Jessica Crabtree

Sunny, lively, energetic, whimsical – what color comes to mind? Yellow, of course. It’s one of the three primary colors, and no other seems to match its effervescent vibrancy.

The oldest and most widespread use of yellow in art dates back many millennia to pigments derived from yellow ochre. More recently, many yellow pigments traditionally used by artists were made with highly toxic ingredients such as cadmium, arsenic, and antimony. In modern times yellow paints and chalks are still made from natural sources such as ochres, but with safer synthetic compounds replacing most of the heavy metals.

Yellow is a color with a demanding “type A” personality; while it’s never heavy, it is highly stimulating – so use it in moderation. On account of its vibrancy, it pairs best with colors having no chroma – that is, black or white. It is also complemented by violet, its opposite.

National Geographic Photo Gallery: Life in Color – YELLOW

This clever little Flash interactive profiles each of the colors of the spectrum and their functions in art and symbolism. Not much science, but features a fully-interactive color lab (see screenshot below). Very cute and enjoyable for young artists (or the young at heart). Also available in a Spanish version.

Color in Motion: Flash Presentation

(Click screenshots for larger view)

While this next-door neighbor to red in the color spectrum may not be as intense, perhaps no other color best conveys warmth. Orange tones blend the best of sunlight and shadow. They are a predominant feature in palettes of earth tones, and coordinate very well with adjacent brown colors, or with opposites such as turquoise or violet.

Orange chalks, paints, and clays are usually made from pigments containing ochres.

National Geographic Photo Gallery: Life in Color – ORANGE

Screenshot

This website is an amazing tool for developing color schemes using a color wheel and the basic patterns of color harmony. Select any dominant color and adjust its chroma, shade, etc. and it will create a perfectly-designed palette. It comes with presets for varying tonal levels and will even generate a sample web template as an illustration. I give it five stars!

Color Scheme Designer

Red is possibly the most important color in art, and our long history of attraction to it is very apparent. There’s evidence that we’ve been using it for decorative and ceremonial purposes for over 70,000 years. Archaeologists have uncovered caches of red ochre pigments at Paleolithic sites all over the world; the famous Ice Age cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira, for instance, feature this pigment predominantly. Recently scientists have found a Neanderthal site in Spain with remnants of what appears to be body paint made from red ochre. In many ways red is our signature color. It has always represented life (because it is the color of blood), vitality, and emotion.

In scientific terms, red lies at the far end of the light spectrum, and as reflected light it has the highest wavelength our eyes can detect. So in its fullest chromas it has a powerful sensory appeal – a real attention-getter. That’s why stop lights and warning signs are bright red, and not bright green, and by the same token it’s why red roses are considered romantic and traditional Chinese brides wear red wedding gowns. Red used in composition creates warmth and draws a viewer’s focus, and is most intense when contrasted against black.

The red pigments used in art derive mostly from clays containing iron-based compounds, such as red ochre. Other sources are metallic compounds, such as mercury and sulfur in cinnabar or vermilion; pigments extracted from insects (carmine); and plant dyes. In pastels, many of the finest and most colorfast reds are made in parts of the world where the clays are found to have a high degree of color intensity from the minerals they contain, and exceptional texture that makes the pastels highly blendable.

National Geographic Photo Gallery: Life in Color – RED

COLOR THEORY: A Brief Tutorial

This page has a very good rundown of the terms associated with the color wheel and the concept of color harmony. Very useful!

Color Harmony

Because of its wave properties, light shares some interesting features with sound. For instance, colors complement one another based on their wavelengths exactly the same way as musical notes harmonize based on their sound frequencies. These groups fall into several different categories:

Complementary - colors that lie opposite one another on the color wheel complement one another by contrast; e.g., a very warm red contrasted by a cool green (we all see this scheme in Christmas decorations).

Analogous - these are colors that lie next to one another; they blend well because the have much in common. Think of a color scheme that combines blues and greens – there is little contrast and the cool color range creates a pleasing and soothing effect.

Split complementary – this color scheme combines both complementary and adjacent color schemes. It forms a narrow triangle on the color wheel. By blending a main color with two adjacent colors from the opposite end, you can achieve color harmony with high visual interest.

Triad - a group of three colors that lie equally distanced from one another on the color wheel. Draw an imaginary triangle and pivot it around to see what color combinations this creates. None of these colors will belong to the same group – but the harmony lies in the fact that there is a pattern to the choice of colors. If they were completely random, the resulting visual chaos would not be pleasing to the eye.

Interestingly, these color patterns are best illustrated by examples in nature. Think of a beautiful Southwestern desert scene with a turquoise sky, golden sand, and reddish-brown rock formations. This is a classic split complementary scheme. For analogous harmony, picture a tranquil seascape painted in tones of blue and purple. Flowers often illustrate color harmony, such as the viola with contrasting yellow and violet, as do color patterns in the fur of many animals.

Compare the color schemes in the following photos:

Photo credits: Public domain

Read more about patterns of color harmony and the color wheel:

http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm#Color_Wheel

“Color My World”

Red, yellow, and blue are considered the primary colors. They are equally spaced from each other in the spectrum – and hence in the color wheel. They combine to form white light (which represents all colors). And they can blend together in various combinations to form every other possible hue. The first three levels of color combinations fall into the following groups:

Primary Colors – Red, Yellow, Blue, that combine to form all the other colors
Secondary Colors – Orange (Red + Yellow), Green (Yellow + Blue), Violet (Blue + Red)
Tertiary Colors – Combinations of secondary colors – such as blue-green or red-orange

An example of how primary colors combine to form white light

If an artist was restricted to using only hues, however, his paintings would probably look more like something done with a first-grader’s crayon set. This is because the colors or light signatures in the spectrum can’t represent realism without the variation of light. Remember, artists don’t paint so much with color as they do with light – because the appearance of the things they portray with pigments is based entirely on the interaction of light with a given surface. This is why we have shades, tones, and tints (see my last post about Birren’s triangle).

Color wheel showing primary and secondary colors