handprint : an artist's color wheel an artist's color wheel An earlier page described several modern color models , including the latest CIE color difference and color appearance models, and a later page explained how the hue circle from any color model can be used to create an artist's color wheel . This page presents my own color wheels, the result of considerable study. My understanding of the problems involved has changed over the past several years, so I present both the wheel originally published in 1999, and the version I developed in 2006. Both wheels show the color appearance locations of all major watercolor pigments in use today. Both wheels are based on visual complementary colors. The wheels differ in their chroma scaling of all colors, and in the spacing and visual complements assigned to blue and violet colors. Some artists, from force of habit, may prefer a color wheel based on mixing complements. I try to dissuade you from that route, but if you choose it, I provide the information on mixing complements you'll need to get started. Because the visual and mixing location of pigments sometimes differ by a large amount, this page tries to explain why those differences occur .

It turns out they are caused by the green reflectance in many paints, and can be summed up in three simple rules. visual vs. mixing complements To make a color wheel, we have to tackle the problem first encountered with the secondary color wheel : how do we define complementary colors ? To recap, complementary colors are two hues with balanced or opposing color characteristics; that's why they're opposite each other on the color wheel. But the way we define that opposition gives us different results. In subtractive color mixing , complementary colors are two dyes, paints or inks that can be mixed in some proportion to create a gray color. This usually means their reflectance curves combine to make a metameric color or visual equivalent of gray, not the flat reflectance curve of a true neutral. This approach closely ties complementary colors to the problem of mixing paints. In additive color mixing , complementary colors are the two monochromatic (single wavelength) lights that can be mixed to produce the perception of white light, or the two surface colors whose reflectance curves can be combined (with a color top ) to produce the same result. This method closely ties complementary colors to a specific chromaticity diagram and the problem of mixing lights.

Finally, in color appearance models based on surface colors (painted color samples, rather than colored lights), complementary colors are any two colors at opposite ends of a straight line through the achromatic center of the color model's hue plane , or colors on opposite sides of a perceptually defined hue circle. This approach closely ties complementary colors to the actual visual impact of colors, and to our color psychology. If we compare the results of subtractive paint mixing, additive light mixing and perceptually defined color models, we find that visual and mixing complements are almost never the same. The visual complement of ultramarine blue is a yellowish green, but the mixing complement of ultramarine blue is a dull deep yellow; mixing ultramarine blue and greenish yellow paints produces a dark bluish green. The visual complement of phthalo green is close to quinacridone rose, but the mixing complement of phthalo green is a middle red; mixing phthalo green and quinacridone rose paints gives a muted dark violet, not a neutral tone. And so on. (These color circle comparisons clarify the different hue relationships that appear in visual and mixing color circles.) So we have to choose from among competing approaches when we build a color wheel.

The easiest way to review these choices is to compare visual and mixing complements side by side, using the major "cool" pigments as the basis for comparison. (More extensive information is provided in the section on mixing complementary paints .) This table is worth careful study! color theory [M. Graham] [none] Note: Mixing complements depend on the pigments used by a specific brand of watercolor paint. The mixing complements listed here may not apply in oil or acrylic mediums. Which Complements Are More Useful? Now, there are some artists who claim that mixing complements are the correct or best ones to use in a color wheel; Stephen Quiller even calls them "the true complements." But there are compelling reasons to use visual complements instead. The basic problem is insurmountable: it is impossible to define a consistent color wheel using mixing complements. (See the section on substance uncertainty for a full explanation.) You can find some glaring examples in the table (above), or see the fuzzy relationship among all major watercolor pigments in my mixing complement diagram . This makes the hue relationship among mixing complements downright incomprehensible by itself, as both hue and chroma affect the mixing complement relationship.

visual & mixing complements of viridian As one example, the visual complement of the beautifully granulating, blue green viridian ( PG18 ) is quinacridone magenta ( PR122 ). But the many mixing complements of viridian range in color from red brown (benzimida maroon, PR171 ), to maroon (perylene maroon, PR179 ), to carmine (anthraquinone red, PR177 ), to deep red (naphthol red deep, PR170 ), to light middle red (quinacridone red, PR209 ), to dark middle red (pyrrole red, PR254 ), to scarlet (naphthol scarlet, PR188 ), to red orange (pyrrole orange, PO73 ). Notice that these mixing complments become more saturated, they shift toward a yellower hue. They clearly do not define the same color, or even the same hue; and several of these paints, such as perylene maroon, are mixing complements of turquoise (blue green) paints as well. But don't take my word for it.

Joy Turner Luke , in her notes to the New Munsell Student Color Set, writes that: It is impossible to create a subtractive color wheel where every color combined with the color opposite it on the wheel will mix to gray. This type of color wheel, which is found in many books for artists, (1) can only be approximate; (2) applies only to complex subtractive mixture, not to color vision; and (3) precludes understanding many other things about color. Impossible to create? I present ample evidence to support that claim in the section on mixing complementary paints . It is not possible to create a color wheel to summarize subtractive mixing complement relationships because any single paint can be the mixing complement of several different paints on the opposite side of the wheel, and because two paints of the same color can have completely different mixing complements. For this reason, I present the same information as a list of watercolor mixing complements . However the key issue raised by Luke is her second point: a mixing color wheel has little to do with color vision. There is nothing contradictory or impossible about a visual color wheel: each hue is the complement of a single other hue, and no other.

What's more, the visual color wheel shows us the end, not the means, of artistic design. It guides our painting decisions by showing us how to effectively combine the colors we see, not how to mix gray colors from commonly used paints. Think about it: the viewer of your painting has no idea how you created a specific color. Was that gray mixed with two paints, or twenty? Were the paints orange and blue, or red and turquoise, or violet and green? The color assembly decisions in paintings disappear, or leave traces that are too complex to interpret. So why would you base your color design on the mixing relationships no viewer can see? In contrast, the visual color relationships are inherent in the way we see color, and they define natural contrast effects such as complementary colored shadows . They are always right on the surface, in the immediate visual impact of the painting, no matter how the paints that made the colors were mixed. To control that impact, painters should understand and use the visual complementary colors. The mixing color wheel, at best, shows an artist how to mix gray colors  if he hasn't figured that out already  and, as we've seen, it can't even do that very well.

