Basic Color Theory & Techniques

yunno color circles are great for giving you certain understanding of contrasts…but they suck when it comes to helping you create an actual color you want.
for that the color grid is what you want.
I remember I wanted to make an emerald green and couldn’t out of the oil paint tubes I had. well I could but couldn’t figure out the right ratio of x paint with y paint…so I looked at my color grid and made emerald green in a heartbeat. when before it was taking me 4ever with no success.

I would recommend Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils if you’d like a change of pace. They’re oil-based, and it’s like coloring with butter…so smooth!

http://cdn1.cheapjoes.com/806878/magento/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/g/mgps-738-set-9.jpg

Here’s Marco Mazzoni and Jennifer Healy; they both use Poly’s in their drawings (search them up):

I learned it via the Munsell Color Chart back in Design I. I teach HS Art btw. I also taught MS and ES levels in the past; I agree that Neesa breaking it in simply terms helps a bit for beginners to grasp.

It was a bitch gluing all of the colors down lol…but it was worth it.

Neesa covered pretty much most of the color theory stuff. I’d talk about color psychology too (why some colors just work together, or pleasing to the eye).

Thanks @Neesa, finally getting around to reading over this.

Oh man. Oil based? I might have to give those a shot, f’sure. After I learned how to use oil, I fell in love with that medium. Biggest downer is drying times, but, I love how forgiving it is.

Thanks for the suggestion!

I remember doin a paper on color psychology. It’s really interesting stuff and really does play a part on the piece overall. Not just for an aesthetic value, but for emotional and mental value.

Also, I had a period when I was just working in black and white with a color accent. Normally red. Might have to try that for this as some examples but use different colors… Hm.

Get “Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney” if you’re interested in color theory. Also get “How to render by Scott Robertson”… his latest book not the earlier ones.

When I look at this, it goes (clockwise) red, orange, green, light green, yellow, light green, green, turqoise, pinkish blue, dark blue, purple, fuschia.

I can’t pass an ishihara plate test to save my life.