Color theory - Fundamentals of visual arts

The color wheel is a fundamental tool in color theory. Students should understand the primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), secondary colors (orange, green, and purple), and tertiary colors (red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, etc.). The color wheel illustrates the relationships between these colors and serves as a basis for color mixing and harmonization.

In this course students also practice on three essential characteristics of color: hue (the name of the color), value (the relative lightness or darkness of a color), and chroma (the purity or intensity of a color). Understanding these properties is crucial for color manipulation and control. They also explore different color schemes, such as complementary, analogous, triadic, split-complementary, and monochromatic. Understanding how to use these schemes effectively allows for the creation of harmonious and visually pleasing color combinations.

Practices in this course guide students to recognize the distinction between warm colors (e.g., reds, oranges, yellows) and cool colors (e.g., blues, greens, purples). These concepts are essential for setting the mood and atmosphere in artwork.

Learning how to create harmonious color combinations involves understanding concepts like color harmony, color temperature, and color contrast. This knowledge allows students to convey specific emotions and messages through color. Also, understanding how to create tints (lighter versions of a color) and shades (darker versions of a color) is vital for controlling value and achieving a three-dimensional effect in art.

students learn to consider how color plays a role in the overall composition of their work. Through making a piece of art, they explore how to use color to create focal points, guide the viewer's eye, and set the mood of the artwork.

By studying and practicing these structures and concepts in color theory, students can build a strong foundation for effectively using color in their artwork and develop their own artistic voice.

MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT
 

Students are encouraged to spend time outdoors and observe the colors in the natural world taking note of the colors they see in landscapes, flowers, plants, animals, and the changing colors of the sky. They can capture those colors by taking photographs, sketching, or collecting color samples from nature creating a color journal to document their observations.

One of the main practices in this course is analyzing the collected colors and identifying the different hues, saturations, and values. This practice is helpful for paying attention to how natural lighting affects colors and values. The purpose of this practice is to mix colors that match the hues and values students observed in nature in order to replicate the colors in reference materials as closely as possible. The other aspect of this practice is enhancing glazing and layering techniques to create complex and rich colors. This involves applying transparent layers of color to modify and enhance existing hues and values.

Ultimately, students learn to apply newfound knowledge of color mixing to their artwork. This knowledge is a support for creating vibrant and realistic depictions of the natural world while incorporating your unique artistic expression.

Actively observing and studying colors in living nature and then applying the observations to hands-on color mixing practice, students are able to develop a deep appreciation for the relationships between colors and values. This process will improve their ability to create harmonious and visually captivating artwork that accurately represents the beauty of the natural world.

 MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT