art assignment color

Color Wheel Project to Teach Color Theory in Elementary Art

Use this color wheel art project to teach color theory to your elementary students. stop by and grab the free, step-by-step lesson to make it easy for them to learn about warm, cool and complementary colors..

If teaching color theory to elementary students sounds like a daunting task, don’t let it keep you from trying. Color wheel project ideas don’t have to be elaborate, or boring either. Don’t get me wrong, coloring in a color wheel is always better than not approaching to subject at all. BUT there is another option that is fun, makes students think, AND creates a beautiful, personal work of art too. This Color Wheel art project idea has been bouncing around on my site for years, first as a simple download, then as a more elaborate ebook with more templates in my PDF Shop. I’m happy to bring it back again as a freebie as I think it really is a great way to teach students about warm, cool and complementary colors. I hope this new post makes it more accessible to even more busy teachers. I first saw the brilliant idea of having a hand intersect with colorful rings years ago, but it was done with hand drawn circles. Knowing what I know about classrooms, I was sure that asking students to draw a page full of concentric circles before they even got started with their project, would slow things down to a crawl. And if the lesson is to learn more about color, how can that happen if they never even get to the coloring stage? My solution is a free ring template for teachers to print so students can just trace their hand and then get right to coloring. The PDF download also includes a step by step tutorial, as there are some directions to follow. The goal is for students to learn that complementary colors make each other look their brightest. So if every ring of warm color is surrounded by a ring of its complementary color, the hand is bound to have the most contrast to the background as possible! P.S. The fancier Warm Hands with a Heart project still lives over in my PDF Shop.

Join “The Daily Draw” below and get this free download

Color Wheel Art Project Coloring Page

Drawing Paper . This is the good stuff you can buy in bulk for a good price.
Pencil . Don’t waste your money on the cheapest brand. These make nice dark lines.
Stabilo Markers . I love this brand! They have amazing color selection and the perfect ends to color with. Not too fat, and not too thin, just right.
Note: All of the above are Amazon affiliate links.

Time needed: 1 hour

Step by Step directions

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Creative Color Wheel

August 13, 2019 8 Comments

Leah Newton Art is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post may include affiliate links, and I may receive a commission when you click on one of these links and make a purchase.

Middle school students will use color theory in this creative color wheel project. Designing individual parts to make a creative whole is so fun! This project covers Common Core Standards for Math for grade 7 which can be found at the end of the lesson.

Grade Level

5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grades- The examples in this lesson are by 7th graders

Objective

In this Creative Color Wheel lesson, students will design a creative color wheel using primary, secondary and tertiary colors.

3 – 60 min lessons

Materials

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple Acrylic Paint. Acrylic Paint – Crayola Washable Kids Paint Set, 10 Count
12×18 Watercolor paper – Canson XL Series Watercolor Textured Paper Pad for Paint, Pencil, Ink, Charcoal, Pastel, and Acrylic, Fold Over, 140 Pound, 12 x 18 Inch, 30 Sheets
Brushes – Acrylic Paint Brush Set, 1 Packs / 10 pcs Nylon Hair Brushes for All Purpose Oil Watercolor Painting Artist Professional Kits
Rulers (yard and foot if possible)
Black – Tru-Ray Sulphite Construction Paper, 12 x 18 Inches, Black, 50 Sheets – 054150

Inspiration/Artist

I was inspired to make this project from this site: Click Here

Instruction with Questions

Show a couple of videos. I like all of these, but depending on what background they have about color theory, you may only need a couple of them. After watching them, have a discussion reviewing what they learned.

Youtube: The Colors Song | The Colours Song | Scratch Garden: Click Here

Beginning Graphic Design: Color: Click Here

Elements of Art: Color | KQED Arts: Click Here

Brain Games – Visible Spectrum: Click Here

Use this Color Theory for kids inspired by Disney PowerPoint Presentation: Click Here

Another idea is to use this color wheel and have them color in the areas with the appropriate color. Click Here for the PDF

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An alternate plan would be to have students cut up magazines to find colors for each area of the template.

Students divide a 12×18 size paper into three sections (4 inches apart each)

Then divide it again. They should have 12 four inch size squares.

In each corner you can see (in the image below) that I had them label each corner with R for Red, RO for Red Orange, O for Orange and so on. It just amazes me that some students will ask me what comes between green and blue. Hmmmm. Anyway, this is a great reinforcement of tertiary colors.

On separate paper plates, I labeled them the same way. Only due to time, and expense, I pre-mixed the colors and set them throughout the room like stations, but I think it is even better when they mix them themselves.

Remind them to make the paint thick but smooth. Sometimes some students went back for a second coat. As you can see from the image below, I encouraged them to leave a bit of white around each edge so the paint did not bleed or mix.

Next, on a blank 4 inch size square, preferably card stock or more watercolor paper, have them draw an image. Now that sounds pretty simple, but it actually will require some practice images first. The main thing they want to do is to make lines and designs in the image. Like a face or in this case the place the hands go on the bat and the lines on the ball. I remind them we are only doing a silhouette. Like a shadow. Only the outline. I remind them to try to fill the paper with the image. In the case of the bat, use the diagonal so the image is as large as possible. It is natural for all of us to draw “small.”

I show the students how to use a window to trace each image exactly. First have them tape their large, dry colored paper to the window with the color facing out, away from them. Then trace the image on the paper. Once they are all traced, they are cut out.

Finally, pass out pre-cut 12×12 size square black construction paper. If I did this project again, I would give them a circle to place in the middle of the paper. It is really hard to find a circle when laying out the pieces. I love the ball and bat – one student did them facing out and another student inverted them. I also love the use of paw prints to add to the design. If you have more advanced students, you could use the scraps to add a complimentary color accent onto each piece.

Here are some finished Creative Color Wheel pieces!

Common Core Standards

7th grade – math – geometry.

Draw, construct, and describe geometrical figures and describe the relationships between them.

Solve problems involving scale drawings of geometric figures, including computing actual lengths and areas from a scale drawing and reproducing a scale drawing at a different scale.
Draw (freehand, with ruler and protractor, and with technology) geometric shapes with given conditions. Focus on constructing triangles from three measures of angles or sides, noticing when the conditions determine a unique triangle, more than one triangle, or no triangle.
Describe the two-dimensional figures that result from slicing three-dimensional figures, as in plane sections of right rectangular prisms and right rectangular pyramids.

Solve real-life and mathematical problems involving angle measure, area, surface area, and volume.

Know the formulas for the area and circumference of a circle and use them to solve problems; give an informal derivation of the relationship between the circumference and area of a circle.
Use facts about supplementary, complementary, vertical, and adjacent angles in a multi-step problem to write and solve simple equations for an unknown angle in a figure.
Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, volume and surface area of two- and three-dimensional objects composed of triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, cubes, and right prisms.

About Leah Newton

February 26, 2021 at 2:29 pm

September 1, 2021 at 2:40 am

I absolutely love this activity! I will be using this with my middle school art class at our homeschool co-op. Thank you!

