1. Color Theory

2. Color Theory
Color theory will help you understand the relationship between colors and how we perceive them.
Aristotle ( BC) Ancient Greece, developed the first known theory of color. He theorized that God sent down color from the heavens as celestial rays. He identified four colors corresponding to the four elements: earth, fire, wind, and water.
General principals of color theory were evident in writings of Leone Battista Alberti (c.1435) and the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (c.1490). Renaissance Era

3. Who invented the color wheel?
Colors wheels are used by artists and scientists. In fact, the first color wheel was invented by a scientist. Isaac Newton (1666) is credited with the invention of the first color circle, the forerunner of the color wheels used today.
Prism
Spectrum
Refracted (bent)
Frequency/wavelengths
The detailed understanding of the science of color began in 1666, when Isaac Newton, using two prisms, observed that white light was composed of all the colors of the rainbow, and could be identified and ordered. Newton first used the word "spectrum" for the array of colors produced by a glass prism. He recognized that the colors comprising white light are "refracted" (bent) by different amounts and he also understood that there is no "colored" light, the color being in the eye of the beholder. Instead, there is merely a range of energies - or the proportional frequencies and the inverse wavelengths. Newton assigned seven colors to the spectrum in an analogy to the musical scale.

4. Color Wheel
Color wheel – an organization of colors around a circle that shows important relationships between those colors
Hue – another word for color, but mainly the dominant wavelength of a color

5. Primary Colors
Make all other colors
Form a Triad

6. Secondary Colors
Made by mixing two primary
Form a Triad

7. Intermediate or Tertiary
Made by mixing a primary and a secondary color that are next to each other
There are 6 of them:
Yellow-orange Red-orange yellow-green blue-green blue-violet red-violet

9. Color Schemes Triad Complementary Split-complementary Warm colors
Cool colors
Analogous
Monochromatic

10. Triad = 3 colors spaced evenly

12. Complementary= opposite each other

14. Split-complementary

16. Analogous = 3 side by side

18. Cool or Warm

20. “All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.” Marc Chagall

21. Monochromatic

22. Saturation
Saturation is a measure of how pure a color is. You can reduce the saturation of a color by adding gray or a color on the opposite side of the color wheel (which essentially kills the color): 
If you completely de-saturate the color wheel, you are left with the following:

23. Value Lightness or darkness of a color Tint – adding white to a color
Shade – adding black to a color
Tone – adding gray (both black and white) to a color
Value is widely considered to be one of the most important variables to the success of a painting or drawing.

24. High Key vs. Low Key Refers to the OVERALL value scale used in the painting
Overall lighter values
Overall darker values

25. The Psychology of Color
Color has a powerful influence over human behavior, to the extent it can manipulate your perception of what is actually there.

26. Here are some colors and their emotional influences:
Red: Passion, love, anger and danger
Orange: Vitality, creativity and activity
Yellow: Energy, light and hope
Green: Health, nature and wealth
Blue: Trust, security and spirituality
Purple: Creativity, royalty and wealth

27. We can use these psychological triggers to influence how we want the viewer to perceive the painting. If you want the viewer to have a passionate and aggressive response, then you should be utilizing reds and other warm colors. If you want a calming scene, then greens and blues should be utilized.
“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.” Pablo Picasso
“If you see a tree as blue, then make it blue.” Paul Gauguin