color

Miriam Webster
a : a phenomenon of light (as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that
enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects
Types of color
Additive
● Combining light
● Primaries: Red, green, blue
● R+G= Y, R+B=Magenta, B+G=cyan
● All primaries make white
● Computer screens, digital imaging
software for websites, printing will look
different from screen, lights for theater
or concerts
Types of color
Subtractive

● Combining pigment
● Printer’s primaries: yellow, magenta, cyan
● traditional red, yellow, blue
● All make black
● Computer printers, paint
Must have light to see
color – You see color of an
object because the object
absorbs all the light rays of
other colors and reflects
back the color you see
 Colors can be transparent or opaque.

Transparent – being able to see

through; degree of transparency

Opaque – cannot see through

Color’s
appearance
is relative to
what it is by.
Afterimages
– The
appearance
of a color’s
complement
after staring
at a color for
a period of
time and
then looking
at a white
space
3 characteristics of color
● Hue – name of a color
● Intensity – quality of
brightness and purity
● Value – lightness or
darkness,

tints - add white

Tones - add grey
Shades - add black
Color wheel – map of color mixing
How to draw the color wheel:

1. Start with primary colors (spaced like a triangle) Y

YO YG

2. Add the colors that appear to be equal mixtures of the O G

primaries
RO BG
3. Fill in the tertiary colors
R B

RV BV
V
Primary colors – Red, yellow, blue
● These colors cannot be made from any other color on the color wheel.
● These colors can be combined to make the rest of the colors on the color wheel.

Secondary colors – Orange, green, violet

● Mixing two primary colors together mixes these colors.
● Red + yellow = orange

Tertiary colors – Red-violet, red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green,

blue-violet
● They are mixed from two primary colors but the resulting mixture looks more like
one of the primaries. It looks like an unequal mixture.
● Red + violet = red-violet, etc.
● The name is written primary-secondary