September 2, 2021 at 11:13 pm

Thank you for the feedback. Let me know how it goes!

September 18, 2021 at 1:49 pm

I teach 5th grade and my group this year is so creative and artistic. I am not an artist and have no artistic talent, but work hard to bring quality art projects to my classes. I have searched everywhere for a creative way to teach color. This project is amazing and thanks for sharing this for teachers like me.❤️

September 19, 2021 at 7:02 pm

I am so excited you found this lesson. I hope your students enjoy it! Let me know how it goes and how else I can support you.

October 5, 2021 at 12:52 am

This is so great! We had a lot of fun with it. I let the kids mix the colours…it was chaotic and stressful for me, but when I focused on their “talk” it was all about the colours, how much of each, no that’s too green, we need more blue…etc. So the kids got a lot out of it. Thanks so much for sharing, I will definitely do this again!

October 5, 2021 at 7:02 pm

I am so glad it was so successful! Let me know how else I can support you. Thank you for reaching out!

January 28, 2024 at 5:34 pm

Nice idea and different from the norm! Thank you for sharing!

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Ultimate Color Theory Lesson Plans and Worksheets e-Workbook

All inclusive color unit, this mega pack includes 7 lesson plans and 20 worksheets, (38 page pdf) save $$$ buying the e-workbook.

ultimate color theory lesson plan and worksheet e workbook

Included in the Ultimate Color Theory e-Workbook:

Intro to Color Theory (NEW) • Introduction to Color Theory Lesson Plan • Color Theory Word Search • Color Theory Crossword Puzzle

Color Wheel • Color Wheel Lesson Plan • Student Worksheet: Color Wheel Worksheet • Color Wheel Poster

Warm & Color Colors • Warm and Cool Colors Lesson Plan (NEW) • Student Worksheet: Warm & Cool colors Worksheet

Value: Tints and Shades • Color Value: Tints and Shades Lesson Plan • 5 Student Worksheets: 1. Tints & Shades Worksheet 2. Tints & Shades Value Scale Worksheet 3. Tints-Alternative Color Mixing Worksheet 4. Shades-Alternative Color Mixing Worksheet 5. High & Low Key Worksheet (NEW)

Color Intensity • Color Intensity Lesson Plan • Student Worksheets: 1. Color Intensity-Mix with COMPLEMENT 2. Color Intensity-Mix with BROWN 3. Color Intensity-Mix with BLACK 4. Color Intensity Worksheet

Color Schemes • Color Schemes Lesson Plan (NEW) • 7 Student Worksheets 1. Color Schemes Overview (now includes Quad Color Scheme) 2. Complementary Color Scheme 3. Analogous Color Scheme 4. Monochromatic Color Scheme 5. Split Complementary Color Scheme 6. Triadic Color Scheme 7. Quad (Tetrad) Color Scheme (NEW)

Color Theory Mixing Chart • Color Theory Mixing Charts Lesson Plan (NEW) • Mixing Chart Worksheet (Pre-labeled) • Mixing Chart Example • Create Your Own –Color Theory Mixing Chart (Blank Chart 1) • Create Your Own –Color Theory Mixing Chart (Blank Chart 2) (NEW)

This purchase is for ONE CLASSROOM ONLY! I kindly ask that you do NOT give this PDF to friends or fellow teachers. Permission is granted to individual teachers or home school parents for use in their classroom or home school setting. Distributing any portion of this PDF is prohibited (outside of individual classroom use).

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Painting with a Monochromatic Palette

Color Scales

On Scale Chart II practice painting color value scales. Instructions here. Do one a day for two weeks. Try to do one each for the primary colors. This exercise is surprisingly difficult to get just right. Try to be neat and don't give up.

Painting with an Intensity Scale

Self portraits.

Self Portrait 2 - Create another self portrait with only colors from any one of the split-complementary color schemes (below)

Warm and Cool Colors

Painting using a triadic palette.

Three Assignments - Create three paintings using a triadic palette. The paintings shall be - 1.still life, 2.landscape, 3.figure painting. You may choose to use any one of the triadic color schemes per painting primary, secondary or tertiary triad.

Triadic Colors

These are the colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel.

Optional Assignment

Finding Color Schemes in Paintings - Look at the color groups below . Look through paintings and try to identify paintings that have a color scheme such as: complementary, split complementary, warm colors, cool colors, monochromatic, primary, secondary, etc.

Color Schemes and Group Terms

Artists can use color groups for their palette to make a visually pleasing color scheme. Analogous Color Scheme uses any three or more colors on the color wheel that have a color in common and are adjacent on the color wheel. See possible example: Edward Hopper - Compartment C, Car 293 Complementary Color Scheme uses colors that are across from each other on the color wheel. See possible example: Vincent van Gogh - Noon: Rest From Work Monochromatic Color Scheme uses one color and all of the tints, tones, and shades of that color.

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A Comprehensive Guide to Color Theory for Artists

Color theory is a body of principles that provide guidance on the relationship between colors and the physiological impacts of certain color combinations.

Color theory is one of the most fundamental areas of painting. The importance of understanding color theory far exceeds simply knowing how to mix colors together (for example, knowing that yellow and blue make green).

As an artist, you do not need to worry yourself about all the complex underlying principles of color theory. Rather, all you need to understand is the general application of color theory and the relationship between colors. Color theory is a fundamental base of understanding for artists and should not be ignored.

Color theory will help you understand the relationship between colors and how we perceive them.

In this post, we will discuss all the major elements of color theory. However, this will only just touch the surface of it. Color theory is an incredibly complex area. Luckily as artists, we only need to know certain elements of color theory that relate to us.

The History of Color Theory

Color theory terms, color temperature – warm versus cool color, color combinations or schemes, the psychology of color theory, idealized views of color, learning color theory as an artist, take the quiz, additional readings, want to learn more, thanks for reading.

Dan Scott, Elora With Christmas Lights, 2024

I’ll walk you through the entire process using one of my recent paintings. You’ll see how I go from idea all the way through to reflecting on the finished painting.

General principles of color theory were evident in the writings of Leone Battista Alberti (c.1435) and the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (c.1490). The first color wheel was developed by Sir Isaac Newton around the start of the 17th century. This color wheel was an arrangement of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet on a rotating disk.

Since the origination of the color wheel by Newton, it has become one of the most powerful tools available to artists for explaining the relationship between colors.

The three primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. The three secondary colors are green, orange, and purple, which are made by mixing two of the primary colors. There are six other tertiary colors.

Using the primary colors, you could mix pretty much any color in the spectrum. This is why a solid knowledge of color theory is so important when it comes to painting and mixing colors. This is also why you should always at the very least have the primary colors on your palette.

Boutet's 7-color and 12-color color circles from 1708

A simple red, blue, and yellow color wheel that you can place next to your easel.

There are a number of color theory terms you will come across in art that are commonly misunderstood and confused.

The term “ hue ” is often used as a simile for the term color. Hue generally refers to the dominant wavelength of color out of the twelve colors on the color wheel (being the primary , secondary, and tertiary colors).

