How To Understand A Color Wheel

The world is full of colors! Right from the food that we eat to the clothes that we wear, we find colors around us almost always. Each and every person in this world makes use of an understanding of colors. For instance, while decorating your house, you choose the color of the furniture and draperies in a way that it works in harmony with that of the walls. Similarly, while taking out a set of clothes, you make sure that the color of your shirt complements that of your trousers well. Then, there are people like photographers and painters, for whom the understanding of colors is of prime importance, to bring out the aesthetic beauty of their work. In each of these cases, the knowledge of a color wheel proves to be extremely useful. Keeping this in mind, we have listed some tips on how to understand a color wheel. Go through them and increase your familiarity with colors, complimentary as well as harmonious.

 

 

In order to understand a color wheel, you will first need to be aware of the concept of primary colors. The base of a color wheel is formed by the primary colors, which comprise of blue, red, and yellow. The main characteristic of a primary color is that it is original in nature i.e. it cannot be produced by mixing some other colors. Rather, majority of the other colors emerge from mixing and re-mixing of the primary colors.

 

After primary colors, it is the secondary colors that you need to emphasize on. They include all those colors that can be made by mixing together any two primary colors. The main secondary colors are green, orange and purple. You can make green by mixing equal parts of blue and yellow, while for orange, you will need equal parts of red and yellow. When red and blue are combined together, they form purple color.

 

After secondary colors, it is now the turn of tertiary colors. They comprise of all those shades that can be made by adding a secondary color, to a primary color. In other words, a tertiary color comprises of three primary colors, the two that formed that secondary color and another primary color. For instance, you can get an aqua color by mixing blue and green (which in itself is made by mixing blue and yellow). Then, there is red-orange, yellow-orange, lime-green & blue-violet.

 

By this time, you are aware of the three types of colors - primary, secondary and tertiary. Now, you need to understand how these colors work through a color wheel. The colors that are opposite to each other are complimentary colors, which balance each other out and create the perfect contrast. On the other hand, the colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel represent an analogous scheme and form a harmonic color combination.