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One might think studying the color wheel is a waste of time. There are fundamentals in any type of industry one attempts. When you learned to drive a car you needed to learn the meaning of signs, Checking your rear view mirrors, etc. Learning to use E-mail or you cell phone there were buttons and way to access what you want. New Dishwasher read the directions.
There are 5 essentials of all Art and how one arranges these elements with: rhythm, harmony, balance, and design, determines the composition and completeness of a work of art.
1. Lines: can vary in thickness, directions, and angles
2. Shape: lines connected, so a space may be filled in circles, squares, rectangles, etc.
3. Value: Light to Darkness to create three dimensional illusion
4. Texture: The above elements creating the sensation of touch: bark, fur, rocks, etc
5. Color: Bring to life what our eyes see around us every day.
Beginning or even experience artist; trying to balance all the elements, can find themselves frustrated when they want to find the right colors. But if you have a good understanding of the basic color wheel you will always be able to mix the colors you desire.
Examples: Preventing a painting from being muddy and have color harmony
REDS If you wanted to mix a dark red in a flower how would you get the dark red color???
Most people would want to add Black or Brown to darken the color, but this would kill the brilliance of red and neutralizing it. There is only way to get a dark rich red-
Mix your Warm and Cool Reds together…Cadmium Red and Alizarin Crimson
Greens to mix Bright Green Mix Cerulean Blue and Lemon Yellow
Olive Green Mix Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Yellow
Using Cadmium Red with Cadmium Yellow you get a true
Mixing Cadmium Red and any Blue you will get a muddy color of Violet
Using Alizarin Crimson with Cerulean Blue you get a true Violet ( Red Violet to Blue Violet depending what percentage of each color you mix)
Mixing Alizarin Crimson and Yellow you will get a muddy
Grays and Shadows are used by mixing Complimentary Colors with white to achieve a warm gray to cool gray. By mixing black and white you have a cold dead gray color.
Complimentary Colors (Basic)
Reds and Greens
Blues and
Yellows and Violets
To get all the intermediate Values, our eyes can distinguish about 10 values
Light values – Tints add white in different percentages
Dark Values – Tones add Payne’s Gray (substitute for Black) or Dark Browns
(Black does not reflect light; no light is absorbed into black so it can make a painting very flat and dull. If you insist on using Black always add some blue or red so there is a depth to the black)
These are only a few hints that can be learned from a color wheel and keep your painting crisp, clear, and appeal to the eye of the viewer.
