Art 1

Advancing Colors

(also known as aggressive or warm) Colors that are predominantly composed of red or yellow and seem to visually move forward toward the viewer.

Receding Colors

(also known as passive or cool) Colors that are predominantly composed of blues or greens. Receding colors seem to visually pull back from the viewer.

Split Complementary Colors

A color and the two colors on either side of its complement. A group of three colors that are not equal distance on the color wheel.

Analogous Colors

A color harmony featuring adjacent hues on the color wheel, incorporating no more than one primary color. The group of adjacent colors forms an angle of up to 90 degrees on the color wheel. An example of an analogous color scheme would be using green, blue-green, and yellow-green.

Monochromatic Colors

A grouping of different values of one hue, and which may include achromatic colors. An example would be a color scheme using pink (red+white), mauve (red+gray), red, burgundy (red+black), and/or black, white or gray.

Tetradic Color Harmony

A grouping of four hues which are equidistant on the color wheel.

Triadic Color Harmony

A grouping of three hues which are equidistant on the color wheel. An example would be the primary colors red, blue and yellow. Changing the value does not change the color harmony.

Shade

A hue which has been darkened by the addition of black. E.g., navy is a shade of blue.

Tint

A hue which has been lightened by the addition of white. E.g., pink is a tint of red

Tone

A hue which has been muted by the addition of gray, often resulting in a dull or dusty appearance.

Pigment

A substance used to provide color to paints, dyes, plastics, and other materials.

Gray Scale

A visual aid which represents the transitional graduations of value from white to black, encompassing all the varying degrees of gray.

Neutral Colors

An achromatic color to which a small amount of hue has been added.

Color Harmony

Groupings of specific hues and/or different values of a hue, resulting in a pleasing or useful combination. Color harmonies may display different values of the given hue and still be (i.e. pink and mint green) considered complementary color harmony. White, black and gray -being achromatic, can be legitimately included in any color harmony without disrupting it.

Achromatic Colors

Neutral colors which lack hue: white, black, and any values of gray and they do not appear on the color wheel.

Secondary Colors

Orange, green and violet—are created by mixing two primary colors and are placed in between primary colors.

Primary Colors

Red, yellow, and blue—are spaced equidistantly apart on the color chart and cannot be created by mixing any other colors together.

Tertiary Colors

Red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, yellow-green, and yellow-orange are situated between primary and secondary colors and are made from mixing the two.

Intensity

Reflects the maximum amount of light back to the viewer's eye, and is not mixed with black, white, or gray.

Chroma

The degree of strength, intensity, saturation or purity of a color. If you visualized a painting, it would be the amount of pigment used to mix in the paint to make it a certain color. More pigment would make it brighter; less would make the color duller. Chroma describes the amount of brightness or dullness of a color whereas value describes the amount of black, white, or gray added to the color.

Hue

The descriptive name of color. Hue defines a specific spot on the color wheel. Hues are pure color without black, white, or gray added to them.

Value

The lightness or darkness of a hue, relative to the gray scale, achieved by the addition of black, white, or gray.

Saturation

The measure of the brightness of a color, describing the amount of light reflecting from it. The greater the saturation of color, the higher the chroma.

Color

The visual response of the eye to reflected rays of light.

Color Wheel

Twelve hour color system which was developed by Louis Prang, an American Printer in 1876.

Complementary Colors

Two colors that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Mixing complements can dull or lower the intensity of a color.