INTRODUCTION

About This Course

I am here to get you excited about COLOR. The “Projects” in this course are designed to get you to learn about color theory by doing, by painting. Traditional color classes may have you paint color charts which, although a brilliant way to learn about color, can be tedious and mind-numbing. In this course we will start with the basics of Value, Intensity and Color Temperature and learn about these important properties by exploring their qualities in various “Projects.” Each lesson builds upon the one before as we develop and strengthen our color sense and knowledge. ”Owning Your Colors” means understanding colors and their properties so that you can control them at will. 

Each Project can be created with many different approaches. I encourage you to adapt any Project to your own creative interest according to your skill level. I provide links to my Pinterest boards in each class with examples of paintings using the concepts described. These will also provide inspiration for new ways of approaching your work.

Learning to see color as well as mixing what you see can take time and practice. Be patient with yourself. And paint lots. That is by far the best way to learn. Now join me on the path down the road of color and let's have some fun!  

Important Color Terms

PRIMARY COLORS: Red, Blue, Yellow

SECONDARY COLORS:  Orange, Green, Purple

TERTIARY COLORS: Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Violet, Red-Violet, Red-Orange

COMPLEMENTARY COLORS: Colors opposite each other on the color wheel. 

ANALOGOUS COLORS: Colors next to each other on the color wheel. Another way to darken or lighten a color is to add an analogous color.

“TO GREY DOWN A COLOR”: This phrase means to “neutralize” a color or make it less intense. The most common way is to add the color's complement creating a more neutral or “greyed“ version of the original color. There are many additional ways to grey down a color such as adding black or white.

HUE: Basically a color family:  Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Violet, and Orange. Every color is part of one of these color families. Thus, every color has a “hue.”

VALUE: Degree of lightness or darkness of a color. The color (hue) is not important in this definition, just how light or dark it is. (Think of a black and white photo of your painting).

LOCAL COLOR: The true color of an object, as opposed to the way it may appear in certain lighting conditions, at a distance, or in contrast with other colors.

TINT: A color to which white has been added.

SHADE: A color to which black has been added.

CHROMA: The brightness or INTENSITY of a color. Cadmium Red Light (for instance) straight from the tube is an example of high-chroma color.

Subject Matter

Please feel free to select any image provided below for any project, and of course, absolutely feel free to use your own subject matter including abstract work. All of these color principles apply to any two dimensional painting created with oils or acrylic. Also, be sure to mix and match the reference photos at will - you do not have to use the same image that I demonstrate for the same Project. All of these Projects can be created more than once and in different combinations. The more you experiment, the more you will learn!

IMAGES FOR YOUR USE

Click on any image it will open for you to view larger or download as a PDF file.