[Nfb-krafters-korner] Explaining Colors

[Lisamaria Martinez]

Hello again,

I'm going to attempt to describe the color wheel using a clockface.
I've attached 2 versions of the color wheel too for anyone who wants
them. I chose the wheel that starts with red at the 12 o'clock
position and goes in a counterclockwise manner. My brain just works
that way.

Color Wheel description

There are 12 colors on the basic color wheel and I'm going to assign
numbers to each color and then use those numbers to explain how to
match colors. Some of this might be made clear to you now if you read
my early post and Cathy F's earlier post. Or, you might be more
confused after this email.

12: Red
1:   Red-orange
2:   Orange
3:   Yellow-orange
4.   Yellow
5:   Yellow-green
6:   Green
7:   Blue-green
8:   Blue
9:   Blue-purple
10: Purple
11: Red-purple

Some Important Definitions and Basic Concepts

Primary Colors: These colors are the three colors that can not be
created by mixing other colors. The colors are red, blue and yellow.
Primary colors can be combined to make secondary colors.

Secondary colors: These colors consist of two primary colors mixed
together. The three colors secondary colors are purple (also known as
violet), green and orange.

• red + blue = purple
• red + yellow = orange
• yellow + blue = green

Tertiary Colors: These colors are made by mixing a primary color with
an adjacent secondary color. When naming tertiary colors the primary
and secondary color names are joined by a dash with the primary always
being the first color.

• red + orange = red-orange or vermilion
• yellow + orange = yellow-orange or amber
• yellow + green = yellow-green or chartreuse
• blue + green = blue-green or teal
• blue + purple = blue-purple or violet
• red + purple = red-purple or magenta

Getting A Little More Complicated

Another group of tertiary colors can be created by mixing secondary
colors. These are referred to as the quaternary colors. The names for
the twelve quaternary colors are more variable, if they exist at all,
though indigo and scarlet are standard for blue–violet and
red–vermilion.

I think this means that indigo is a mix of blue plus blue-purple
(technically blue plus violet) and that scarlet is a mix of red plus
red-orange (technically red plus vermilion).

>From the mix of the previous colors we get quinary colors, which are,
roughly, varying shades of gray. There are no specific names beyond
the tertiary colors. The more you mix the colors the harder it is for
the human eye to detect those differences.

Back to Basic Vocabulary

Warm colors: These colors are vibrant and liven up a space. They are
numbers 12 through 5 or red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow
and yellow-green.

Cool colors: These colors tend to give a feeling of calm and they are
numbers 6 through 11 or green, blue-green, blue, blue-purple, purple
and red-purple.

Neutral colors: White, black and gray are considered to be neutral colors.

Tint: Adding white to a color makes it lighter. This is known as a
tint. As Cathy F mentioned in an earlier post, tints can be referred
to as pastels. You can take all 12 basic colors on the color wheel and
make tints from them creating 12 new colors. These colors are usually
associated with advertising geared toward women and babies.

Shade: Adding black, darkens a color and this is known as a shade. You
can take all 12 basic colors on the color wheel and make shades from
them creating 12 new colors. These colors are associated with
advertising geared toward men.

Tone: Adding gray to a color changes the tone. A Tone is created by
adding both White and Black which is grey. Any color that is "greyed
down" is considered a Tone. Tones are somehow more pleasing to the
eye. They are more complex, subtle and sophisticated. You can make 12
new colors by adding gray to the basic color wheel.

The words tint, shade and tone are often used incorrectly. And, a hue
is a color and the words may be used interchangeably.

How to Match Colors

Now for some basic techniques to combine colors. This is where it can
get complicated. However, if you simply remember that the points of a
straight line, square, a rectangle, an equilateral triangle or an
isosceles triangle placed on the color wheel will touch matching
colors, then you will be fine.

Complementary: This simply means that opposite colors match. for
instance red (12) and green (6) match or orange (2) and blue (8)
match.

Analogous: this matching is pretty simple. Take 3 colors in a row on
the color wheel and they match. So, red-purple (11), red (12), and
red-orange (1) all match.

Triadic: Take an equilateral triangle and plop it down on a color
wheel or take 3 points that are all equally the same distance from
each other. These 3 colors match. example: red (12), yellow (4) and
blue (8) all match. Note that these happen to be primary colors.

Split-Complementary: This is where your geometry kicks in. Remember
what an isosceles triangle is? It is a triangle with 2 sides the same
length. an easier way to remember this as it pertains to the color
wheel is that you take a color like green (6), find its complimentary
color, red (12), and then pick the colors on either side of that
complimentary color. In this case, red-purple (11) and red-orange (1).
All of these colors, or any combo of these color will match.

Rectangle (tetradic): This color combination uses four colors arranged
into two complementary pairs that match. For example: red (12), orange
(2), green (6) and blue (8) all match. red and green are complimentary
of each other and orange and blue are complimentary of each other.

Tetradic color schemes works best if you let one color be dominant.
You should also pay attention to the balance between warm and cool
colors in your design.

I painted my son's bedroom blue, orange and green. blue and green are
cool colors, but orange is a compliment of blue and a warm color. It
makes for a very awesome contrast in my opinion. One might think that
orange is the dominant color here especially since it is on one of the
two longer walls. I chose blue as the dominant color because a lot of
Erik's bedding is differing hues? of blue and the bed is against the
blue wall.

Square: finally, the last basic theory for matching colors that you
ever wanted to know. The square color scheme is similar to the
rectangle, but with all four colors spaced evenly around the color
circle like the equilateral triangle or triadic theory of matching.
Square color schemes works best if you let one color be dominant. You
should also pay attention to the balance between warm and cool colors
in your design.

An example of four evenly spaced colors are 12, 3 6 and 9 or red,
yellow-orange, green and blue-purple.
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