This course is designed to get you excited about COLOR. Whereas traditional color classes have you paint color charts—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.”

VALUE is always the most important element of color in two dimensional art. Learning to see and understand value is paramount. Let’s make sure we all understand the term VALUE as it is key to understanding color. Watch this short slide presentation.

The next stop on our road down the color path is to visit Intensity also known as Saturation or Chroma—it is the relative brightness or dullness of a color. A Cadmium Red Light straight from the tube is a “High Chroma” color with “High Intensity.” The best way to make any color more neutral is to add its complement, the color directly across from it on the color wheel.

Every color has a temperature, either WARM or COOL. And all colors have a warm and cool version of their hue. We refer to color charts for visual reference in this class while completing projects in this class.

Analogous colors are colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. Typically about 4 colors next to each other. Restricting your palette in this way can create beautifully harmonious paintings, and as a student of color theory, you can learn a lot by limiting your palette as well.

This class explores the definitions of HIGH KEY (refers to a painting that is created mostly with light values and very few or no darks) and LOW KEY (refers to a painting that is created mostly with dark values and very few or no lights). Different paint products and their effect on results is also discussed.

Upon completing these Projects you are well on your way to “Owning” your colors! Even if you have only completed a few, each one is designed to help further your understanding of color and to help you develop your mixing skills and color knowledge.