The visual color wheel shows us the true color harmonies, the color harmonies of the eye and mind, and so unlocks the visual esthetic impact of any color image in every color medium. the artist's color wheel With those points in mind, I set out to make a visual color wheel adapted specifically to the needs of painters and graphic artists, and drawing on as many reliable sources as I could find. I think this is one of the best color wheels you will find for making both visual design and paint mixing decisions. It is useless to talk about color in the abstract, because artists must deal with specific colorants made of specific pigments. So my artist's color wheel represents the masstone color locations of the 90 most commonly used watercolor pigments, rather than color categories ("red orange") or clusters of similar pigments. Paint Measurement. Spectrolino measures reflectance from 380nm to 730nm in 10nm intervals, using a diffraction grating with 45°/0° viewing geometry, 10° observer, and a neutral filter over a tungsten (A) light source in the apparatus.

It yields the standard XYZ tristimulus values, which were used in the CIECAM color appearance model with a standard graphics illuminant (D50) to plot the color locations on the CIECAM aCbC plane. I used my own spectrophotometric measurements of single pigment watercolor paints and convenience mixtures. click here for a full size view in a new window click here for a printer friendly (Adobe Acrobat PDF) version of the artist's color wheel (330K) To print the color wheel, set page orientation to "landscape" and print to fit an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. Here are the main design features of the artist's color wheel:  The pigment markers show the hue and chroma of pigments as measured in single pigment paints and averaged across all brands reported in the guide to watercolor pigments . Pigments are indicated by generic name and color index name; convenience mixtures of two or more pigments are labeled in italics without color index names.

 Hues directly opposite each other (that can be connected by a line drawn through the center of the wheel) are visual complementary colors as defined by the pigment locations on the CIECAM aCbC plane . (Note that the CIECAM locations are reversed left to right, to make the color circle consistent with Munsell and most artist's color wheels.)  The twelve spokes of the tertiary color wheel are inserted to guide your eye in finding complements on opposite sides of the wheel. (They do not represent equal hue spacing in CIECAM or Munsell.)  The masstone chroma of paints is approximately indicated by the distance of pigment markers from the center of the wheel. (Pigments farther from the center are more intense or saturated.)  Straight mixing lines between any two paint markers can be used to estimate the approximate saturation costs of the paint mixtures. Note that it is not possible to create a color wheel where all mixing lines are straight, and this problem can't be fixed by shifting the location of hues around the color circle.  The artist's color wheel cannot accurately show mixing complementary colors, because of the problems described above with subtractive color mixing.

However, subtractive mixing complements are exhaustively listed in the page on mixing complements , and approximate mixing complement relationships are noted around the violet to green circumference of the color wheel.  The hue angle distance between two colors in the artist's color wheel approximates the perceived difference between colors of the same lightness or value, and corresponds fairly closely to the spacing of hues in the Munsell Color System . Despite the care taken to make this artist's color wheel as accurate as possible, the word approximate is important to keep in mind when using it to judge paint mixing problems. The lightness of a paint or color mixture can significantly affect the chroma or mixing behavior. Any subtractive color wheel is fundamentally a poor predictor of paint mixing results, and as we've just seen, no amount of tinkering can fix it. Treat the wheel as a starting point for your own color judgments with the brands of paints you prefer to use. tour of the color wheel I found that the most effective way to learn the color wheel was to work through all the major color categories around the circumference, sampling one or more paints at each of the major points, and mixing these paints in all possible combinations. This approach is described in the page on paint wheels .

If you know the hue, lightness and chroma of any paint, you will have a pretty good idea of how that paint will mix with other paints. So part of the basic knowledge of any painter is knowing the location of the major pigments in relation to the twelve major points of the color wheel. Let's take the tour. 1 : LIGHT YELLOW (primary) : This hue is a tangy, bright yellow, the color of lemons and canaries, which often takes on a distinct greenish appearance, especially at darker values. For most viewers it matches a monospectral hue of around 575nm. The visual color wheel locates hansa yellow light ( PY3 ), cadmium lemon ( PY35 ) and the benzimidazolone yellows ( PY151 , PY154 , or PY175 ) at the "primary" yellow point. Artists differ in how much green they prefer in this hue; the Munsell color circle picks a very lemony yellow as the exemplar. My own preference is for hansa yellow ( PY97 ) because it is very lightfast, intense, and has a hue that contains (to my eye) no hint of orange or green.

The historical pigment aureolin ( PY40 , not shown because it is impermanent) is a slightly cooler and less intense yellow, while bismuth yellow ( PY184 ) is whiter and therefore less intense than the usual cadmium lemon. Copper azomethine or green gold ( PY117 ) and nickel titanate ( PY53 ) are relatively dull light yellows and therefore less suitable as a primary mixing paint; all have a distinct green or greenish gray color. All yellows at this color point quickly lose their characteristic yellow appearance as they are darkened or made less intense, turning rapidly into a dull warm green and then into a peculiarly lifeless gray. Note that none of these yellows can be used in neutralizing mixtures with blue violet; they all make dull greens. 2 : DEEP YELLOW (tertiary) : This is the golden color of highway caution signs, school buses and autumn squash. It corresponds to a monospectral hue at around 595nm.

The visual wheel places hansa yellow deep ( PY65 ), cadmium yellow deep ( PY35 ) and nickel dioxine yellow ( PY153 ) at this location, but many cadmium paints labeled yellow orange or yellow medium are also close to this hue. (The Munsell Book of Color chooses a color slightly warmer than cadmium yellow deep for this hue location.) A less intense but very lovely alternative is quinacridone deep gold ( PO49 ). This second hue point is interesting for several reasons. Mixing the hue from yellow and red produces a duller mixture than expected, often duller than a red orange mixed from the same paints. This is also the yellowest hue that can neutralize mixtures with blue violet; mixing complements for cool colors really start at this hue point and continue through purple. Finally, this is the hue point at which the yellowest earth pigments are located  the many "yellow" iron oxide pigments ( PY42 or PY43 , marketed as raw sienna, yellow ochre, mars yellow or gold ochre). If this hue is made even less intense, it turns into a grayish or grayish brown hue, typical of raw umber ( PBr7 ).

