Revision Topic - Colour Theory

Today we also looked at colour theory.

Colour theory is based on the feeling and symbols we can create by using certain colours.

First we must have an understanding of primary, secondary and tertiary colours as shown in the colour wheel:

Primary colours are those which are the basis of all other colours
Secondary colours are made by mixing two primary colours
Tertiary colours are made by mixing a primary and a secondary colour.  (and are named using these two colours i.e. red-orange or red-violet)

Colours next to each other on the colour wheel are in harmony and those opposite are in contrast.  Depending on what type of colour scheme you are going for you may choose colours to be in harmony or contrast.  Generally contrasting colours will stand out from each other and harmony colours will melt into each other more.

Warm, or advancing colours are colours with a basis more in red and yellow.  They give a warm feeling and also make objects look closer.  This means that if you painted a room in advancing colour it would feel cosy, but also smaller as the walls would look coser.

Cold, or receding, colours are with a basis more in blue.  They give a cool feeling and make objects look further away.  So a room would look bigger if painted in a receding colour.

You also need to know what mood or emotion the different individual colours create. These are very well explained in the Leckie and Leckie book.

A tint of a colour means that you have added white i.e. red become pink
A shade of a colour means that you have added black. so red becomes this colour!
A tone of a colour is how strong or weak it is.  We use flat tones in our rendering to show the difference between flat surfaces > light, medium and dark.  We use graded tone to show that a surface is curved.

Yellow and Black are used for danger identification

Safety Signs are Green

Prohibited Signs are Red

Mandatory Signs are Blue

You need to be used to answering questions on theory based on choosing colours for given situations.  Make sure you know the symbols and emotions well.