Art 100:
Introduction to Art History

Lectures/Color

• Overview

• Color Basics

• Color & Contrast

• Itten's Contrast

• Color Combinations

• Gallery

Color and Light Color is the perceptual characteristic of light described by a color name. Specifically, color is light, and light is composed of many colors - those we see are the colors of the visual spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Objects absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others back to the viewer. We perceive these wavelengths as color.
	History of the Color Wheel Click here to see a painter's color wheel.

Describing colors

Color has three properties

• Hue (Name, ex., red)

• Intensity, also known as chroma or saturation( the opposite of intensity is desaturation, meaning faded out)

• Value refers to the relative light or darkness of a color. Colors are recognizeable in a full range of values. For instance "red" can be identified as everything from palest pink to darkest maroon. In addition hues all have what we refer to as their normal value. We normally think of yellow as being light. By contrast, we normally think of maroon as being dark. This is true even though each has it's full range of values. A color darker than a hue's normal value is known as a shade. One that is lighter is known as a tint.

Terms for describing color groupings

Primary colors are the basic colors cannot be made by mixing other colors.		Secondary Colors are made by mixing two primaries.
Complementary colors are located on opposite sides of the color wheel.		Monochromatic colors are variations in shade and tint of the same hue.
Analogous colors are located close together on the color wheel.

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