A handy way to remember the yellow range of the spectrum is to remember that most "medium" cadmium yellows are about half the distance from cadmium yellow deep to hansa yellow light, and hansa yellow medium ( PY97 ) is about half the distance from cadmium medium to hansa yellow light. 3 : RED ORANGE (secondary) : This is an especially intense and powerful hue, just at the boundary between scarlet and orange (hues on either side of this hue point). It corresponds to a monospectral hue at around 630nm. The best exemplars of this color are pyrrole orange ( PO73 )or the slightly warmer cadmium scarlet ( PR108 ) or cadmium red orange ( PR108 ). The less intense pigments in this color category include the "red" iron oxide pigments (including venetian red, indian red and light red, all PR101 ) and the synthetic organic equivalent quinacridone maroon ( PR206 ; Daniel Smith's quinacridone burnt scarlet and Winsor & Newton's brown madder).

It's also important to familiarize yourself with the pigments that fall between the deep yellow and red orange color points: cadmium orange ( PO20 ) and benzimidazolone orange ( PO62 ) are the most intense, while among the duller but very useful paints are quinacridone gold ( PO48 ) and the extremely useful burnt sienna ( PBr7 ), a moderately dull, orange iron oxide pigment that is a mixing keystone in the "warm" color range. Even darker and less intense is burnt umber ( PBr7 ), which can be used in place of burnt sienna in any mixture that you want to take to a darker and duller color (although it is oddly ineffective at mixing true grays with most blue paints). Naphthol scarlet ( PR188 ) and pyrrole scarlet ( PR255 ) are very intense pigments on the red side of this color point.

It's interesting that artists tend to have a distinctive preference in warm paints: some (Caravaggio, Turner, Gauguin, Matisse) seem to like red orange focal hues, while others (Van Gogh, Rubens, Rembrandt) seem to prefer a deep yellow. 4 : MIDDLE RED (tertiary) : This is close to a "pure" red that leans neither toward orange nor violet. Its closest monochromatic counterpart is extraspectral, matched with a mixture of 90% extreme "red" wavelengths (around 700nm) and about 10% violet light . The visual color wheel places quinacridone magenta ( PR122 ) or quinacridone violet ( PV19 ) at this location.

(It's remarkable that the entire color span from middle red to red violet, formerly represented by a shoddy gang of fugitive organic pigments, has been handsomely replaced by different shades of a single modern and lightfast pigment: quinacridone .) Notice that cadmium red medium ( PR108 ) or pyrrole red ( PR254 ) correspond to the average conception of unique red or a pure "red" spectral hue, and that the range from scarlet to deep red is visually quite small  about the same as the distance between the yellow and green shades of phthalo green. And there is quite a crowd of "warm red" pigment alternatives between the red orange and middle red points on the wheel. These include the cadmium reds ( PR108 ), naphthol reds ( PR112 and PR170 ), quinacridone reds ( PR209 and PV19 ), perylene scarlet ( PR149 ), perylene red ( PR178 ), perylene maroon ( PR179 ).

Notice that in the visual color wheel the red and yellow spans of the spectrum are approximately the same size: deep yellow is the middle boundary between the two. Most of these reds mix strong blacks with phthalo green BS ( PG7 ), and strong dark grays with cobalt turquoise or teal blue. I find it useful to divide the warm colors in two groups  the paints that can or cannot mix a green color with a greenish blue paint such as phthalo cyan or phthalo blue GS. Yellows up to cadmium yellow deep can, and reds down to benzimidazolone orange cannot. 5 : MAGENTA (primary) : This is a distinctive bright, bluish red hue that is easy to recognize once you've seen it. It corresponds to the hue that J.W. von Goethe called purpur, a term that is mistranslated as "red" or "bright red" in the English edition of his Farbenlehre. It has no monospectral counterpart, but must obtained by mixing roughly equal parts of "red" and "blue violet" wavelengths.

Unfortunately pigments with this hue are darker and/or less saturated than the spectral light mixture, giving paints at this locating a relatively purplish or pale color. An excellent choice for this point is cobalt violet ( PV49 ); the only other pigment alterative is manganese (mineral) violet ( PV16 ), though it is too blue and too dull to make useful mixtures with the warm pigments. (I don't consider the hues from quinacridone magenta to ultramarine blue, and the complements from phthalo green YS to cadmium lemon, to be either warm or cool.) Some "accomplished" artists continue to use the fugitive magenta and carmine pigments, including alizarin crimson and rose madder genuine. But apparently they do so with a furtive conscience : posing as an interested buyer, I've found that a few don't notify their collectors of the lightfastness issues related to their choice of paints. 6 : PURPLE (tertiary) : A relatively rare hue encountered most often in certain flowers or gems.

It has no spectral counterpart, but is obtained by mixing "violet" (400nm) wavelengths with a very small amount of "red" light. This location is represented by either dioxazine violet ( PV23 ), the red shade of ultramarine violet ( PV15 ), or cobalt violet deep ( PV14 ). Few artists use these mineral purple pigments because they have poor tinting strength, are not especially bright, and are strongly granulating; many avoid dioxazine violet because it tends to fade in some watercolor paint brands. To avoid these problems many paint brands offer the color as a purple convenience mixture of a rose or magenta quinacridone and ultramarine blue. Points 5 through 7 of the wheel are also confusing to learn because the apparent hue of a paint depends on its lightness and/or chroma: magenta paints appear to redden with increased chroma, and blue violet paints appear to shift toward purple. This is especially noticeable in quinacridone violet ( PV19 ), which has the same spectrophotometric hue as quinacridone magenta ( PR122 ), but appears distinctly bluer because the color is darker and less intense.

