Do you want to know how to improve your art and design skills?
or how to analyze a work of art like a true critic?
The secret to this is the visual elements. There are seven of them line, shape, pattern,
tone, form, texture, and colour. Today we are going to focus on colour. Our choice of colours
and the way we use and combine them has a huge influence on the art and design that we create,
used correctly colour can create visual impact, draw our attention and provoke emotion.
Ever wondered how designers and artists find the perfect colour combinations?
They use colour theory. To understand colour theory the best place to start
is the colour wheel. In 1666 Isaac Newton mapped the colour spectrum onto a circle
creating the first colour wheel. The colour wheel is the basis of colour theory because it shows
the relationships between colours. We start with the primary colours they are red,
yellow and blue. These colours cannot be made from any other colour, yet we can create almost
any colour using them. Roy Lichtenstein often used primary colours in his works, in this silkscreen
print the use of bright red, blue and yellow make a striking image that stands out to the viewer.
Secondary colours are made by mixing equal amounts of primary colours together so
for example blue and red make purple.
Yellow and red make orange yellow and blue make green.
A tertiary colour is made by mixing primary colours and secondary colours
together.
There are lots of different names for these colours,
and people often have different names for the same colours.
When in doubt it's often best to use the other colours to describe them. #For example,# this
colour here could be called turquoise but it could also be called blue-green or green-blue
In this painting called "Woman with Parasol"
Paul Signac creates a vibrant, vivid image by using pure contrasting tertiary colours,
that is tertiary colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel
The 12 part colour wheel can be split in half into sections of six. Six warm colours and six
cool colours. Warm colours remind us of things that are warm, the most obvious being fire.
The warm colors are orange, red and yellow. Cool colours remind us of things
associated with cold or the absence of heat such as ice. The cool colours are blue,
green and purple, for example Monet's use of lots of blue in this painting
makes the scene feel cold reminding us of that cold winter feeling.
Have you ever heard the phrase green with envy? if you have you'll probably already
know that colour can be used to communicate our emotions. Artists and designers have been doing
this for centuries to make us feel a certain way or to communicate their own feelings.
Colour is very subjective and how you interpret colour can depend on your personality or the
culture you grew up in. Let's take the colour red as an example. The colour red can have many
different meanings, often we associate red with danger it is the colour of blood and as a colour
it grabs our attention. Red is used all over the world for warning signs and to tell us to stop
however it can also have positive associations. In the west we associate red with strong emotions
like love passion and anger. The colour red is everywhere on valentine's day,
on top of that we also see red as a festive colour, the colour of Christmas and Santa Claus.
On the other hand in eastern countries like China, red is associated with luck, long life and
happiness and it's often the colour traditionally worn by brides on their wedding day. Ok, we're
nearly there just a few more key words the first is hue. Hue is the name of the actual colour,
so the colour in its purest form, so red is a hue, green is a hue, yellow is a hue you get the idea.
Now there are also some colours we have not covered yet, and you have probably noticed
them off to the left-hand side. We've got black, I've made that mixed up some grey,
we've got some white as well. These are neutral colours, we use neutral colours to change
the colour without changing its hue. So by adding black or white
we can change the value or the lightness of a colour. When adding white it's called a tint.
so pink is a tint of red. When we add black to a colour it's called a shade.
You can see that these two are still red they are still the same
hue but we've got a lighter version now and a darker version of it but it's still
a form of red. Saturation is about the brightness or dullness of a colour,
so the red here is a very saturated red. It's very clearly a purer red it's very hard to make
a color more saturated but we can very easily make it duller by either adding gray
or by adding the opposite colour on the colour wheel.
So for red the opposite colour would be green,
again you can see that these are still the same red but they are less red
there's less red in it it's less saturated.
This painting of a sunrise by Claude Monet is an excellent example of saturation
the sun has been painted with really strong saturated colour
which makes it stand out really brightly against the dull grey colours of the background.
Over the next week try looking out for the different ways artists and designers use colour
you could even try making your own colour wheel. Don't worry you don't have to use paint like I did
you can use almost anything! If you've enjoyed this video make sure you let me
know by giving it a thumbs up, don't forget to subscribe and thanks for listening.