For example, the hue of navy is blue. The hue of burgundy is red. The hue of sap green is green.

The colors below are hues.

Saturation is a measure of how pure a color is. You can reduce the saturation of a color by adding gray or a color on the opposite side of the color wheel (which essentially kills the color).

If you completely de-saturate the color wheel, you are left with the following:

Tone is a widely misunderstood term and many artists are not entirely sure what it means, despite it being used so commonly.

Tone is a broad term used to describe a color that is not a pure hue and is not black or white. In many cases, artists use tone to describe a color that has been grayed down (de-saturated).

Value is how light or dark the color is, on a scale of black to white. Value is widely considered to be one of the most important variables to the success of a painting.

A general rule I like to follow for painting is:

To increase (lighten) the value of a color – add white and/or yellow.
To decrease (darken) the value of a color – add blue, black, and/or raw umber.

Value should be simple to understand, however, the inclusion of color can make it a challenging concept to grasp. You can have different colors which have the same value. If you take color out of the picture, then you will be left with just a range of black to white colors, with black being the lowest and white being the highest value.

This is why drawing is so highly regarded for improving painting ability, as it makes it easier to grasp the concept of value without having to worry about the inclusion of color.

It is widely considered by artists that value is more important than the color used in a painting. This is because value really sets the structure of your painting.

A value scale is below, starting with the highest value (white) to the lowest value (black). Between is basically a grayscale. You can make a colored value scale by adding white to increase the value and black to decrease the value. When you take the color away (de-saturate) the scale should look exactly the same as the value scale below. It is that translation between color and value which is extremely difficult to learn in painting.

High Key Versus Low Key

You will often hear paintings described as being high key or low key. This refers to the overall value scale used in the painting. A high key painting has a high-value scale (light) whilst a low key painting uses a low-value scale (dark).

High or low-key paintings often have a very limited value range. Below is a low key painting by Vincent van Gogh (painted before he found color):

Below is a high-key painting by Claude Monet.

Claude Monet, Grainstacks in the Sunlight, Morning Effect, 1890

Tints and Shades

Put simply, a tint is a color plus white. A shade is a color plus black. You can get a range of tints/shades by adding varying levels of white/black.

TIP: At the moment, these are just words. They have no benefit without application. So I urge you to think of this scenario to put the terms into perspective. Say you have a tube of red paint. Most beginners would think, great, one color to use in my painting. But by adding different amounts of white, black, and gray, you have infinite variations of that color at your disposal. Once I understood this, I really started to see the options that were available to me.

The color wheel is divided into warm and cool colors. When a warm color is placed next to a cool color, there is a very strong contrast. Alternatively, when a cool color is placed next to another cool color (for example, green next to blue), there is a pleasing, harmonious effect. These color combinations are discussed in more detail in the section below.

Warm colors traditionally indicate activity and light. Cool colors, on the other hand, indicate calm, distant, and soothing environments.

White, black, and gray are generally considered neutral colors . I get the most use out of these neutral colors not by using them for what they are, but rather to change the value of my colors. For example, if you have cadmium red on your palette, you can add various amounts of gray to make a range of tones.

At the start of a painting, you should determine whether you want to achieve a warm, cool, or neutral (balanced) feel. When I write neutral, I do not mean just to use white, black, and gray, but rather an equal balance of warm and cool colors.

Learn more:

Color And Light – What Is Color Temperature

There are a number of commonly known color combinations that can be used to evoke certain emotions from the viewer.

Before starting a painting, you should briefly consider your color combination to ensure it aligns with your desired statement of the painting. For example, a complementary color scheme could be used for an aggressive and active scene. Whilst an analogous color scheme could be used for a calm and passive environment.

Here are some of the most well-known color combinations:

Complementary

Complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel. When placed next to each other, there is an extremely strong contrasting and vibrant effect. If overused, your painting may become jarring and uncomfortable to look at.

You should select a dominant color and use the other color as an accent.

A relaxing color combination using colors positioned next to each other on the color wheel. Analogous color combinations were famously used by impressionist artists such as Claude Monet to create beautiful harmonious paintings.

It is often most effective to select one dominant color, a secondary color and a third accent color.

A triadic color scheme uses three colors which are evenly placed around the color wheel. The resulting effect is a vibrant scheme, even with low saturation. It is important to properly balance the colors to not overwhelm the viewer.

Generally, a dominant color is selected and the other two colors are used as accents.

Split-Complementary

This is a variation of the complementary color scheme. In addition to the dominant base color, there are two complementary adjacent colors.

This color scheme is easier to balance than the complementary color scheme and is a great starting point for beginner artists.

Color Schemes in Art

Color has a powerful influence over human behavior, to the extent that it can manipulate your perception of what is actually there.

Here are some colors and their emotional influences:

Red: Passion, love, anger and danger

Orange: Vitality, creativity and activity

Yellow: Energy, light and hope

Green: Health, nature and wealth

Blue: Trust, security and spirituality

Purple: Creativity, royalty and wealth

We can use these psychological triggers to influence how we want the viewer to perceive the painting. If you want the viewer to have a passionate and aggressive response, then you should be utilizing reds and other warm colors. If you want a calming scene, then greens and blues should be utilized.

We all have preconceived ideas of what color an object should be. This idealized view can influence our perception of what is actually there.

If you are painting trees for example, there is a preconceived idea that trees must be green. But that is of course not the case. If you are not careful and do not observe the tree for what it actually is, then you may be drawn towards adding more green than is necessary based on your idealized view of what the tree is supposed to look like.

It is therefore important to paint what you see, not what you think.

Color theory can be incredibly complex, however for artists you only need to understand the general fundamentals of color theory. The best way to learn color theory is to purchase a color wheel or better yet, make your own using your own paints.

Another technique for learning color theory is to mix your own value charts of the twelve colors on the wheel (three primaries, three secondary and six tertiary). You will end up with a range of different values of the same color.

For the value chart, start with your base color, then work your way up in value by adding white (tints) and down by adding black (shades).

You should end up with a range of charts which you can use for later paintings as a reference.

You should also learn how to paint with a limited palette. The fewer paints you have on your palette, the more you will be forced to mix your own colors. This will train your mind as to how the colors relate to each other.

I hope you found this post useful. Color theory is a fascinating area and a fundamental knowledge for all artists.

This post just touches on the surface of color theory as it is an incredibly complex area. However, I encourage you to learn as much as you can about color theory as it will only improve your painting ability.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to add them in the section below.

I put together a simple quiz to test your color knowledge. Click here to take the color theory quiz .

How To Mix Vivid Greens And Why You Must Understand Color Bias

Inspirational Color Quotes By The Masters

The Beauty Of Muted Colors – How You Can Use Muted Colors More Effectively

How The Impressionists Used Complementary Colors To Great Effect

Using An Analogous Color Scheme To Create Harmonious Paintings

You might be interested in my Painting Academy course. I’ll walk you through the time-tested fundamentals of painting. It’s perfect for absolute beginner to intermediate painters.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this post and I hope you found it helpful. Feel free to share it with friends.

