color plus white:

Shades are any color plus black:

(Tones are any color plus grey)

Color Relationships

Complimentary Colors are colors opposite one another on the color wheel.  The three main pairs of compliments are:

When placed together, they produce an intense relationship.

Analogous colors are any 3 colors next to one another on the color wheel:

This produces a very harmonious relationship.

Monochromatic is any color plus its variations produced using black,white, and/or grey

Color Context:

Colors can appear to look differently depending on their context.