Color Wheel Chart
A basic color wheel chart tells you
- how colors relate to each other, and
- how to mix primary colors.
3 Primary Colors
The color wheel chart you can buy in the shops today
was developed mainly by painters from the 18th century onward. It starts with 3
primary colors: yellow, red, and blue.
These three are taken as the basis for mixing all other colors. If you mix these primary colors in equal parts, you'll get a neutral color, usually a murky gray (it depends on the pigments you use).
(By the way, if you're currently about to start a home decor project and want to buy a color mixing wheel, you may want to read this review of a commercially available, basic color wheel template.)
When you mix any two primary colors,
you get the secondary colors: yellow and blue produce green, blue and
red produce purple, red and yellow produce orange.
This leaves each primary color with a complementary color (mixed from the other two primaries). Blue/orange, red/green, and yellow/purple are complementary to each other.
Obviously, the fun really starts when you go on mixing primary
and secondary colors. This gives you all the fabulous hues around the color wheel, from greenish blues
to yellowish greens.
(These are sometimes called 'tertiary' colors, but the term is not used in the same way everywhere.)
When you align the 3 primary colors with the secondary and 'tertiary' colors around the color wheel chart, the complementary colors always sit directly opposite each other.
Each pair complement (= 'complete') each other to produce a neutral color.
Mix two complementary colors, and you'll get the old murky gray.
Well, that was easy. But don't assume we've got the color wheel handled yet ... here comes the
four-color primary model to spoil it all.
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Four Primary Colors
Ewald Hering (1834-1918, a German physiologist and no relation of mine, came up
with this four-color primary model in 1878.
His system is very close to the way the human eye actually sees color, and it is so influential in the color/paint industries today that I'm presenting it here.
You see that green has now joined the primary colors in the basic color wheel.
This throws the old order of complementary colors out of whack: the 'complementary' of purple (opposite on the color wheel chart) is now lime green, and the 'complementary' of orange is turquoise! (Much prettier if you ask me!)
Click to learn more about the thinking behind a primary color wheel.
Now what? I say, let's make it even more complicated:(Return to Top)
'Cool' vs. 'Warm' Colors
Almost all people find some colors 'warm' and other colors 'cool'. Generally, the 'warm' ones are seen as
related to the yellow/orange side of the color wheel chart, and the 'cool' ones to the blue/green side
(this is independent of how many primary colors you're rooting for).
However, it has also long been argued that there are 'cool' yellows and even 'warm' blues. Have a look at the graphic to the right and judge for yourself: Is one panel of colors 'warmer' than the other? (I do hope the colors come out well on your computer screen - it's always a bit of a gamble!)
If you can see the difference between cool and warm colors here, then the logical next question is ...
... how can there be 'warm' blues, if blue in itself is a 'cool' color?
The 4-primary color wheel chart shows how this works. On Hering's color wheel template, every color family has a 'cool' and a 'warm' side:
- Cool yellow has a bit of green in it, warm yellow tends toward red.
- Cool red looks a bit bluish, warm red has a yellowish cast.
- Cool green has a blue bias, warm green a hint of yellow.
- Cool blue looks a bit green behind the gills, and warm blue has a blush.
(To learn more about
warm and cool colors, click here!)
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Use a Basic Color Wheel Chart
So where does this leave us?
A color wheel template is nice for learning about color ...
... but it obviously don't give us hard and fast rules for using color.
There are several ways you can utilize a basic color wheel chart. If, for example, you need a new color to enliven an existing color scheme, the color wheel can help you do that:
- Firstly, you could use small 'sparks' of a complementary color in an environment that is dominated by its opposite (for example, pick an orangey red to liven up a blue-dominated room. You could do this by using red-orange accessories: flowers, patterns with a bit of red-orange, pictures, and so on.)
- Secondly, you could literally stir a bit of orangey-red paint (or pigment) directly into blue paint. This would help take any 'fake' edge off the paint and give it more complexity and depth.
- Thirdly, a basic color wheel chart can give you ideas for monochromatic and analogous color schemes that tend to combine hues from the same or adjacent color families (like bluish and yellowish greens, reddish and bluish purples...).
However, most basic color wheel charts contain only saturated and grayed colors - none of the subtle hues that come from mixing colors with not-quite-neutral 'neutrals'.
In other words, it tells you a lot about mixing primary colors, but almost nothing about all the (lighter) tints and (darker) shades of these hues that make home decorating with color so interesting.
Lose The Color Wheel Chart
The usefulness of a basic color wheel chart is limited. How we perceive color depends on many things
the color wheel forgets to mention:
1. The human eye. None of us sees colors in exactly the same way as someone else.
2. The surrounding colors. For example, a chalky, 'period' white will look dirty when set against a modern 'clean' white, but soft and pleasing when combined with dusky pastels.
3. The surface. Glossy paint can make a light color look lighter and a dark color appear darker. A textured surface adds subtle shadow patterns to the color and makes it look darker. Linen, wool and silk give deeper, more complex hues of a color than cotton and most synthetics.
4. The light. Colors will look very different under different lighting. Therefore, before you buy any paint or large amounts of decorating fabric, test it thoroughly in the room where you want to use it:
- in bright sunlight,
- on a gray day,
- in the morning/afternoon/evening,
- under all the artificial lighting you are going to use in the room.
There. I think this is all you need to know about the basic color wheel chart (or rather, the color wheel charts).
For more information about the Color Wheel Chart and about mixing primary colors, try these pages:
- Here's what you get when you buy a commercial, basic color wheel.
- What is the thinking behind a primary color wheel?
- Learn how to set up a monochromatic color scheme.
- Understand how warm and cool colors work, on the color wheel chart and in your home.
- Neutral Color Schemes - The
Book:
Learn about using neutral color palettes in your home. Understand what makes neutral color schemes look their best, and what happens when you inject 'real' color into neutral color palettes. It's FREE!!