Happy painting!

Dan Scott is the founder of Draw Paint Academy. He's a self-taught artist from Australia with a particular interest in landscape painting. Draw Paint Academy is run by Dan and his wife, Chontele, with the aim of helping you get the most out of the art life. You can read more on the About page .

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44 comments on “A Comprehensive Guide to Color Theory for Artists”

Thanks for this Dan, I agree that a little colour theory goes a long way! I advise students to look for opportunities to exploit colour as they go in order to spice up the effect! Nothing like an orange boat floating on a blue sea, or a red cottage nestled in the green grass.

Could not agree more Norm. Great examples!

Thank you so much for this information there is so much to take in for a novice like me but I will keep reading .I’ve just taken painting back up after 10 years then I used watercolours now I’m trying acrylics. It’s going to be a long journey but such an enjoyable one ..thank you again for all your advice you give ?

Hi Lydia! No problem at all glad you liked it. Let me know if you need any help along way 🙂

I want to mirror the compliments. I’ve been looking for different tint options for my dogs, because I make all of their treats. I work with them everyday, and healthy treats are a must in my book!

Although, dogs see differently than humans do, I appreciate getting to play with decorating their treats with healthy options.

Thank you! Thank you for educating us by willingly sharing your knowledge and gifts!

Thank you so much Dan, your advice is so complete and everything I was looking for!

No problem at all Gerbrecht 🙂

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Nice use of graphics in your articles.

Thank you for telling me your knowledge. May I ask a few questions? Will color combination be established regardless of saturation? Also, should I understand that if saturation is low it will have less effect?

Hi there! Saturation will always have an impact on the overall color combination. It is after all an important element of a color. And yes, in general, a color with a low saturation will have less impact than a color with a high saturation.

I am amakeup artist new to the industry. I’m 64 to be exact and picked this as a second career since retired. Have certificate but never really received the color theory I needed to recognize skin n color matching. I hope by rereading this article (a million times) I will finally “get it”. Until then I rely on guess work and just what looks good.

This was a really useful post for me, who tends to have “jelly” colours in painting! The part on choosing warmth and colour triads before beginning was a real lightbulb moment! I usually bang ahead in a fit of enthusiasm for the colour or shape of something I have seen and then paint myself into a colour corner. Thank you for all the great posts.

No problem thanks Suzanne! Dan

Thank you!!!

No problem Antonella!

nice .enjoyed it

Thank you Dan, this was informative and stimulating information.

No problem glad you enjoyed it! Dan

The best example of understand principles of colour I’ve ever come across…thank you Dan Scott

Awesome! Thanks Rina

Such a good lesson… good to save for a reference. Thanks.

Great information. This is clearly written so anyone can understand and more importantly apply the basic principles of colour theory. Thank you.

Great to hear Cat! Thanks, Dan

This helped a lot! THANK YOU DAN SCOTT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!l!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha find the difference in the exclamation marks.

Glad to hear! Thanks, Dan

Thanks, Dan! This is the best explanation of color I have read in a long long time! Everything “clicked”!

That is great Nancy! Happy to know this has helped. Dan

Thank you for this great guide to colour theory. I am experimenting with watercolour painting. To lighten watercolours I dilute them with more and more water. I don’t add white to create my value scale. Is that a correct understanding? Or am I to gray down the yellow using Payne’s grey? In my landscape painting of a town built into and on yellow and grey sandstone, and the houses are made with the same sandstone, I am truly dependent on value to make this a good painting. As a beginner, if I use your Split Complementary technique for yellow ochre which is more of a yellow orange, the split complemetary triangle would be would be yellow green, yellow orange and purple. The roofs of house are more of the red hue so I have to make sure they are red purple for this to work well.. I appreciate your guidance before I give this particular painting up as a novice.

Thanks Sharon! I will send you an email on this separately.

I would like to thank you very much for this great guide to color theory. I am experimenting with watercolor painting. To lighten watercolors I dilute them with more and more water.

Thank you for clarifying the color theory terminology! I’m working in water colors….I’m going to apply this new knowledge…thank you!

Thank you so much for sharing.

Thank you Dan for your generous sharing. There is so much to learn; Visual art it is indeed a long journey.

Good article, very interesting.

Brilliant explanation. I feel I have a solid base to find out more thanks to the clear description. Very much appreciated. One key bit of advice is draw and paint what I see not what I know. Very difficult.

Grazie è stato molto utile.

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Thank you for this post. Very informative and to the point. Thank you.

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beautifully described……………..

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This was very informative! I just had one moment of confusion during the History section. It says Sir Issac Newton developed the first color wheel around the start of the 17th century, but if it was *the* gravity defining Issac Newton, this couldn’t be possible as he was born in 1642, the middle of the 17th century. If it was his father (who shared the same name) it’s more plausible, but I think you just meant to say start of the 18th century (1700s). Otherwise, loved how the information was presented in a digestible way! I like to paint storm scenes and revisiting Color Theory has given me some new inspiration.

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Color Theory In Art: The Definitive Guide for Artists

Last Updated: April 25, 2024

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Color Theory can often seem intimating or just plain confusing.

But it doesn’t have to be…

In this article, you’ll find out how to organize and make sense of this sometimes overwhelming topic.

The concepts, terms, and examples are designed to simplify each point and organized to build from the basics to practical suggestions on using the ideas in your own art.

Definition of Color Theory

Components of color theory, applications of color theory, additive color model theory, subtractive or reductive theory, color vs. hue, warm colors, cool colors, neutral colors, saturation, intensity, and chroma, value (and key), primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, the relationship between hue, saturation, and brightness in color, ryb color wheel model (subtractive), cmyk color wheel model, rgb color wheel model (additive), triadic vs. munsell color wheel, color associations, monochromatic color scheme, analogous color scheme, complementary color scheme, split complementary color scheme, triadic color scheme, tetradic color scheme, famous palettes from history, warm and cool of each hue or color family, different whites, using pre-made black, colorful grays, tips when mixing colors, best books on color and color theory, final touches, what is color theory, and why is it important.

Color Theory is a way of thinking that helps artists and designers look at visual media (websites, advertisements, logos, artwork, etc.) to decide the best use of color to meet the individual project’s goals.

This way of thinking is based on psychology, the science of optics, and historical data. It helps creators understand how most people respond to color combinations in specific situations. If you want viewers to react emotionally to your art, it will help to understand these concepts.

Color Theory is made up of:

Relationships between color and light waves.
How colors are created.
How humans respond to color and why.
How the effects of color change with the environments or contexts in which they are found.

Before you as an artist can use color theory effectively, you must understand how each of these components works when taken into consideration together.

Color theory can be used to influence people’s emotions to help enhance the mood of a painting, like Picasso’s Blue Period paintings.

Using lots of blues can make people sad or melancholy.

Color is also effective for getting attention. In this artwork by Cezanne, the blues, greens, and browns give a feeling of peace and calmness.

