Color Theory: Part 2

In the first color theory essay I talked about the primary colors and how magenta is a bit different than the other colors. There is more to color than just what is going on in the rainbow though, and that brings us to the topics of this essay: value and florescence.

Value is an element of design separate from color but very closely related, similar to how shape and line are easily grouped together. Value is where we get the lightness and darkness of a color, and where we find black, white, and gray. So here is an important point: black and white are NOT colors, they are values. It is convenient for us to refer to values like black and white as colors when we are asked what color our car or shirt is, but value and color are two different things.

Color Theory: Part 1

     There are two really important lessons about color that don't seem to be common knowledge:

     1. There are TWO sets of primary colors, and red blue and yellow isn't even one of them.
     2. Magenta is a color we can see but we can not measure it physically.

     It concerns me a bit that I took a color theory class in college for my art degree and neither of these things were mentioned. It concerns me even more that across the world art teachers are telling students the primary colors are red, blue, and yellow, which turns out to be a less than accurate way to explain the color wheel. There are actually two sets of three primary colors, one for additive color and one for subtractive color.

Additive color mixing looks like this: