The Color Wheel and Color
schemes
Additive color
Subtractive colors
Hue: Color
The words hue and color can be
used interchangeably as the
name for a given color.
Red is a hue, Red-Orange is a
hue.
Light green is not a hue.
Brownish-pink is not a hue.
Primary And Secondary Colors
•RED/
BLUE/
Yellow/
Green
Orange
Violet
• Yellow-Green
Tertiary
• Yellow-Orange
colors:
• Red-Orange
Primary+sec
ondary
• Red-Violet
colors
• Blue-Violet
• Blue-Green
Pierre Bonnard: Tertiary colors: yellow orange, blue violet,
Monochromatic color scheme
Uses only one color and a variety of tints (white added) and shades (black or grey
added) of that color
Analogous color schemes
Uses colors that are next to each other
on the color wheel. This creates a very
unified design, but with more visual
interest than in a monochromatic
scheme.
Red-orange, Orange, Yellow-orange
Wolf Kahn: yellow orange, yellow, Red-orange (blue accents)
Blue violet, violet, blue
Yellow-orange, orange,
red orange, red
Complementary color scheme
Colors that are opposite one another on
the color wheel are complements.
Complementary Color schemes utilize one
complementary dyad (pair).
Red-----Green
Blue-----orange
Yellow----purple
These are very eye-catching designs,
but have the potential to be very
jarring. Your choice of saturation will be
very important.
Andy Warhol
Split-complementary color scheme
A color combined with the two colors
surrounding it’s complement. slightly
more sophisticated and less aggressive
than a complementary scheme.
Purple—Yellow-orange—Yellow-green
Blue, red-orange, and
yellow-orange
Green, red-violet, red-orange
Kehinde Wiley
Red-Orange; Blue; Green
Red, Blue-green, Yellow-green
Quadratic
• Four colors, equally spaced in the color-wheel
Willem DeKooning
Blue-violet---Yellow-Orange
Green---Red
Triadic Color Scheme
• 3 equally spaced colors
Triadic Color Scheme: Red-Yellow-Blue
Fake Mondrian: Red, Yellow, Blue
Bridget Riley
Blue-green, Blue-Violet, Yellow-Orange
Purple, Orange, Green
Name this scheme!!
Name this color scheme!!!
Color Evocations
Color in composition
Malevich,
Suprematist
Painting
Matisse, Icarus
Vernon Fisher,
Observations Observed
Bacon, Crucifixion
Emil Nolde, Crucifixion
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Warm colors: Reds,
oranges, yellows, Some
violets
Matisse
Warm Colors: what effect do warm
colors have on a composition?
Egon Schiele,
Portrait of Paris von Gutersloh
Cool
Cool
colors:
Blues, greens,
some violets
Helen Frankenthaler
•TINTS: Color + White
•Shades: Color + Black
Mary Cassatt, A kiss for baby Anne, ---How does the use of tints relate to the content of the
piece?
Mark Rothko
How does the use of
SHADES affect our read of
this piece? What is the
emotional content?
Ryan McGinness
Full Saturation, aka, HIGH KEY colors
Gauguin, Nightmare
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas
Sandy Skoglund, Radioactive Cats
Diebenkorn, Interior with View of Sea
Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World
Andrew Wyeth, Teel’s Island
Van Gogh, Night Cafe
What do these colors suggest?
What do these colors evoke?
Candy Colored
Evocations?
Chaz Maviyane-Davis
Chaz Maviyane-Davis
Chaz
The Guerilla Girls
Edward Munch, The Scream
Picasso, the Old Guitarist