Words You Need to Understand

Before getting into the details of color theory for artists, some terms must be understood.

The additive theory is used by digital artists for electronic displays on computers, TVs, or other devices.

The primary colors of this theory are Red, Green, and Blue (RGB), which, when added together, create white light. It is called the additive theory because when you add the 3 primaries, you get the presence of white light.

The reductive theory is used by painters and artists who work with hand-applied colors.

The primary colors of this theory are Red, Yellow, and Blue (RYB); the primary colors most of us learned in school.

This theory is called reductive or subtractive because, theoretically, when you combine the right proportions of each primary, you will get black or the appearance of the absence of light.

Hue is the foundation color or color family; These hues make up the twelve Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary “colors”- Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, Purple, Green, Yellow-orange, Red-orange, Red-purple, Blue-purple, Blue-green, and Yellow-green.

For example, Yellow-green is often referred to as Chartreuse.

Individual Colors are based on one of the twelve primary, secondary, and tertiary hues (see the basic color wheel).

Different Color Wheel Primary Colors?

“I thought the primary colors were Red, Yellow, and Blue. What’s this about Green being a primary color?”

As mentioned in the glossary under Primary Colors, there are different primary colors depending on the form the visual media takes.

Red, Yellow, and Blue are the primary colors that most visual, fine artists use to create all the other colors they may need for a painting, drawing, or ceramics glaze.

These three colors fall into the subtractive theory and cannot be made by mixing other colors. When combined in different proportions, any two of these primaries will create a secondary color.

Secondary colors combined with their adjacent primary colors on the color wheel will produce tertiary colors. This RYB Color Wheel is often referred to as the Triacic Color Wheel and is used for most artworks that are not digital or created with an ink printer.

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). This is also a subtractive theory since adding all the colors will theoretically give you black.

It is based on the Munsell color wheel (discussed below) and is primarily used for ink cartridges printers.

Red, Green, and Blue are the primary colors of the additive theory since adding all three will give you white light.

As mentioned in the Words You Need to Understand section above, this theory and primary set of colors are used in digital displays.

The history of the color wheel and the differences between each color wheel (Newton, Harris, Geothe, Munsell, Triadic, etc.) is far beyond the scope of this article.

The Triadic color wheel is used for fine artists, the Munsell color wheel is used for graphics art such as printing, and the additive RGB wheel is used for digital displays on electronic devices.

How Colors Affect Each Other

The interpretation of color and its effects are not uniform or standardized. For example, due to its green foundation, a Yellow-green Chartreuse may appear cool when painted onto a pure white canvas.

Still, it may be interpreted as a warm color when surrounded by pure blue.

The following is just a brief introduction to some of the ways color effects can be manipulated.

Context means the environment in which the color or color combinations are found and the conditions under which the color is viewed.

We perceive colors because when light hits paint on a canvas or pencil on paper, all the colors in the ray of light are absorbed by that color, except the color we see.

For example, when light hits a red spot of paint, the yellow and blue are absorbed by the area while the Red is reflected back to our eye, so we perceive the spot as red.

This isn’t as simple when many colors are next to each other on the surface. The reflected light from each color mixes with the reflected light from all the different colors surrounding it, causing these reflections to mix to some degree and change how we perceive the colors, either in value, intensity, color, or all three.

For this reason, some artists cut a small hole in a piece of paper when trying to match a color from a reference photo or painting.

Placing the paper over the reference so the hole only shows the color to be matched allows the artist to only see the reflection of that color which allows it to be matched more easily.

Color harmony refers to the use of color combinations in a way that makes them feel natural together.

We are used to seeing certain colors together in nature while other colors paired together are not so common and feel unnatural. This will make more sense in a moment when we discuss Color Schemes.

Selecting colors that fit naturally together can add a sense of calm, stability, or predictability.

Colors rarely seen together in natural environments or synthetic colors not found in organic substances, like neon, can cause discord or chaos. Soft greens and yellows with a spot of hot pink may make you feel uneasy.

This is not to say you shouldn’t use clashing colors; you need to understand how they affect the viewer to use them effectively.

Suppose you wanted to focus the viewer on a specific part of a painting full of soft greens and yellows. In that case, add a dash of hot pink in that spot to create a focal point for their attention.

How Color Affects Us Subconsciously

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Artists, designers, and filmmakers understand color has the potential to communicate volumes to audiences in a simple, primal, and non-verbal way. In movies, the themes and plots can be enhanced with color to make the messages more robust than relying only on dialogue to drive the plot.

Think of the painting The Scream by Edvard Munch.

The face shows emotions of terror, but imagine how less effective the painting would be if the colors were less intense and more realistic. The heavily saturated oranges and blues are opposites, so they scream chaos and disharmony (pun intended).

Warm and cool colors are only warm colors or cool colors based on the other colors around them. Becuase of this, color associations can change.

For example, cool colors like blue violet, can be cool if placed next to yellow or warm if placed next to green.

Below are a few commonly accepted associations for some basic colors. Remember, the context has much to do with how people interpret the color.

Blue: Cold, calm, seclusion, depression, sadness
Green: Nature, growth, life, ominousness, progress, material value
Yellow: Sickness, madness, caution, naivete, immaturity, timidness
Orange: Warmth, friendliness, happiness, outgoing, nourishment
Red: Love, passion, danger, power, anger, violence
Purple: Royalty, mysticism, fantasy, eroticism, prosperity, lack of inhibition

Nowhere is color studied or used more for psychological effects than in marketing. Hundreds of thousands of controlled surveys and experiments have been conducted to determine how color can manipulate and drive consumer behavior.

Packages are often brightly colored and use a color scheme to grab people’s attention and help products to stand out among countless other products on the same shelf.

If you want to “sell” the concepts of your art or want to force an emotional reaction from the viewer, using color effectively can be a powerful tool.

Color Schemes

Color Schemes are generalized pairings of hues or colors that have proven to work successfully together to create specific effects in visual media. Some people refer to these schemes as color palettes.

Think of a color combination template that you can apply to your preferred palette of colors to create a desired mood or encourage a particular interpretation from the viewer.

Below is a description of the most common color schemes used in art and design.

Monochromatic works use one hue in different shades to create the artwork . The painting, drawing, or design would be predominantly all Blue-green with subtle variations of tints, shades, and tones by adding white, black, or gray.

A monochromatic color scheme like this might communicate drudgery, sterility, or depression.

A painting with analogous colors would utilize 3 hues next to each other on the color wheel. The example above is using the analogous colors of orange, yellow, and green.

Usually, artists will choose one of the 3 colors to be dominant, and the 2 other colors next to it in the color wheel on either side would be used in lesser amounts.

An analogous color scheme can be used to create a mood of harmony, naturalness, or safety because analogous colors are so closely related.

Artworks using a complementary color scheme are made with 2 dominant colors. One color is often chosen as the dominant one. Its opposite, or complement, which can be found directly across from it on the color wheel, is used in a slightly smaller proportion.

The example above uses the complementary colors of yellow and purple.

