Color is a subject many people feel intimidated about. I was no exception. I grew up with a mother who painted landscapes and other subjects, in oils and acrylics. You would think I would have absorbed color theory practically from birth, but it wasn't the case at all. My own love for color expressed itself in those little projects where you dab a bunch of different colors on a piece of paper, fold the paper in half, mush the colors around, and open it up to see a butterfly of color inside. My mother's idea of color was to try to make me do realistic pictures of things. The two of us never saw eye-to-eye, and the result was I entered the artistic world completely unprepared in color theory.

I think the single most important thing to know about color is that everyone's eyes see it differently, and everyone's emotions react differently to each color. A color which is uplifting to me may be depressing to you, and vice versa. There are some colors which make me feel physically ill to work with--one early commission I did had me believing I had the flu, when really it was just the colors in the project! There are other colors which make me feel joyful, or serene, or energetic. In other words, choose what you like best to work with. Don't let other people intimidate you into thinking your favorite color is 'wrong' for you. Explore, and develop your own color sense! You are the only expert when it comes to your color.

Basic Color Terminology

As in just about any field of endeavor, it helps to have a common language to describe things with. If I say 'dohickey' and you say 'doodad', we may not know we're talking about the same thing. These definitions are ones that work for me. They are not super technical, but are designed for people who didn't go to college and get a fine arts degree.Don't let this glossary intimidate you. It's not necessary to know, understand, or even care about these definitions! I developed my understanding of these terms through playing with color, then reading a few books and understanding a couple new things, going back to play with color, then trying the books again. Over time, I found that I could better understand why certain color combinations were pleasing to me, and some were not, by comparing my experience of color with these terms. But it was a slow, comfortable process. Consider this page, and the other articles on color I plan to write, to be a reference to return to after you, too, have played with color a bit.

Hue

The purest form of a color, with no added black, gray, white, or the color's complement. What we call 'crayon' colors or 'rainbow' colors usually fall in this category, though not all do. Color wheels typically have the hues on the outer edge of the wheel, then add windows to show the colors which result when other hues or colors are mixed with them. 

Primary Color
Any one of the several colors which generally cannot be mixed using other colors. One set of primaries is the traditional primary group we're all taught in kindergarten, of red, yellow, and blue, also written as RYB. Another set of primaries is the Printer's Primary, of magenta, yellow, and cyan, or MYC. Some writers also class green as a primary, and of course green is one of the colors of light which, when mixed with red and blue light, will produce white light. 

Secondary Color
Those hues produced when two primary colors are mixed. The RYB set of primaries traditionally yield orange, green, and purple. The Printer's Primaries also yield orange, green, and purple, but the colors vary somewhat from the RYB secondaries. The brightest, most vivid green comes from mixing cyan and yellow; most vivid purple from magenta and blue; most vivid orange from red and yellow. Using both sets of primaries in mixing offers the widest range of colors. 

Intermediary Colors
Sometimes called tertiary colors, these are colors formed by mixing a primary with the secondary of that primary and another primary. In other words, if you mix blue with green, you get blue green, an intermediary color.

Value

The lightness or darkness of a color is its value. This is said to be the first thing a person notices about a given piece, so it's even more important than the color. A given color may be of:

high value: very light--pure yellow is a high value hue, baby blue is a high value color
low value: very deep or dark--pure purple is a low value hue, maroon is a low value color
medium value: medium in lightness/darkness--pure orange is a medium value hue, rose pink a medium value color Perhaps the best way to envision the value of a color is to imagine it photographed in black and white. The closer to white that color would be, the higher its value. The closer to black, the lower its value. High value colors tend to come forward in a piece, while low value colors seem to recede. 

Tint
Any hue mixed with white, commonly called a pastel. 
Tone
Any hue mixed with a gray that is equivalent in value to its complement. 
Shade
Any hue mixed with black.

Neutrals
Colors which technically aren't colors, such as white, black, and gray, are called neutrals. Other colors may also be considered neutrals, such as various browns, because they can work as backgrounds to the major colors of a project. 

Temperature
The apparent warmth or coolness of a color. Temperature is a relative term. Yellow is generally considered a warm color, but there are both warm yellows (yellow with a touch of red--butter yellow, for example) and cool yellows (yellow with a touch of blue, like lemon yellow). The same can be said of any other color. Cool colors tend to recede while warm colors appear to come forward in a piece. 

Complementary Colors

Any two colors on a color wheel which are opposite to each other are called complements or opposites. Examples are red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple. Note that one color is a primary, while the other is a mix of the other two primaries. Other complement pairs are tertiary colors: blue green and red orange, for example. When a small amount of a color's complement is mixed with it, like adding a touch of blue to orange, the effect is to gray down that color, making it more subtle. It's possible to use very bright hues to gain very subtle colors when this is understood. 

Color Scheme
A group of colors which are used in harmony to create a certain effect in a project. This is where fiberists, and others who want to use color, often have problems. They may feel there is one 'right' way and many 'wrong' ways to combine colors, and worry they will not find the 'right' way. Any color wheel will provide a variety of ways to combine colors. I will only define three particularly useful color schemes here:

Monochromatic Color Scheme: A scheme based on a variety of values, saturations, and temperatures of one hue. Pretty safe, but it can be boring.
Analogous Color Scheme: A combination of hues which are neighbors on a color wheel. For example, purple, blue, and green is an analogous color scheme. Safe, but again can be boring unless values are varied.
Complementary Color Scheme: There are a wide variety of complementary color schemes, but they all work on choosing one color, and then using its complement, or colors near its comlement, to round out the color scheme. An example might be red with blue green and yellow green. These schemes are easiest to work with when the colors are of similar value. It is not necessary to structure your project with a color scheme. I often find I don't recognize the color scheme of my work until it's finished! But it can be a useful tool when planning your project. 

Simultaneous Contrast
This is one of those terms better demonstrated than described with words, but since computer monitors show color so differently, I'll stick to words.Imagine you're planning a project. You want an area of yellow, surrounded by oranges and reds (analogous color scheme, remember?). You put them together, and find to your dismay that the balanced yellow now looks greenish! What you are seeing is simultaneous contrast. When two colors are viewed side by side, each affects the other. The yellow is made to look greenish by the contrast with the very reddish colors around it. A green that's beside blue will look quite yellowish, but place the same green beside yellow, and it will look very blue. The larger the areas, or the more surrounded one area is by other colors, the more the impact of simultaneous contrast. These are the terms I have personally found the most useful when working with color. Future color articles will explore some of these in more depth. 

About the Author:
Gary Bolyer is a full-time, professional artist. He is represented by New York City art dealer MFI Art Company located at 568 Broadway, New York, New York. His work has been shown both nationally and internationally for over 20 years. His paintings belong in public and private collections throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and abroad. He makes his home in rural northwest Lousiana, where he maintains a working studio. If you would like to purchase original oil paintings for your new or remodeled home, please visit his eBay store Bolyer Art Original Oil Paintings.