Elements of Art - Color

Color

Color is light reflected off of objects. Color has three main characteristics: hue (the name of the color, such as red, green, blue, etc.), value (how light or dark it is), and intensity (how bright or dull it is). 

• White is pure light; black is the absence of light. 

• Primary colors are the only true colors (red, blue, and yellow). All other colors are mixes of primary colors. 

• Secondary colors are two primary colors mixed together (green, orange, violet). 

• Intermediate colors, sometimes called tertiary colors, are made by mixing a primary and secondary color together. Some examples of intermediate colors are yellow green, blue green, and blue violet. 

• Complementary colors are located directly across from each other on the color wheel (an arrangement of colors along a circular diagram to show how they are related to one another). Complementary pairs contrast because they share no common colors. For example, red and green are complements, because green is made of blue and yellow. When complementary colors are mixed together, they neutralize each other to make brown.