What is Colour Theory?
Colour Theory is a system that unifies all the different colours in the colour spectrum that are visible to humans. By using this system we can find effective ways to use and combine colours to meet a certain purpose.
Ground Zero - The Colours
You will most likely have already encountered what I am going to show you at some point in your life but I am going to explain it anyway.
There are primary colours within the language of colour theory. These primary colours consist of blue, red and yellow. They are the starting point for any artist as they cannot be made by mixing any other colour and are needed to begin making all the other colours in the colour spectrum.
Below the primary colours are the secondary colours. These colours consist of green, orange and violet. The aforementioned secondary colours are made by mixing a combination of two different primary colours. Green is made from yellow and blue, orange is made from yellow and red and violet is made from blue and red.
The tertiary colours are made from different combinations of a single primary and a single secondary colour. There are six tertiary colours, and these are known by hyphenated names. These names follow as a combination of the names of the primary and secondary colour they are made from. For example the tertiary colour created as a result of mixing yellow and orange is called yellow-orange. Tertiary colours hyphenated names always begin with the primary colour and finish with the secondary colour name in logical fashion. Just to confirm the six different tertiary colours they consist of yellow-orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, and yellow-green.
Analogous Colours
The analogous colours consist of a any colours that lay next to one another on the colour wheel. An example of this could be blue-violet, blue and violet. A fourth colour of red-violet can be allowed to belong additionally in this analogous colour scheme. A fifth colour of blue-green can possibly be allowed to belong within the colour scheme. A colour such as orange or colours such as yellow-orange or red-orange cannot belong in this analogous scheme that I have described as orange is opposite blue on the colour wheel and the other two tertiary colours I mentioned contain orange which means they are also unsuitable for the example I have described. Analogous colour schemes can be seen quiet often in nature and when analogous colours are near each other in a composition it can appear quite pleasant to the eye.
Complementary Colours
Complementary colours are colours that oppose one another on the colour wheel. Complement which the term Complementary colours is derived from means "to complete". This ties into primary colours being needed to produce any other colour and any two complementary colour sets can be reversed and you will find the complete primary colour set. Also if you are to reverse engineer a colour that may seem millions of colours away from any of the primary colours you will find that it will likely contain the three primary colours. Using a complementary colour set you can bring the viewers attention to a particular element of an image. For example if you have dark blue walls and a light in between them if you were to make the colour of the light a dark orange colour then because it makes a complementary colour set it will stand out a lot.
Hue, Value and Intensity
Colours can be identified and recognised by seeing the three attributes of Hue, Value and Intensity within them. The reason for this is that the colours we see are almost never accurate to the colour pigments we believe them to be.
Hue: The Hue is the colour that is the source or origin of the colour you can see beneath it.
Value: The Value is the amount of light or dark you see to be evident within a colour. The Value can be changed by mixing white or black into the Hue. Below is a value scale.
Intensity: The Intensity (AKA Saturation) is the amount of brightness or dullness you see within a colour. The brighter the colour is the purer it is and the duller the colour the less amount of colour there is.
Warm, Cool and Monochromatic
To my understanding Yellow and Orange are always perceived as Warm colours. Blue and Violet are always perceived as Cool colours. Red and Green can be seen as both Warm and Cool colours. Warm colours can make objects appear closer and cool colours make objects appear further away into the distance. Below is an example of a blue monochromatic colour scheme.
Monochromatic colour schemes consist of a single hue and that hues variations of Value and Intensity of that colour. A monochromatic colour scheme can be created by taking a hue from the colour wheel and creating additional versions of it with a certain amount of black, white or grey (white and black) added to it. A piece of artwork that only has a monochromatic colour scheme within it is usually seen as boring as there are no other colours present to bring in additional feelings to the piece.
Thanks for reading and take care. I'll be adding a new entry on Silhouettes soon.
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