An Introduction to COLOR THEORY by Lawrence Montgomery George Washington High School All graphics by Lawrence Montgomery©

Color is one of the most expressive elements because its quality affects our emotions directly and immediately. - In representational art, color serves to identify objects and to create the effect of illusionistic space Orange Bowl and Yellow Apples 1980, Oil on canvas Janet Fish

Red, Yellow & Blue

Roy LICHTENSTEIN ( ) Untitled 1974 Silkscreen 82/ cm x 90 cm Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art Primary color scheme

When you mix a primary color with a primary color next to it on the color wheel you get a secondary color. Red+Yellow=Orange Yellow+Blue=Green Blue+Red=Violet

To achieve Tertiary Colors you mix the primary & secondary colors next to each other on the color wheel.

Warm and cool color schemes Warm colors Cool colors

Henri Fantin-Latour French, Still Life, 1866 oil on canvas, 62 x 74.8 cm (24 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington Local color (objective color)

Subjective color Subjective colors are when the colors do not represent the actual local color. Marlyn Andy Warhol Silk screen print

Poplars on the Banks of the River Epte, Sunset Claude Monet, 1891 The Athenaeum Local or subjective?

Andy Warhol Elvis I and II 1964 silkscreen on acrylic, on aluminum x cm Complementary Color scheme Complementary colors: colors opposite each other on the color wheel Red/GreenOrange/BlueYellow/Violet

Conditioned color & atmospheric conditioning- colors appear more intense in the foreground and have a lesser value in background Conditioned color & Neutralized Color

Neutralized color - color intensity is neutralized by adding its complement or a neutral color, white, black or grey. Conditioned color & Neutralized Color

Local color: the actual color of an object Tonal color: the color variations that result from the effects of light and shadow. Reflected color -any object you look at is influenced by the color of the environment. These colors are reflections of surrounding objects. Local Color Reflected Color Tonal Color

Atmospheric conditioning Neutralized colors The Wolf River, Kansas Albert Bierstadt c.1859 Oil on canvas 48 1/8 x 38 1/8 inches (122.5 x 97.1 cm) The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, USA Warm color scheme

Color evokes mood Cool color scheme Pablo Picasso, The Tragedy, 1903, oil on wood, x.690 m (41 7/16 x 27 3/16 in.), National Gallery of Art, Washington,

Light intensity - a color appears lighter when the color around it is darker Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio Madonna dei Palafrenieri (1605) oil on canvas cm. 2,92x2,11 Borghese Gallery

Liubov Popova Sitzender weiblicher Akt, 1914, Oil on canvas 106 x 87 cm Museum Ludwig Analogous Colors Analogous Colors – colors that have ‘neighboring’ hues, contain one common color from the color wheel.

Warm or cool color scheme? Paul Cezanne Landscape, 1900 Oil on canvas h62.2 cm, w 51.5 cm Analogous or complementary color schemes?

Georges Seurat French, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 Oil on canvas x 308 cm Optical color mixtures are when the artist depends on the eye to mix the colors.

Local color? Chuck Close Lyle, 2002 Chuck Close (American, born 1940) 147-color silk screen 65 1/2 x 53 7/8 in. Edition of 80 Optical color mixture Complementary color scheme?