Color terminology

February 20, 2019

As part of my ongoing in-depth study of color, I’m reading about color trying to learn more about color theory as well as working physically with pigments and color mixing.

One of the color books that I’m reading is the text for a color course, Color: A workshop for artists and designers by David Hornung. I found the first few chapters fascinating and chalk-full of helpful details. It is also a great refresher on some of the basics, including color terminology.

Following are some of the basics which are good as a refresher plus some new points that stood out to me.

• Mixing colors using light (as on screens) is an additive process.

• Mixing physical pigments is a subtractive process.

• Complementary hues are colors across each other in color wheel.

• Saturation refers to the richness of a color.

• Value is the luminosity, the lightness or darkness of a color (light, medium, dark, etc).

• Overtone is the direction toward which a color leans (warm or cool). For example, a Sky blue is cool and tends toward green, so it’s a blue with green overtones.

• Hue refers to a color name (red, blue, etc)

• Tints are colors lightened with white.

• Shades are colors darkened by adding black.

• Muted color is the dulling of a hue.

• Chromatic Gray is the a gray version of a color. For example, a gray tending toward pink is a chromatic gray of a red hue.

• Achromatic Gray is completely neutral. A gray with no color.

• A Monochromatic color palette refers to a group of colors extending from only one hue.

• Analogous colors are colors that are next to each other on a color wheel. For example, red, orange and yellow are analogous.

• Triadic colors are three colors that are equidistant from each other on the color wheel. For example, the primary colors, red, blue and yellow are a triadic colors.

• Color range is how wide or narrow the colors in a grouping range on a color wheel. As in wide, analogous, or narrow range color palettes.

• For vivid mixed colors: To create vivid secondary colors pick two colors that tend toward the target color. So select a warm red and warm yellow to produce a warm orange. Or cool blue and cool yellow to produce a cool green.
  It’s good to have six colors in a color palette.

• A co-primary triad is a palette with one of each color tending toward cool and warm.

• When mixing violet consider using commercial violet, as you get a clearer, more vivid hue than you can get from mixing it.

• Color is influenced by its light source:

  • Incandescent light leans toward warm side.

  • Fluorescent lights produce light that’s cool.

  • Most interestingly, warm colors appear more rich under incandescent lighting but will appear dull under fluorescent lights. Fascinating!

If you want to learn more about this color mixing project that I’m working on, you can read more details starting with this post on color, my research and how I decided to embark on Richard Schmid’s recommended color mixing project from Alla Prima. Continue reading subsequent posts for additional details and finding.

Also, you can read more on what I’ve learned in color theory in this post about how the Impressionists used color.