The main pairings of complementary colors are orange and blue, purple and yellow, and red and green.

Since any complement pairs will include all 3 primaries (i.e., orange-blue is red + yellow and blue), you can use other colors in the artwork, but usually in much smaller amounts than the 2 dominant colors.

Complementary color schemes still have some harmony (opposites attract). However, complementary colors create a bit of tension which creates interest.

In split complementary color schemes, artists will again pick one dominant color. Still, this time, instead of choosing its opposite, they choose the 2 colors on either side of the opposite. For example, instead of blue and orange, it would be blue and red-orange, and yellow-orange.

The example above uses the split complementary colors of purple, yellow green and yellow orange.

Split complementary works still have contrast, but it tends to be slightly more subtle than the complementary colors scheme. You might use this scheme to casually suggest a hint of caution.

To create a triadic color scheme, imagine an equilateral triangle drawn inside the color wheel with each triangle point resting on a color. You will either end up with the 3 primary colors, the 3 secondary colors, or 3 tertiary colors (notice there are 2 sets of potential groupings of tertiary colors).

The painting above is using the triadic colors purple, orange and green.

One color should be dominant, as with all the color schemes (except monochromatic).

Triadic color schemes often portray a sense of stability and balance. Even though 1 color is dominant, adding the other 2 colors makes the work feel more stable, yet complex, psychologically.

A tetradic color scheme is also called a double complementary color scheme. If you choose one dominant color, skip over the color next to it (in either direction) to a color 2 spaces away, you then cross the color wheel from each of the 2 original colors to find their complements.

In the image above, you can see the tetradic colors of green, indigo, orange and red.

Artworks using the tetradic color scheme will feel more complex. The work will appear busy because you are focusing on 4 colors instead of 3, as in the other schemes. You may use this to emphasize the bustle of a busy city street.

Anders Zorn was a Swedish artist well-known to oil painting enthusiasts but largely unknown to the general public. He used a palette limited to just 4 colors.

Such a limited palette would be extremely challenging for novices and intermediates. Still, for advanced artists, the 4 colors Vermillion (substituted with Cadmium Red in modern times), Flake White (Titanium White is the contemporary substitution), Ivory Black, and Yellow Ochre present some advantages.

With only 4 colors to manage, it is easier for artists to travel or paint outdoors on location. Still, more importantly, it creates a sense of harmony in each painting and the artists’ entire portfolio. Using many pre-made colors in one artwork can make the painting feel artificial and disjointed.

The disadvantage is that when mixing colors with this palette, it is easy to create dull colors, often called “mud.”

You might notice the absence of blue because Ivory Black (as with most blacks) has a blue tint, so creating purples and greens is still possible.

The palettes of some other famous painters can be found below.

John Singer Sargent: Flake White, Mars Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Vermilion, Mars Red, Madder Deep, French Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, Viridian, Emerald Green, Ivory Black, Raw Sienna, and Mars Brown.

Pierre August Renoir: Flake White, Cobalt Blue, Viridian, Dutch Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light, Naples Orange, genuine Cadmium Vermilion Red Light, and Alizarin Crimson.

Rembrandt Van Rin: Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Ochre, Kassel Earth, Azurite, Lead White, Lead-tin Yellow, Vermillion, Smalt, Carmine, Madder, and Bone Black.

Choosing and Using a Palette of Colors

All this information may make it easier or harder for you to choose a set of colors or what artists call their palette. Below are some tips to help you apply the information above to your work.

warm and cool of each hue or color family

A useful strategy is selecting a warm and cool of each primary color plus a white.

Your choice of white can influence the mixtures of other colors. Zinc White is cooler, Titanium White is more neutral, and Foundation White has a warm cast.

Most pre-made blacks have a cool cast or tone, whereas making your own blacks with combinations like Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson, and Raw Umber allows you to control the temperature to warm, cool, or neutral.

Mixing white with pre-made blacks will make gray, but many artists “liven up” their grays by creating their own black (mentioned above) to mix with white.

You can add very small amounts of a complementary color to make your original color less intense or saturated. The more of the complementary color you add, the grayer it will become.

You can play with these techniques to control the temperature of your grays to make them cooler or warmer to match the mood or temperature of your painting.

Some tips will help you be more effective when mixing paint , regardless of which colors you select for your palette.

Use a non-absorbent tool like a palette knife to mix your paint. Clean this tool well before picking up a new color.
Add tiny amounts of darker or stronger colors into the lighter, weaker ones. If you try to make Green by adding yellow to blue, you will have to use a lot more yellow to get the Green you want than if you add little dabs of blue into the Yellow.
Use the same color palette as the color of the surface you will paint on. Some artists use a glass palette and slide a piece of colored paper under the glass that corresponds to the dominant color of the canvas (see the section How Colors Affect Each Other above).
·Avoid using more than 3 colors in one mixture to avoid creating “dead” colors.

There is no substitution for experimentation when learning about color theory as it applies to painting or other forms of art or design. However, reading tips and tricks from experts and seeing examples of what they look like in practice can make experimentation more efficient and enjoyable.

Here are some helpful books to explore.

The best book on color I have seen is Color Harmony in Your Paintings by Margaret Kessler.

It is effective because it is written in simple-to-understand terms yet detailed enough to keep advanced artists engaged. There are plenty of examples with great images to illustrate each concept. It’s one of the best oil painting books available, but its lessons apply to any medium.

Color by Betty Edwards : A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors is a good book for beginners looking to understand the basics of color.

A great book for practical applications is Color Theory : An essential guide to color-from basic principles to practical applications by Patti Mollica.

For more advanced artists willing to wade through complex material, Interaction of Color: 50th Anniversary Edition by Joseph Albers gives university-level content on color theory.

This article is packed with useful information on color theory for artists. Don’t feel bad if you need to read it several times to absorb all the facts, concepts, and advice.

To learn more about art concepts like this, check out this article ranking the top art courses online .

If video is your preferred medium of learning more about color and how to use it effectively, try this Color Theory Bootcamp Course from New Master’s Academy.

How to Mix Paint Colors Like a Pro (Ultimate Mixing Guide)
What is Color Harmony In Art and How Do You Use It?
Oil Color Chart Exercises for Artists (Master Your Paint Pallette)
27 Easy Monochromatic Painting Ideas
Oil Painting for Beginners: How to Paint With Oils

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Color theory: a complete set of lessons for art students

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Teaching color theory and color mixing in color wheels with watercolor paints is always an exciting thing to start with when introducing paints to your Middle School students so in this blog post, I will provide you with a simple yet effective art lesson to get your class exploring art making mediums with simple strategies to create an art project featuring an expressive hand artwork that also doubles as a color wheel. Read on to find the steps for creating and th e full art lesson and downloadable PDF lesson plan and worksheets.

Materials and Hook for the Art Lesson

For this art lesson, you will need two art mediums and two pieces of paper. First, you need Permanent Maker or black colored pencil and Watercolor paints. As well, you will need white paper and a choice colored piece of paper (preferably something thicker such as card stock or cover stock paper)

Begin the lesson with hooking your students on the lesson . You can click here and follow the full video art lesson and create an example to show your students or you can start off with a classroom discussion and ask them a question: “How can color influence the art we make?” Record all their answers on chart paper or on the board.

Next, you can explain you will be creating an artwork that is both a hand, gestural or observational artwork and is an exploration of color theory and color mixing .

Step 1: Draw a Rectangle

Start the artwork by having students create observational sketches of their hands with either pencil, or to challenge them, have them go right to permanent marker or black colored pencil (embrace the gesture and mistake making!) in the center of white paper. Sketch first! Model drawing it large or show them the full video art lesson that you can watch by clicking here.

Step 2: Firm Lines and Add details.

Next, have students firm up their lines and add details to their artwork. They can even experiment with line as expression or emotion to really capture their own hand the way they would like to see it.

Step 3: Color Mixing & Color Wheel

Next, have students paint on the primary colors with watercolor paints. I like to place mine in a triangle format so there is space between for mixing secondary colors.

Now have your students pull primary colors to the in between spaces to mix secondary colors. For example, pull yellow and red to the in between space and mix on the paper to make orange.

And to get some expression happening, have students blow each color towards the edge of your paper. To watch all the color mixing and blowing happen, watch the full video art lesson and get the downloadable lesson plan by clicking here.

Step 4: Paint the Background and Add the hand

Finally, paint a choice background paper color with different drips and splats of paint and let the abstract expressionism take over. You can let them explore line to seek out their inner Jackson Pollock if you want to introduce a little bit of art history into the lesson.

Let the hand and background fully dry and then you can have them cut out their hands and glue them to the background paper. finally, have them paint a black shadow along one side of the hand to complete the full effect.

Watch the FULL Art Lesson and Get the Downloadable Lesson Plan & Worksheets

If you would like to watch a full video art lesson to learn how to make this art lesson or have access to it to show your students AND the Downloadable Lesson Plan, Step-By-Step handout, Rubric and reflection (in PDF format), then make sure you click here or the image below and you can grab the full art lesson FOR FREE!

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Find FREE art lessons to help educators and homeschool parents plan your year efficiently with art resources that teach the curriculum and engage students with interesting content and art techniques. You can find all Ms Artastic FREE art lessons in one, easy to access spot and they're all organized by seasons/times of the school year, and by holidays. Find the resources by clicking here.

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One effective way to do so is by teaching the elements of art. By understanding and mastering the elements of art, children can become confident and competent artists, express their creativity, and gain a deeper appreciation for the arts. In this blog post, we will explore strategies for making art fun and engaging for kids of all ages through teaching the elements of art.

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4 Color Theory Exercises That Are an Easy Way To Improve Your Painting Skills

Photo: Stock Photos from JKesler/Shutterstock

Painting sets come with a variety of chromatic tubes, but how well do you know how to use them? Choosing the right palette for your project is a skill that all artists must learn. Whether you're a seasoned watercolorist or are just venturing into the world of acrylics , an understanding of color theory will greatly improve your painting.

If you feel overwhelmed by the rainbow of choices, don't worry. Once you learn the basics of color theory, you'll find the joy in selecting hues and yes, even mixing your own paints. However, as with all things, a bit of practice always helps. Here, we have compiled four color theory exercises that will help you take your paintings to the next level.

Improve your painting with these fun and easy color theory exercises

Make a color wheel..

Photo: Stock Photos from Golubovy/Shutterstock

Most creatives are familiar with the color wheel . An age-old tool, it essentially originated with Isaac Newton's color circle that was published in 1665. It shows the relationships between primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.

For the first exercise, you should familiarize yourself with the color wheel by making your own . Using a reference photo, you will first add the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow. In most models, the yellow is placed at the top of the circle, the red at the bottom right, and the blue at the bottom left. Afterward, mix your paints together until you create secondary colors of green, orange, and purple, and place them accordingly around the wheel.

Practice mixing colors.

Photo: Stock Photos from kosmos111/Shutterstock

Now that you've made a basic color wheel, you can practice expanding it . Start again by creating a basic wheel with the primary colors. Then, mix them until you create the secondary colors of green, orange, and purple. At this point, when you mix any primary color with any secondary color (or any secondary color with each other), you create what is called a tertiary color . This is a great way to learn how many colors you can produce with only the essential paint tubes.

As you create these tertiary colors, arrange them in the wheel. Depending on what colors you create, your new wheel may look very different than your reference photos, so don't worry about making it perfect. This is all for practice.

Match color swatches.

Photo: Stock Photos from Julia Lototskaya/Shutterstock

The third exercise will develop your color matching skills . Using a complex color wheel as a reference, try recreating the tertiary colors that you see by mixing the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow. Take as much time as you need to mix, and don't feel discouraged if it takes you a few times to get it right, as finding the right combination can be tricky.

Once you have a handle on it, however, you can use this exercise to practice with other swatches that you find, like clothing, wall paint, and packaging. This will greatly improve your ability to capture colors from life as well.

Practice pairing complementary colors.

Photo: Stock Photos from katrinshi/Shutterstock

In the fourth exercise, you will explore the importance of complementary colors —colors that appear opposite to each other on the color wheel. These combinations include red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple. Pairing complementary colors will create dynamic visuals that can enhance your designs.

Use your mixed paints to create patterns and shapes using only complementary colors and see how they enhance one another. For example, you can make a red-and-green striped pattern, or paint a blue background with an orange circle inside. Be sure to allow an appropriate amount of time to dry and not let the colors mix. Afterward, try other combinations using non-complementary colors and compare the difference.

Continue practicing.

Mastering color theory isn't easy, so it's important to continue developing your skills by mixing paints and testing them out. With consistent practice , you'll gain a better understanding of the color wheel and all of the possibilities it offers. If you need some help getting started on your next project, then be sure to check out our long list of painting ideas .

Want to learn more about color? The reproduction of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel's 1902 Color Problems book is the ultimate tool for anyone wanting to learn practical color theory.

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The Elements of Art: Color

Grade Level: 1–2

Students will be introduced to one of the basic elements of art—color—through analysis of works of art by Monet, Matisse, and Kandinsky. Class discussion focused on these paintings will help students understand how artists use color to convey atmosphere and mood. They will then test their color expertise by completing a downloadable worksheet and coloring a photograph of Rouen Cathedral.

Left: Claude Monet French, 1840–1926 Rouen Cathedral, West Façade , 1894 oil on canvas, 100.1 x 65.9 cm (39 3/8 x 25 15/16 in.) National Gallery of Art, Chester Dale Collection

Right: Claude Monet French, 1840–1926 Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight , 1894 oil on canvas, 100.1 x 65.8 cm (39 3/8 x 25 7/8 in.) National Gallery of Art, Chester Dale Collection

Curriculum Connections

Language Arts
Smart Board or computer with ability to project images from slideshow
Writing materials
Oil pastels or crayons
Copies of the "Colorful Language" worksheet and faded image of Rouen Cathedral
11 x 14 paper
Watercolors and brushes

Warm-up Questions

Are these paintings of the same building? How are they similar and different?