A similar hue difference appears between indanthrone blue ( PB60 ) and ultramarine blue ( PB29 ). 7 : BLUE VIOLET (secondary) : Here we enter the blue hues, corresponding to a monospectral hue at around 440nm. The "blue" shade of ultramarine violet ( PV15 ) and the mystically dark indanthrone blue ( PB60 ) are the best pigment representatives for this hue and the visual complements for "primary" yellows at point 1. The very popular pigment ultramarine blue ( PB29 ) is placed between points 7 and 8, where it is the visual complement of a middle yellow to deep yellow hue). The nearness of ultramarine blue to a violet color is revealed by the fact that the blue shade of ultramarine violet ( PV15 ) is very close by. 8 : MIDDLE BLUE (tertiary) : This point approximately corresponds to the average conception of "unique" blue or "pure" blue. It corresponds to a monospectral hue at around 465nm.

The few pigment exemplars at this point include cobalt blue ( PB28 ), phthalo blue ( PB15 ) and iron [prussian] blue ( PB27 ). The visual wheel also locates the warm shades of cerulean blue ( PB35 ) or the green shade of phthalo blue ( PB15:3 ) approximately at this color point. Pay special attention to brand variations in color when selecting paints around points 8 and 9 on the color wheel. Mixing complements for the blues at point 8 are typically deep yellow and middle orange, and their dull "earth" equivalents such as raw sienna or gold ochre. 9 : CYAN (primary) : This is a bright, light greenish blue, also unmistakable once learned, representing the "primary" cyan in paint mixing. It corresponds to a monospectral hue at around 480nm, which is close to the wavelength of maximum transmission (and therefore the color) of water ice (though most landscape water contains suspended matter that shifts the color toward green or brown).

For this hue there is one good pigment choice  phthalo turquoise ( PB16 )  although a very green phthalo blue ( PB15:3 ) or the discontinued phthalo cyan ( PB17 ) also serve well, in paints and in printing inks. Manganese blue ( PB33 ) is more granular but also a good hue substitute, as are cobalt turquoise or the greener shades of cerulean blue ( PB36 ) and cobalt teal blue ( PG50 ). The mixing complements for all these paints are typically a red orange or scarlet hue, especially in the dull "earth" colors. 10 : BLUE GREEN (tertiary) : This hue is a lovely dark green with just a hint of blue, and corresponds to a monospectral hue at around 495nm. The visual color wheel places the dark and intense phthalo green blue shade ( PG7 ) and the lighter and less saturated viridian ( PG18 ) and cobalt titanate blue shade ( PG50 ) at this location.

The mixing complements for this point are usually middle or deep red, and the fact that red and blue green are such antagonistic colors in color vision (lying at opposite ends of the r/g opponent contrast) means that many of these neutral mixtures are especially dark and rich. 11 : GREEN (secondary) : This green corresponds to a monospectral hue at around 515nm. The visual color wheel puts phthalo green yellow shade ( PG36 ) and the much duller and more opaque chromium oxide green ( PG17 ) close to this point. Winsor & Newton used to market a yellow version of cobalt titanate green (now discontinued, PG50 ) at this hue. All the rest of green paints at this and the next point are convenience greens that vary widely in transparency, saturation and lightfastness. (The pros and cons of these and other green pigments are dished up in the page on mixing green .) 12 : YELLOW GREEN (tertiary) : To close out the color wheel, there is a long slog of green and more green until we come back to cadmium lemon.

This yellow green corresponds to a monospectral hue at around 555nm  which is the chromaticity of our peak daylight sensitivity . Despite its sun bright character, yellow green is an unpopular color in everything from clothing to cars to home decor, and there are no pigments available to provide it: the vivid greens, leaf greens and yellow greens marketed in this hue are all convenience mixtures of phthalo green (usually PG36) and a bright yellow. I find sap green (listed as a convenience mixture under PG36 ) is more convenient to use, and it is also an excellent mixing and visual complement for dioxazine violet. Note that the perceptual difference indicated the visual color wheel between phthalocyanine green PG7 and cadmium lemon is almost exactly the same as that between quinacridone magenta and ultramarine violet. And the mixing complements for all these yellow green colors are the purple colors directly opposite on the visual color wheel. At first reading, this survey of the color wheel seems to cover a confusingly large number of pigments and colors.

The differences between scarlet and brown, or yellow and ochre paints  what I call the unsaturated color zones  also complicate color judgments on the "warm" side of the color wheel. But the simple exercise of mixing paint wheels is an effective way to learn these color variations and the major color differences that result from mixtures of paints from any two color points. And you will find that painting experience will gradually clarify and strengthen your grasp of the color wheel, and with it your confidence at navigating the complexities of color space. why the difference? Why does this difference between mixing and visual complementaries occur? When we look at the differences in the mixing and visual pairs around the wheel, we discover a pattern of systematic bias. To make this bias clearer, draw lines connecting the blue and green pigments with their mixing complements on the warm side of the wheel.

mixing lines between blue and green pigments and their mixing complementary "warm" pigments Nothing is precise in subtractive color mixing, yet it's obvious the lines from the blue pigments (from the blue shade of ultramarine violet PV15 to cobalt teal blue PG50 ) all converge on a small area of the wheel located roughly around the pigment red iron oxide (venetian red, PR101 ). This is indicated by the blue circle. In contrast, the mixing lines for the few green pigments and convenience mixtures all pass through a small area located near chromium oxide green ( PG17 ), indicated by the green circle. The reason for these differences is not hard to find, if we consider the reflectance curves of the different paints and the differences between additive and subtractive color mixing. All the "green mixing" warm pigments (that is, the light yellow to yellow orange paints that will mix a green color with a blue paint) contain significant amounts of green" reflectance  even though visually they seem to contain no green color. As the paint hue shifts from yellow toward red, this "green" reflectance diminishes, but does not completely disappear until the hue is around a scarlet red .

These "green" reflecting warm pigments are visual complements to paints from cobalt blue to phthalo cyan , and these colors also contain a significant amount of "green" reflectance, even though they appear primarily blue. This "green" reflectance increases as the paint color shifts toward blue green, which compensates for the loss of "green" reflectance as their visual complements shift from yellow to scarlet. When these blues are mixed with their visual complements, there is enough "green" reflectance common to both paints that the mixtures appear as various dull greens rather than neutral grays. To remedy this problem and get a true gray, we must neutralize this excess "green" reflectance. We do this by adding the complement of green, magenta. It's exactly as if we mixed the visual complement paints phthalo cyan and benzimidazolone orange, got a dull green color, and realized we needed to add a little magenta paint to neutralize this green toward gray. So here's the trick: we could also mix the magenta and orange first, which would result in the same gray when mixed with phthalo cyan.

But the magenta and orange mixture would itself be close to the pyrrole red that is the mixing complement of phthalo cyan. The difference in hue between the visual and mixing complements represents this added "red" or "magenta" reflectance, and is the reason why the convergence point for the mixing lines is shifted away from the center of the wheel toward a magenta hue. For the green to blue green paints that are visual complements to blue violet, purple or red violet colors, the problem arises from an excess of red" and "blue violet" reflectance that magentas and red violets all have in common. In these cases mixing the visual complements gives a dull blue violet color. Now we have to choose a mixing complement to neutralize this "purple" reflectance, and yellow green will do that nicely. It's as if we mixed the visual complements, for example phthalo green BS and quinacridone magenta, got a dark violet as a result, and had to add a little yellow green paint to the mixture to neutralize it back to gray.

This comparison of visual and mixing wheels leaves us with these three rules for mixing complements: (1) You can ignore the yellow paints from cadmium lemon up to hansa yellow deep; they are not effective mixing complements with any cool pigment. (2) All blues, from ultramarine violet BS to cobalt teal blue, form mixing complements with paints from hansa yellow deep to middle red, indicated by lines converging on the blue circle. In general, dull (low chroma) warm pigments, such as quinacridone maroon or raw umber, are more effective neutralizing paints than very intense pigments. (3) All greens, from phthalo green BS to sap green, form mixing complements with paints from deep red to violet, indicated by lines passing through the green circle; the yellow greens can all be neutralized with dioxazine violet. The simplest way to remember the mixing complementary relationships in the paints you use is just to memorize the best neutralizing pigment for each blue or green pigment from the table of mixing complements .

The blue and green circles can help you to find the most likely mixing complements for any cool mixture, if you can identify the location of the mixture on the artist's color wheel (or the existing blue paint it most resembles). making your own color wheel With this "complete color wheel," and the explanation of how other artists have made their own color wheels , you can easily make color wheels of your own. When you do this, you will keep the information about colors or paints that is necessary to solve a specific artistic problem (identifying mixing complements; identifying paints that mix well together), and throw away the rest. Your personal color wheel start with the actual selection of paints in your palette. You won't include as many pigments as the scientific or generalist color wheels I've described on this and the previous page. Any artist can make their own color wheel by following these five steps: 1. Decide on the colors (few or many, and specific hues) that will be in the palette  this is the overall palette design . 2. Choose a paint for each hue with the chroma and lightness most appropriate for the total color effect the palette should achieve.

(The choice of tonal values determines the relative lightness of all mixed colors and the value range of the palette as a whole.) 3. Choose either visual or mixing color complements as the basic color geometry that the wheel will represent. 4. Position the paints around the color wheel according to their hue or color mixing behavior. 5. Determine the additional information about the paints (if any) to represent by the concentric placement of the paints inside the wheel. (In Quiller's wheel, this extra information is chroma and lightness; in Kosvanec's wheel, it is paint transparency and staining.) An artist can bring other considerations to designing a color wheel than the ones I've shown (the texture of the paints, or their behavior when they are rewetted or charged with clear water). By now you should realize that there is no "objective" color wheel, no "best" color palette. There are many color wheels and palettes, each one suited to a particular artist or artistic purpose. By working through the steps just described, you can make your own color wheel. Art means you do it whatever way makes sense for you.

One of the pleasureful puzzles of painting is the process of continually rediscovering your personal color wheel, rather than memorizing somebody else's "perfect" color system. Last revised 08.I.2015  © 2015 Bruce MacEvoy What Color Is Cerulean? What Color is Cerulean? Individual Colors What Color is Cerulean? By Jacci Howard Bear's Desktop Publishing Colors and Color Meanings Question: What Color is Cerulean? Described as sky blue, cerulean represents many shades of the blue skies, sometimes with a hint of green . Answer: In 1999 Pantone named Cerulean the color of the new millennium. They describe it as "the color of the sky on a serene, crystal clear day." Colors identified as cerulean blue range from the medium blue of Cerulean blue pigment to the bright cerulean color of Crayola crayons to the sky blue Pantone color called cerulean. Light and medium shades of turquoise with some green may be considered cerulean.

Pantone Cerulean Blue (283 C) | Hex #9BC4E2 | RGB 155,196,226 / CMYK 34/6/0/0 Crayola Cerulean | Hex #1DACD6 | RGB 29,172,214 Cerulean Blue | Hex #2A52BE | RGB 42,82,190 Sky Blue | Hex #87CEEB | RGB 135,206,235 Light Sky Blue | Hex #87CEFA | RGB 135,206,250 Pigments through the Ages - Intro to the blues » Intro to the blues Intro to the blues Ultramarine A perfect blue. Yves Klein (1928-1962), Blue Monochrome, 1961, The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection.

