A commonly reported concern among painters is all about choosing the right colors for a new painting. Though painting techniques create various effects that matter when you work on your project, they are not alone. These techniques can easily be overshadowed if you are to choose the wrong colors. You might even end up sending a completely different message by accident. There is a reason why happy paintings are so seldom created using only shades of gray. Color theory absolutely matters when it comes to yielding the results with your painting that you want.
This is in part why Pablo Picasso has an entire section of his career recognized for his color choice. In order to paint the beautiful images that you hold in your mind or see before you, you need to understand color. The best chance that you have when it comes to going about this is using the color wheel.
Color is something that any painter should have a solid grasp of if they hope to fully understand their craft. Using these fun and easy exercises, you can expand your knowledge of color wheel painting. You will even learn to make the colors that you want for your painting needs!
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Make Your Own Color Wheel
In order to fully grasp the theory behind the color wheel, you will want to begin by understanding it in its simplest form. You can certainly do a quick internet search and be presented with thousands of images of slightly different color wheels. However, the best way to learn about the magic of colors and color theory is to create your very own version.
Starting with the basics, you will want to focus on the primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. For traditional models, you will want to make your yellow the northernmost point on the color wheel. The red will fall towards the bottom right, and the blue will counter it on the bottom left side of your color wheel painting. These colors will act as your base for all future color creation.
Now, either using the mixed paints that you have or by purchasing a set of basic paints, begin to place your greens, oranges, and purples around the wheel. Do this until you have a complete circle that goes from yellow all the way around to green. This will demonstrate the differences between one color and the next. Now, you will have created your first color wheel for reference! The result should look something like this.
Create Your Own Colors
Now that you have your basic color wheel that you can refer back to, you can make your own complex version. It is time to create your very own color wheel using your paints and mixing abilities. Begin again with your primary painting colors. Start by mixing the paints two at a time. Mix your blue with yellow, your red with yellow, and your blue with your red. The results should be green, orange, and purple.
These results are called secondary colors, which is the result of mixing any two primary colors. From this point on, any two colors that you mix from your creations that are not the byproduct of mixing two primary colors will be what is considered a tertiary color. This is the direct result of mixing any color with a secondary or tertiary color to create a new one. You can do this for as long as you want to create a collection of colors.
Continue to mix your colors, then organize your creations to fill out a completely custom color wheel from them. You will notice that depending on what colors you mixed, the combination will determine where each new color is placed. Do not worry if it doesn’t come out perfectly the first time. It is all a part of the learning process.
Reinvent The (Color) Wheel
Since you have mixed all kinds of fun colors, it’s time to see how well you can color match them. For this painting exercise, you will want to print out a fairly complex color wheel of your choosing or simply pull one up on your trusty phone or tablet. Once you have found a color wheel with various tertiary colors, you can begin to practice color matching. You will want to look at the location where each color falls, and try to mix your own paint colors to create something of comparable appearance.
Given the differences in paints, it is important to recognize that you might not be able to get every single one to match perfectly. Try your best to see how well you can mix your own colors to create the general color that you are aiming for. This is a great way to practice mixing your own paints to get your preferred colors instead of relying on buying premixed ones. Premixed paints can be very expensive. They also do not give you the opportunity to test your artist’s eye in the same way that individually mixing your colors will.
The Complementary Color Experiment
Learning how to mix your colors is an important step towards understanding how to use them to yield the best results. Opposites on the color wheel will succeed in bringing out the most of the color that you are trying to highlight. This is the true art of contrast, and is how many artists succeed in creating stunning visual effects. It is also effective for creating shadows.
The opposite colors themselves are called complementary colors. Common complementary colors include red and green, orange and blue, or yellow and purple. In order to understand the power that complementary colors have over one another, you will begin by putting them together. This will help you understand how vivid their contrast truly is. You can achieve this either by placing them side by side in a striped pattern, taking care not to mix them. You can also use the darker option as a base then apply the brighter of the two on top in any shape to see how the color pops.
When you are done, recreate this with colors that are not considered complementary to see the true difference. You will notice that a yellow star on a purple background is much brighter than a yellow star on a red background. This is why the color wheel is so important when choosing how to color your paintings. It can completely change the overall effect.
Conclusion
If your primary goal is to become a better painter, then there is plenty of benefit to learning about the power of the color wheel. Understanding colors and the dynamic results that they can yield will help you to gain a more comprehensive understanding of painting as an art. It will also help you to relay more complex images to your audience through the utilization of color theory. Whether your goal is simply to make a beautiful painting or to create a complex piece of art that must be speculated about to fully understand, color theory is a great tool to build up your skills as an artist.
If you want more 4 more tips that will improve your paintings, read exercises to improve your paintings.
