Basic Color Theory

In the visual arts, color theory is a body of practical guidance to color mixing and the visual
effects of a specific color combination. There are also definitions (or categories) of colors based on
the color wheel: primary color, secondary color and tertiary color. Although color theory principles
first appeared in the writings of Leone Battista Alberti and the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci , a
tradition of "color theory" began in the 18th century, initially within a partisan controversy
over Isaac Newton's theory of color and the nature of primary colors. From there it developed as
an independent artistic tradition with only superficial reference to colorimetry and vision science.
 Primary Colors

Color theory was originally formulated in terms of three "primary" or "primitive" colors that are red,
yellow and blue (RYB), because these colors were believed capable of forming all other colors. This
color mixing behavior had long been known to printers, dyers and painters, but these trades preferred
pure pigments to primary color mixtures, because the mixtures were too dull .

The RYB primary colors became the foundation of 18th century theories of color vision, as the
fundamental sensory qualities that are blended in the perception of all physical colors and equally in the
physical mixture of pigments or dyes.
 Secondary Colors

A secondary color is a color made by mixing two primary colors in a given color space.

For the human eye, the best primary colors of light are red, green, and blue. Combining the
wavelengths of light we see as these colors produces the greatest range of visible color. Mixing
these pigments in equal amounts produces orange, green, and purple
 Tertiary Colors

The tertiary colors complete the color wheel to 12 basic colors.

The 6 tertiary colors are formed by mixing one primary color with an
equal part of a secondary color.
 Warm vs Cool
Colors

The distinction between "warm" and "cool" colors seems related to the observed contrast in
landscape light, between the "warm" colors associated with daylight or sunset, and the "cool"
colors associated with a gray or overcast day. Warm colors are often said to be hues from red
through yellow, browns and tans included; cool colors are often said to be the hues from blue
green through blue violet, most grays included. There is historical disagreement about the colors
that anchor the polarity, but 19th-century sources put the peak contrast between red orange and
greenish blue.

Color theory has described perceptual and psychological effects to this contrast. Warm colors are
said to advance or appear more active in a painting, while cool colors tend to recede; used in
interior design or fashion, warm colors are said to arouse or stimulate the viewer, while cool colors
calm and relax. Most of these effects, to the extent they are real, can be attributed to the higher
saturation and lighter value of warm pigments in contrast to cool pigments. Thus, brown is a dark,
unsaturated warm color that few people think of as visually active or psychologically arousing.
 Achromatic Colors

Any color that lacks strong chromatic content is said to be unsaturated, achromatic, near neutral,
or neutral. Near neutrals include browns, tans, pastels and darker colors. Near neutrals can be of any
hue or lightness. Pure achromatic, or neutral colors include black, white and all grays.
Near neutrals are obtained by mixing pure colors with white, black or grey, or by mixing two
complementary colors. In color theory, neutral colors are easily modified by adjacent more saturated
colors and they appear to take on the hue complementary to the saturated color; e.g.: next to a bright
red couch, a gray wall will appear distinctly greenish.
Black and white have long been known to combine "well" with almost any other colors; black decreases
the apparent saturation or brightness of colors paired with it, and white shows off all hues to equal
effect
 Tints and Shades

When mixing colored light (additive color models), the achromatic mixture of spectrally balanced red,
green and blue (RGB) is always white, not gray or black. When we mix colorants, such as the pigments
in paint mixtures, a color is produced which is always darker and lower in chroma, or saturation, than
the parent colors. This moves the mixed color toward a neutral colora gray or near-black. Lights are
made brighter or dimmer by adjusting their brightness, or energy level; in painting, lightness is adjusted
through mixture with white, black or a color's complement.

It is common among some painters to darken a paint color by adding black paintproducing colors
called shadesor lighten a color by adding whiteproducing colors called tints. However it is not
always the best way for representational painting, as an unfortunate result is for colors to also shift in
hue. For instance, darkening a color by adding black can cause colors such as yellows, reds and
oranges, to shift toward the greenish or bluish part of the spectrum. Lightening a color by adding white
can cause a shift towards blue when mixed with reds and oranges. Another practice when darkening a
color is to use its opposite, or complementary, color (e.g. purplish-red added to yellowish-green) in
order to neutralize it without a shift in hue, and darken it if the additive color is darker than the parent
color. When lightening a color this hue shift can be corrected with the addition of a small amount of an
adjacent color to bring the hue of the mixture back in line with the parent color (e.g. adding a small
amount of orange to a mixture of red and white will correct the tendency of this mixture to shift slightly
towards the blue end of the spectrum).
 Color Harmony

It has been suggested that "Colors seen together to produce a pleasing affective response are said to
be in harmony". However, color harmony is a complex notion because human responses to color are
both affective and cognitive, involving emotional response and judgment. Hence, our responses to color
and the notion of color harmony is open to the influence of a range of different factors. These factors
include individual differences (such as age, gender, personal preference, affective state, etc.) as well as
cultural, sub-cultural and socially-based differences which gives rise to conditioning and learned
responses about color. In addition, context always has an influence on responses about color and the
notion of color harmony, and this concept is also influenced by temporal factors (such as changing
trends) and perceptual factors (such as simultaneous contrast) which may impinge on human response
to color..

Given that humans can perceive over 2.8 million different hues, it has been suggested that the number
of possible color combinations is virtually infinite thereby implying that predictive color harmony
formulae are fundamentally unsound. Despite this, many color theorists have devised formulae,
principles or guidelines for color combination with the aim being to predict or specify positive aesthetic
response or "color harmony".
Color wheel models have often been used as a basis for color combination principles or guidelines and
for defining relationships between colors. Some theorists and artists believe juxtapositions of
complementary color will produce strong contrast, a sense of visual tension as well as "color harmony";
while others believe juxtapositions of analogous colors will elicit positive aesthetic response. Color
combination guidelines (or formulas) suggest that colors next to each other on the color wheel model
(analogous colors) tend to produce a single-hued or monochromatic color experience and some
theorists also refer to these as "simple harmonies".

In addition, split complementary color schemes usually depict a modified complementary pair, with
instead of the "true" second color being chosen, a range of analogous hues around it are chosen, i.e.
the split complements of red are blue-green and yellow-green. A triadic color scheme adopts any three
colors approximately equidistant around a color wheel model. Feisner and Mahnke are among a
number of authors who provide color combination guidelines in greater detail.