Monochrome painting was defined by Yves Klein as an "open window to freedom as the possibility of being immersed in the immeasurable existence of color." He synthesized his own blue, International Klein Blue and used this pigment in order to evoke his boundlessness vision of the world, being blue the color of infinity. Symbolism of the Color Blue Blue is the color of sky and water. From the time of the ancient Egyptians, the blue depths of water personified the female principle, while sky blue was associated with the male principle. Blue is the color of all heavenly gods and stands for distance, for the divine, and for the spiritual. Blue is also the symbol of fidelity. Blue flowers, such as forget-me-nots and violets, symbolize faithfulness. According to an old English custom, a bride wears blue ribbons on her wedding gown and a blue sapphire in her wedding ring. Tiny flowers of blue speedwell are part of the wedding bouquet. In the English language, blue sometimes refers to sadness. The phrase "feeling blue" is linked to a custom amongst old sailing ships. If a ship loses her captain, she would fly blue flags when returning to home port.

In German, to be "blue" (blau sein) is to be drunk. This derives from the ancient use of urine (which is produced copiously by the human body after drinking alcohol) in dyeing cloth blue with woad or indigo. However, the color blue also had other associations in Germany. The Blue Flower was the symbol of German 19th century Romanticism, thanks to the novel fragment Heinrich von Ofterdingen, by the German poet Novalis. Short History of Blue Pigments The first blue pigment was azurite, a natural mineral. Soon thereafter, Egyptians manufactured Egyptian blue, which quickly spread throughout the ancient world. During the Middle Ages, the recipe for Egyptian blue was lost, so azurite and expensive ultramarine from Afghanistan were the only sources of blue available. In the 15th century, smalt, a finely ground blue glass, came into use for painting. The first pigment produced due to the advancement of modern chemistry was a blue, Prussian blue, which was soon followed by cobalt blue and cerulean blue. Blue is a primary color in painting, with the secondary color orange as its complement.

It is in the visible spectrum at wavelengths in the range of 440–490 nm. Timeline of blue pigments. Munsell chips of hue 5PB at eight levels of lightness and six levels of chroma. A blue god appears in this copy of Pharaoh and a Temple Chantress present offerings to Amon, by Ernst Weidenbach, 1845. The skin of the Egyptian god Amon was rendered blue. Originally, he was the deification of the concept of air, one of the four fundamental concepts of the primordial universe. Amon means “the hidden one,” as the air and the wind cannot seen by the eyes. He was originally depicted as a frog-headed god and his invisibility was represented by the color blue - the color of the sky Charlemagne, missal, circa 15th century. In early medieval Europe, blue was a royal and aristocratic color, as blue dyes were rare and expensive. Due to the rarity of blue dyes made from woad, and also because Tyrian purple had gone out of use in Western Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europeans’ idea of royal color shifted from Tyrian purple towards blue.

The working class wore mainly green and brown. Blue was commonly used in art depicting the Virgin Mary. This is an anonymous panel painting of the Annunciation, in egg tempera, from 1490. The blue color in Mary’s mantle links heaven and earth, the divine and the mundane, and also symbolizes purity. Blue has a calming effect. This container of Nivea skin cream features a synthetic ultramarine blue. Blue is often associated with cleanliness and freshness in household products. On drinks, blue labels are associated with coolness and lightness. Blue also invokes dreamlike states. Blue is the color of the heart and generally has a positive connotation when used for commercial or business purposes. Several companies have blue logos, including ARAL, Deutsche Bank, Levi, and Nivea. Color Bias of Artist Pigments - science of colour science of colour Click to buy from Audible Color Bias of Artist Pigments Every pigment has a color bias, meaning the color encroaches a neighboring hue on the color wheel. Even the purest primary colors will have a color bias as they can never possess the purity of scattered light.

This color bias will affect how the pigment mixes with other pigments and how it looks when thinned with art mediums and applied as a glaze. The Purity of Artist Colors The true primary colors are yellow, magenta and cyan (as can be seen with printing ink). In painting terms, cadmium yellow (pale), permanent rose and pthalo blue closely resemble these primary colors. But every pigment, regardless of how apparently pure, possess a color bias. This color bias will become obvious when a chosen pigment is applied as a thin glaze or mixed in with other colors. Warm Blues in Pigment French ultramarine is frequently used for its depth of hue. But apply a thin glaze of this blue and it will appear slightly violet. This is because ultramarine blue is slightly biased towards red. Any blue containing red would not be a good blue counterpart with yellow to produce pure greens but would be the ideal counterpart to produce purple or mauve. So in this respect, ultramarine is a warm blue as it is slightly biased towards red. Other warm blues include Winsor blue (red shade), cobalt blue and Indanthrene blue. Cool Blues in Pigment By contrast, blues biased towards green are cool blues.

Cool blues include cerulean blue, Winsor blue (green shade), pthalo blue, manganese blue, monestrial blue and turquoise. Such cool blues would be suitable for mixing pure greens, for they possess very little red, but would be unsuitable for mixing purple or mauve. Prussian blue is a brownish-blue as it contains quite a lot of color impurities. Warm Reds in Painting Some reds are biased towards yellow, giving them a glowing or orange cast. Such warm reds include cadmium red, flesh tint, Winsor red, bright red and scarlet lake. Spread a thin film of any of these colors via artist spirits and their yellowish cast will become apparent. As they possess yellow, these reds would be an unsuitable counterpart with blue to produce a clean violet or purple, but would be ideal for mixing orange. Cool Red Pigments for Art Some reds tilt slightly towards violet in their color bias and are therefore cooler than the reds just mentioned. Cool red pigments include permanent rose, carmine red, alizarin crimson, magenta, quinacridone and rose madder.

As these reds contain a little blue, they may not produce clean, dazzling orange if mixed with a chosen yellow. Again, spread a thin glaze of these reds and their violet cast will become apparent. Yellow Hues Cool and Warm Like blue and red just mentioned, yellow pigments also possess a color bias. Warm yellows (biased towards orange) include cadmium yellow, Indian yellow, cadmium yellow (deep) and Winsor yellow (deep). As these yellows are warm, any would be a suitable counterpart with red for mixing pure orange. Cool yellows that are biased towards green can be found in lemon yellow, cadmium lemon and Bismuth yellow. Any of these yellows would be suitable for mixing clean, dazzling greens. Impurities in Artist Pigments Many popular artist pigments possess a lot of impurities, as they comprise a blend of all three primary colors. Earth colors such as Vandyke brown, yellow ochre and Paynes grey are such examples. But even these have a particular color bias. Burnt sienna tends to have an orange-red cast. Burnt umber has a violet-blue cast. Indian red and Venetian red have a violet-red cast.

