Drawing Tips & Tutorials

LESSON 2 : Color Theory

Color wheel:

      Most people recognize the color wheel, but in case you don't know what the specific placement of each color means, we'll go over it...

Circles are Primary Colors, meaning they can not be created through blending other colors. The three primary colors are blue (the coolest), yellow (the warmest), and red (the medium temperature). When it comes to an art piece with color, warm colors comes forward while cool colors recede. You can use this to your advantage when creating depth in a piece.

Squares are Secondary Colors, which are two primary colors blended together equally. If you mix a secondary color, such as green, with it's opposite on the other side of the wheel, red, you get the a neutral color: grey. If you mix any color with it's compliment (the color on the opposite side of the wheel), you will always get grey if you mix them in equal portions.

Outside Colors are Tertiary Colors, or the Secondary Colors if you add more Primary Color in the mix, tinting it between the two. An outside color's compliment is always another outside color.

     Of course, when dealing with the color wheel, there are infinite more shades and tints between the primary colors. The only two colors that do not appear on the wheel are white and black. That is because black is the absence of color, while white is all colors.

     Wait, did I get that mixed up? Actually, no! White is the combination of every single color. Have you ever seen these?

This is known as Refraction, and it basically means the light gets split into the individual light waves when passing through a special class pyramid prism. Black is the exact opposite of that, it is what's left when color (and light) is absent.

So that concludes this lesson! Any questions?