My tutor finally let me do a colour wheel... I'm pretty pleased with myself, not least of all because I got to dust off some memories of high school trig to come up with the solution to the age-old question: How DOES one draw an equilateral triangle in the middle of a circle? Ah...without a protractor or a compass?
Answer: First of all, EVERYBODY knows an equilateral triangle is formed of 3 60* angles, and sides of equal length. Length is easy (use a ruler). Then use folded paper to figured out the angles. Here's a tip: The edges of any piece of printing paper form a 90* angle. And who says that artists don't need math!
Anyhoo, here is my nifty colour wheel -- the primary colours in the middle, the secondary colours along the edges of the primary triangle, with the tertiary colours on the outer circle. Notice how OPPOSITE each colour is its complementary colour. :) And now you know why certain colours seem to go so well together, it's because "opposite" colours placed next to each other seem to jive. Something like the "opposites attract" theory ;)
These were great exercises to get me thinking about palettes, say, for a particular painting – do I want to use warm or cool colours to convey not only a subject but a certain mood or emotional state? What colours do I want to blend or use along with other colours in order to give the painting a certain energy or even, calmness. What colours shall I use in order to convey lighting (or shadow)? How shall I use colour to illustrate depth or distance?
All of this is to be considered when developing a painting, not just composition of the objects on the canvas, or perspective, or size. In my opinion, the composition gives a painting strength, and colour gives a painting life.
Live life in colour, I say!
-- kelise72