Some green pigments, again possess a lot of impurities, such as olive green and sap green. But clean greens can be found in viridian, Winsor green and chrome green. Black pigments possess the most impurities of all, as all three primary colors in approximately equal measure are required to produce them. Spread a thin film of lamp black or ivory black and you will be surprised to find a rainbow of pigments, including yellow, violet and red. Purity of Color in Art In order to establish how pure a color is or in which direction it is biased, spread a thin film of this color as a glaze and surprising colors will appear to spread out before you. Even the purest colors possess a color bias. In the same way, impurities will become apparent when mixing a given color with another. A blue that possesses a violet bias, as in the case of ultramarine, will produce a muddy green when mixed with yellow. Some pigments give surprising results when blended with one another. Painting Terms and Tips [Return to Top] Tone- The darkness or lightness of a color. Support- This refers to any surface on which a painting is made... canvas, masonite, illustration board, paper, etc.

Toned Ground- A support which is coated with an opaque color prior to painting is refered to as a Toned Ground. Imprematura- A transparent wash of color applied over a white support is called an imprematura. Bright colors are the best choice for this. Glaze- Glazes are transparent colors applied thinly over an opaque color. It's usually brushed over a lighter hue. Glazes will intensify a color or subdue a color. Scumble- A Scumble is a semiopaque or opaque color applied thinly over a darker color. Like glazing, Scumbling is transparent, which is optically mixed with the color under it to produce a third color. Underpainting- The first stages of a painting in which the elements and the tonal values of a composition are established is known as the Underpainting. Overpainting- Layers of paint applied by scumbling or glazing is called Overpainting. The underlying colors optically mix with the subsequent layers creating a third color which is much richer than combing complimentaries on the palette. Optical Mixtures- Pointillists such as Georges Seurat placed dots of colors side by side to create another color when viewed from a certain distance. The colors are Optically mixed.

Seurats juxtaposition of color is brilliant. Scumblings and glazings are similar in that layers of color over another color Optically mixes to create a third color. Imagine a sheet of yellow stained glass placed over a blue table. What you'll see is a vivid green; an optical mixture. Juxtaposition- Colors place side by side. Wet-in-wet A technique used in painting in which the colors flow together. There's a risk of creating a muddy look when painting in this manner. Many brilliant masterworks have been painted using this technique. It's often used by Oil Painters. Wet-on-dry- Painting over a dry layer of paint. It's much easier to control than wet-in-wet. Most acrylic painters use this technique. Color: Here are some helpful tips about Color... Black- I feel that black is a color and lends itself well in mixtures. It's the richest of all colors. I use black in mixtures as I do with any other color. For instance, if you add black to a Thalo Blue and Cadmium Yellow mixture you will produce the color you're looking for to paint those deep greens of an evergreen forest. This color should be treated like a primary color.

Its integrity should be maintained without destroying it's identity. Categorize it as blue when mixing with warm or hot colors. White- Like Black, I consider White a color also. It's a very brilliant and helpful color. It's very important for modifying local colors. Be careful how you use it though; the tinting strength of white varies with each pigment. You can bring out the brilliance of a hue by adding a touch of white to very dark colors such as Alizarin Crimson or Thalo Blue. I refer to White as a Modifier. Grays- Gray isn't just a mixture of black and white paint. It's a family of warm and cool colors which can be mixed with any color on your palette. How many ways can you think of to mix grays. An entire picture can be painted with warm and cool grays. Velasquez painted masterpieces using browns and grays. Mixtures of grays is a blend of colors mixed with White. Ivory Black mixed with White produces a warm gray. Mixed with Paynes Gray, you'll produce a cool gray. Different proportions of other colors will produce a variety of variations. Experiment with Black to create pleasing grays.

Ivory Black mixed with Yellow Ochre may produce a pleasing green gray for that plant you're painting. Blue- This is a primary color. You can extend the range of this color by adding other hues to it. Viridian green and a touch of white mixed with it will produce the (mid) translucency of a breaking swell in a seascape. Red- This is a primary color. Alizarin Crimson and Cadmium Red Light are the most brilliant of the reds. A more intense hue is created when you mix the two colors. You can add browns to Red to soften it, such as Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna. Remember reds complementory color? Green! Use greens to darken or subdue this color. Yellow- The color Yellow (also a primary color) can be difficult to work with without modifying it when mixing with other colors. There's a major loss in warmth and brilliance when you do so. Adding the cool colors of blue is quite difficult so I stay away from mixing Thalo Blue with yellow. I lean toward less powerful mixtures when using this color.

Wonderful Greens- It's not neccessary to buy a tube of green, but I must admit that I can't live without Chromium Oxide Green. I use it in most of my nature paintings. This premixed hue can be modified very easily with warm and cool colors. I typically use it as a base modifier when painting landscapes. Other premixed greens that I use are emerald green, vivid lime green and viridian. The color of green can be easily mixed. Black with Cadmium Yellow produces a rich olive green. Ultramarine with Cadmium Yellow creates the perfect color of young trees in Spring. Prussian Blue is an important color to add to Yellow to produce a wonderful, vivid green. Brown- There is a diverse amount of Brown in nature. This color can be mixed with any other color. It can be modified very easily without destroying it. Adding a touch of white to brown will bring out it's richness. Brown can be enhanced by adding red. Blues and Greens are used to darken this hue. The range of possibilities by adding other colors to Brown is endless.

