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Elements of Art - Color
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COLOR
ELEMENTS OF ART
The Source of Color
Color comes from light, either natural or artificial. Where there is little or no light, there is little or no color. With bright light, colors are more intense.
SOURCE OF
COLOR
Color Spectrum
Color Spectrum
Color is produced by the way our vision responds to different wavelengths of light. When a ray of white light, such as sunlight, passes through a glass prism, the ray is bent or refracted. This ray of light separates into individual bands of color, called the color spectrum. This spectrum includes, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
You can see this same grouping of colors in a rainbow, in which raindrops act as the prisms.
Color Pigments
Pigments
The color spectrum represents the brightest colors possible. Colors used in class may not be as bright or as pure as these, as light creates these.
The colors used in your art class come from powdered substances called pigments. These natural or chemical materials are combined with other substances to make the various paints, crayons, inks, and pencils commonly used by artists.
Neutrals
NEUTRALS
White, gray, and black are called neutrals. These three neutrals are created by different amounts of reflected light.
White
White
White is the sum of all colors. A white object reflects to our eyes all the wavelengths shining on it, absorbing none of them. What we see is the original source of light.
Gray
Gray
Gray is created by a partial reflection. A gray object reflects part of all the wavelengths shining on it. It also absorbs part of all wavelengths. The more light that is reflected, the lighter the gray; the more that is absorbed, the darker the gray.
Black
Black
Black is the total absence of reflected light. It results when an object absorbs all the wavelengths shining on it, reflecting none of them.
Properties of Color
When artists talk about color, they talk about three properties that can be defined and measured: hue, value, and intensity.
These properties are sometimes called qualities or characteristics of color.
PROPERTIES OF COLOR
Hue
Hue
Hue is the name of the color itself, such as "blue" or "red" and it refers to the color's position on the spectrum.
For easy study, the colors of the spectrum are usually arranged in a circle called a color wheel.
Primary Colors
Primary Colors
Red, yellow, and blue are the three primary colors or hues. All other pigment hues are made by mixing different amounts of these three colors.
Secondary Colors
Secondary Colors
If you mix the pigments of any two primary colors, you will produce one of the three secondary colors or hues. From experience, you probably know that red and blue make violet, red and yellow make orange, and blue and yellow make green. These are the three secondary colors, violet, orange, and green.
Intermediate Colors
Intermediate Colors
The color wheel also shows six intermediate colors or hues. You can create these by mixing a primary color with a neighboring secondary color. For example, yellow ( a primary color) mixed with orange (a secondary color) creates yellow-orange (an intermediate color). Mixing the primary and secondary colors creates the six intermediate colors shown.
Value
Value
Range from white to black or from light to dark. When discussing colors, value refers to the lightness and darkness of colors, or the quantity of light that a color reflects.
Tint
Tint
Adding white to a hue produces a tint, which is a lighter version of the color. Pink, for example is a tint of red. Each tint depends on the amount of white added.
Shade
Shade
Adding black (or darker complementary color) to a hue produces a shade, which is a darker version of the color. Each shade depends on the amount of black added.
Intensity
Intensity
The third property of color is intensity. Intensity refers to the quality of light in a color. Intensity is different from value. Intensity refers to the brighter and duller colors of the same hue.
Tone
Tone
Adding black and white change a color's intensity. A third way to change intensity is to mix any shade of gray with the hue. This is called a tone.
Color Harmonies
When designers and artists use combinations of colors to get certain results, they are using color harmonies.
COLOR HARMONIES
Complementary Colors
Complementary Colors
A color wheel also illustrates other relationships among colors, one of the most important is the pairing of complementary colors. Complementary colors - such as blue and orange or yellow-green and red-violet - appear opposite each other on a color wheel. These pairings show the maximum visual contrast between colors.
Split
Complementary Colors
Split Complementary Colors
Another color harmony is split complementary. This is made up of a color plus the two hues on either side of that color's complement.
Triadic
Colors
Triadic Colors
Triadic harmony involves three equally spaced hues on the color wheel. The group of blue-green, red-violet, and yellow-orange is one example of a triadic harmony. Red, yellow, and blue is another.
Monochromatic
Colors
Monochromatic
An artist may sometimes use only one color or hue within a design. If a design is made only using only one hue, plus black and white, it is called monochromatic. In a monochromatic work, contrast is created by the use of lights and darks.
Analogous
Colors
Analogous Colors
Analogous colors are next to each other on the color wheel. They have a single in common. Because of this common color, the naturally relate well to each other.
Warm and Cool Colors
The color wheel can be split into two parts, separated by what can be visually observed as warm colors and cool colors.
WARM & COOL COLORS
Warm Colors
Warm Colors
Warm colors are the hues that range from yellow to red-violet. These colors are associated with warm objects or circumstances. The colors of fire, the sun, and desert sand, for example, are in the warm-color range.
Cool Colors
Cool Colors
Cool colors are the hues that range from yellow-green to violet. We sense that cool colors, especially green and blues, seem to recede, or move backward, in a design. These colors make shapes and forms appear smaller. A painter's use of cool colors might emphasize the icy feeling of a wintery seascape.
Digital Color Modes
DIGITAL COLOR MODES
There are more than one set of primary colors. The primaries covered to this point are important to understand the harmonies, and the warm and cool colors. However, these primaries are used in traditional art making.
When we create art digitally, there are two more color primaries. CMYK, are the primary colors used in printing and RGB are the primary colors used in design for screens, such as web design and application development.
CMYK
CMYK
CMYK, or cyan, magenta, yellow and Key (black) are subtractive colors. With the CMYK color mode, all of the colors are subtractive and therefore, the more colors you add together, the darker the colors are going to be.
For example, if you add magenta and yellow together (or more precisely subtract yellow from magenta), you end up with a bright red color. If you were to subtract yellow and cyan, you would end up with the color green.*
*https://www.fastprint.co.uk/blog/cmyk-vs-rgb-printing-what-is-the-difference-when-designing.html
RGB
RGB
RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. The RGB color mode uses these base colors to form just about every other color you can imagine as red, green and blue are additive colors. Essentially, this means that the RGB color mode creates other colors by combining (or 'adding') different quantities of red, green and blue.
This is the color mode of screens for computers, tv's, phones, and other displays.*
*https://www.fastprint.co.uk/blog/cmyk-vs-rgb-printing-what-is-the-difference-when-designing.html