Unit 3: Color Theory Color plays a big role in art from creating certain moods and feelings to developing more interesting compositions. Understanding color helps in a variety of fields such as interior design, fashion design, artists, and many others.

Objectives You will learn about the color wheel and its uses. You will be introduced to basic color theory. You will learn about the primary, secondary and intermediate colors. You will learn about complementary, warm, cool, and monochromatic colors. You will demonstrate your understanding of these colors and their placement on the color wheel by completing a self-practice exercise.

The Color Wheel Sir Isaac Newton developed one of the first circular color charts in the mid 1600s. Since then scientists and artists have developed numerous forms of the color wheel or color charts. Color wheels are broken into sectors to show the relationships between colors. Color wheels are tools that artists use to relate colors and to make color schemes.

Color: the element of art that refers to reflected light Hue: Is another name for COLOR. For example, red is a hue. What is a pure color? Pure color is any color that is true to it’s original hue. This means it has not had any other color added to change it. How does the human eye see color? Different wavelengths of light appear to our eyes as different colors. Objects absorb different light rays and reflect others. Our eyes see those reflected light rays. White in art White in art is considered the absence of color-this is in relation to pigments. This is opposite from the scientific idea of visible light rays- in which white encompasses all the light rays. Black in art or pigment form is all the colors mixed together, where as in the light spectrum, it is the absence of color.

The Science behind Color Light receptors within the eye transmit messages to the brain, which produces the familiar sensations of color. Newton observed that color is not inherent in objects. Rather, the surface of an object reflects some colors and absorbs all the others. We perceive only the reflected colors.

Imagine a World without Color how-important-color how-important-color Watch this video…

Primary Colors The Color wheel starts off with Primary colors. Primary Colors cannot be made by mixing colors together. yellow From these three colors; red, yellow and blue make secondary and intermediate colors.

Secondary Colors There are three secondary colors green, orange and violet. Yellow Red + Yellow = Orange Yellow Yellow+ Blue= Green Blue + Red= Violet Fun Fact; Violet is actually the correct name for purple. The manufactures of Crayola actually came up with the name purple.

Primary +Primary = Secondary

Intermediate or Tertiary Colors are the colors made by mixing the primary and secondary colors.

Complementary colors are colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, red and green, violet and yellow

There are two color spectrums on the color wheel. Cool Colors are darker or dull colors that can create feelings of calmness, coolness, and sadness. Warm Colors are brighter colors that can create feelings of warmth, heat, anger, passion, and love.

Monochromatic means “one color” Monochromatic uses only the tints, tones, and shades of 1 color. An example could be Navy blue, blue, and baby blue. To make a tint you add WHITE to a pure color. To make a tone you add GRAY to a color. To make a shade you add BLACK to a pure color.

Use the information you just learned to help you complete the worksheet provided. If you have your own colored pencils please get them out. In the Warm& Cool color sections, divide the boxes so you have 6 spaces instead of 3. You also need to add a column to the right of the cool colors. Label it Intermediate colors. It should have 6 sections. Use color pencils to complete the worksheet.