Creating a Color Wheel Painting Expert By Lisa Marder Following are steps to creating a color wheel that will enable you to see how the temperature of a color affects the way it interacts with other colors. In my article, Understanding Color , I explain that colors are either warm or cool relative to other colors. For example, yellow, red, and orange are considered to be warm; blue, green, and violet are considered to be cool. However, within each color family there are also warm and cool colors. Within yellows, for example, a cadmium yellow medium is considered warm, whereas a lemon or hansa yellow is considered cool. This will be useful as you proceed with creating a color wheel by mixing the warms and cools of each primary color - red, yellow, and blue - in different combinations. For this color wheel you will need two of each primary color: cadmium yellow medium and hansa or lemon yellow; cadmium red and alizarin crimson; ultramarine blue and cerulean blue. Note: There is some debate among artists as to what blues are considered cool and which are considered warm.

continue reading below our video 7 Hobbies That Can Make You Money I have always considered ultramarine blue to be cool, since it contains more red and tends toward purple, and cerulean blue to be warm, since it contains more yellow and tends toward green. This seems to be confirmed in the way in which the colors mix in this color wheel. Color is one of the most important elements of art that the artist has to use, and understanding how to mix color is essential. Here are the basic steps to create your own color wheel: 1) Draw 4 concentric circles in pencil on a sheet of paper at least 15"x18", with the largest circle being about 14" diameter and with an inch between each circle. Divide the circles into 6 equal pieces by drawing 3 lines through the middle as though cutting a pie. The outermost circle will be for the warm colors, the second most outer circle will be for the cool colors. 2) Squeeze a small bit of each warm primary color out onto the outermost circle, equally spaced on one of the lines dividing the circle into thirds.

Put cadmium yellow medium at the top, cadmium red to the left, and cerulean blue to the right. 3) On the second most outer circle, next to the warm colors on the line dividing the circle into thirds, place a dollop of the cool of each primary - hansa yellow, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue. 4) Now mix small amounts of the primary colors two by two on the intersection of the outermost circle and the line between the primary colors you're mixing. You will be creating the secondary colors of orange, green, and purple. First mix the warm primaries together on the outermost circle, then mix the cool primaries together on the second most outer circle along the same line. Try to mix the colors together to make the purest secondary color possible. Remember when mixing color to start with the lighter color and slowly add the darker to it until you reach the desired color. 5) Now it gets a bit trickier. On the third and fourth circles you will mix permutations of the warm with the cool color. For example on the third circle mix cadmium yellow (WY=warm yellow) with ultramarine blue (CB=cool blue) to create green.

Mark this green with WY+CB. It is important to keep track of your mixtures this way. Then mix the inverse on the 4th circle, so this time you are mixing hansa yellow (CY) with cerulean blue (WB) to make another green (CY+WB). 6) Follow this procedure with the remaining colors. You will see what a remarkable array of colors you can get with a simple palette consisting of only a warm and cool of each primary! Now try taking a fun color theory quiz ! How to mix blues in painting - science of colour science of colour Click to buy from Audible How to mix blues in painting Colour mixing blue accurately can seem tricky as there are many types of blues to be found. Does the artist purchase lots of blue pigments for the different blues that can be perceived, or can lots of blues be mixed with a few basic pigments? Thankfully, there is a simple solution. Different Types of Blues One does not have to look far to see many different blues that on first impressions can seem bewildering.

There is the violet-blue of a summer sky; powder-blue of the cornflower; arctic-blue of snowdrifts; silver-blue of cutlery; turquoise blue of a winter sky at sunset and iridescent-blue of moonlit clouds. The list is endless. When it comes to colour mixing blue, where is the best place to start? Categories of Blue Pigments Like any other colour, there is only four ways a blue can go when one looks at the colour wheel, which is violet, green, light or dark. The rest is just down to purity of the blue. When it comes to the aforementioned colour wheel, blue can either be warm or cool. This is known as ‘colour temperature’. This is why many artists have at least 2 blue pigments within their colour selection: a warm blue and a cool blue. The warm blue will have a violet cast. A common choice for this blue is ultramarine. Ultramarine is rather translucent in nature but is an ideal colour inclusion for summer skies, warm lake reflections or blue markings on crockery. Ultramarine is also useful for painting bluish casts found in snow.

Painting Violet Colours Adding a little permanent rose to ultramarine will further tilt this blue to violet. With a little white, this will result in the ideal colour found near the horizon of clear, sunny skies. This bluish-violet can also be used for certain flowers such as wisteria, pansies or petunias. Cool Blues in Art The cool blue will have a greenish cast. A common choice for this is pthalo blue, cerulean, monestrial or manganese. Pthalo blue is an ideal counterpart for mixing cool, wintry skies, denim or irises. Having a greenish cast, these blues are also a good blue counterpart for obtaining crisps greens. The addition of a little viridian will tilt this blue further into green, ideal for bluish foliage or pine trees in mist. How to Darken Blue So with the colour temperature of the blue defined, the next consideration is tone. Of course, blue can always be lightened by the introduction of white. But darkening blue is not so simple. Adding black will create dirty greys. Adding blue’s complementary colour is a better option. Any colour in the red spectrum can be used for deepening blues.

Cadmium red will darken blue almost to black, ideal for the bases of storm clouds or for the shadows of slate. How to Paint Deep Blues Objects perceived to be blue often possess other colours. Blue fruit such as blueberries and grapes for instance contain a fair amount of violet and earth colours. Earth colours are vital for tempering blues if the object is not shocking blue. Burnt umber is great for tempering pthalo blue if painting someone’s eyes. This earth colour has a cool cast, retaining much of the blue’s quality. Mixing pthalo blue with a little burnt umber makes Prussian blue or indigo unnecessary. Burnt sienna mixed with ultramarine results in lovely silvery hues that can be found in mist or summer shadows cast over tarmac roads. Essential Blues for the Artist’s Palette As can be seen, the artist does not need lots of blue pigments to obtain a multitude of blues. French ultramarine and pthalo blue form the two blue counterpoints: warm and cool. Other blues the artist may find useful are cerulean, cobalt and manganese. Monestrial is a lovely rich, greenish blue but is no longer widely available.

Permanent rose and cadmium red will darken blue; burnt umber burnt sienna will temper blue for smoky effects if mixed with white or almost black.

Question: What colour is the artist's colour called cerulean ?
Answer: Blue