Color is what we see because of reflected light. Light contains different wavelengths of energy that our eyes and brain "see" as different colors. When light hits an object, we see the colored light that reflects off the object.

Red, blue, and yellow are the primary colors. With paints of just these three colors, artists can mix them to create all the other colors. When artists mix pigments of the primary colors, they make secondary colors.

Red + Blue = Purple Red + Yellow = Orange Blue + Yellow = Green

Did you know that your computer screen also works by using three primary colors? But here, since the colors are light from the monitor and not paints, the three primaries are not the same. Instead, your computer screen mixes other colors from red, blue, and green.

One important thing painters know: using complementary colors—the ones across from each other on the color wheel (red-green, blue-orange, and yellow-purple)—make both colors seem brighter and more intense. They seem to vibrate and pop out at you, the viewer.

Warm colors—reds, yellows, oranges, and red-violets—are those of fire and the sun. They appear to project. Cool colors—blues, blue-greens, and blue-violets—are those of ice and the ocean. They appear to recede.

Guided Practice

To get students thinking about color and the moods or feelings that colors can convey, read a book that focuses on color, such as The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt.

Then view the slideshow below to introduce students to three artists—Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, and Wassily Kandinsky—and the way they used color in their paintings.

Slideshow: Monet, Matisse, and Kandinsky on Color

West façade of Rouen Cathedral Clarence Ward Archive Department of Image Collections National Gallery of Art, Library, Washington, DC

Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral, Effects of Sunlight, Sunset, 1892 oil on canvas © Musée Marmottan, Paris, France / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library

Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral, Foggy Weather, 1894 oil on canvas © Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library

Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral, the west portal, dull weather, 1894 oil on canvas © Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France / Peter Willi / The Bridgeman Art Library

Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral, evening, harmony in brown, 1894 oil on canvas © Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France / Peter Willi / The Bridgeman Art Library

Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral at Sunset, 1894 oil on canvas © Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia/ The Bridgeman Art Library

Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight: Harmony in Blue and Gold, 1894 oil on canvas © Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France / Lauros / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library

Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral, Harmony in White, Morning Light, 1894 oil on canvas © Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France / Lauros / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library

Claude Monet Rouen Cathedral, Blue Harmony, Morning Sunlight, 1894 oil on canvas © Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France / Lauros / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library

A French window with its sill lined with flowerpots opens into a view of boats floating in a body of water in this loosely painted, vibrantly colored, stylized, vertical painting. The doors open inward, and they are painted with coral orange and cranberry red. The wall behind the door to the left is peacock blue and the wall to our right is fuchsia pink, and those colors are reflected in the opposite windows of the doors. Three flowerpots in crimson red, marmalade orange, or royal blue sit on the windowsill in front of us. Foliage in the pots is painted with short strokes of cardinal red and turquoise blue. Over the window, a two-paned transom window pierces a forest-green wall. The view through the panes has a band of salmon pink across the top and dabs of celery green and banana yellow below. The dabs and dashes of pine and lime green continue down the sides of the window and across the sill, suggesting vines growing up around the opening. A band of ultramarine blue beyond the flowerpots could be a balcony. Several rust-orange masts of ships with hulls painted with swipes of indigo blue, flamingo pink, forest green, and marigold orange float in the water beyond. The water is painted with parallel strokes in pale pink and butter yellow. The sky above is painted with thick, wavy lines of steel blue, periwinkle purple, and seafoam green. The artist signed the work in red paint in the lower right, “Henri Matisse.”

Henri Matisse French, 1869–1954 Open Window, Collioure , 1905 oil on canvas, 55.3 x 46 cm (21 3/4 x 18 1/8 in.) National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney

Black lines and one small, black triangular shape stand out against patches of color, in indigo and sky blue, pumpkin orange, butter yellow, emerald green, and ruby red, against a white background in this vertical, abstract painting. The paint seems thinly applied, resembling watercolor. Near the lower right corner, the black shape is roughly triangular and has five curving, parallel lines emanating from the bottom. Given the title of this painting, Improvisation 31, Sea Battle, the black lines could represent tall masts and outlines of sails amid areas of vibrant color that make up a boat and water around it.

Wassily Kandinsky Russian, 1866–1944 Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle) , 1913 oil on canvas, 140.7 x 119.7 cm (55 3/8 x 47 1/8 in.) National Gallery of Art, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

French artist Claude Monet liked to paint the same subject over and over again, at different times of day and in different types of weather. He painted Rouen cathedral in France some thirty times, but what fascinated him most was not the building—it was, he said, the surrounding atmosphere. Rather than quick studies of changing light effects, these pictures, slowly reworked in the studio, are carefully considered explorations of color and mood:

Each painting uses Rouen Cathedral to record time (morning or late afternoon) and weather (sunlight or mist). Examine the way Monet used color and texture: Can you tell from the shadows in the doorways which painting might have been done in the morning and which in the afternoon? (Don't forget that the sun rises in the east and these paintings show the west façade or front of the building.) How do the colors change in sunlight, fog, and mist?
Do you see any clear outlines? Is it possible to determine exactly where one surface ends and another begins? If line does not define the forms in this painting, what does? ( Answer: color! )

Around 1905 several artists, including Matisse, exhibited pictures in which heightened color was used to express a strong emotional response to nature. The painters were called " fauves ," or wild beasts. The freshness and strength of the tones in Open Window, Collioure are typical of the fauves; Matisse's contrasts are subtle, giving this work a sense of serenity and radiance. Show students this painting (second to last image in the slideshow) to answer the following questions:

Would you rather go sailing or stay in your cool room admiring the view?
Describe the colors. How are they different from what you see in nature? What color would you usually use to color the ocean? Have you ever seen a pink sea? ( Perhaps if it’s reflecting a sunset… )
How big do you think this painting is? It’s actually only 21 3/4 x 18 1/8 inches. See how Matisse transformed the effect of a small canvas into expansive pictorial space through the device of the open window and eye-popping color.

Wassily Kandinsky, raised in Odessa, Russia, learned to play the cello and piano as a child. As an artist, he drew connections between art and music and believed that colors and shapes could affect our mood. Show students Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle) (last image in the slideshow) without revealing the name of the title:

What colors do you see in this painting? What do the colors in this painting make you feel? happy? sad? scared?
What do you think is happening in this painting?
After students have hypothesized what the scene depicts, let them know the title contains the phrase “sea battle.” Now have them analyze the painting: Can you find two tall-masted ships locked in combat? Can they spot any canon fire? What is the sea like that day? The weather?

Download a faded version of the photograph of the west façade of Rouen Cathedral in Paris that Monet painted at all time of day and in all types of weather (the original photograph is the first image in the slideshow). Students will select a time of day and type of weather and then color over this faded image using appropriate hues in oil pastel (preferable to cover image, but crayons could also be used).

As an alternative that can accommodate students with visual impairments, print out a larger version of the images on 11 x 14 paper. Trace the lines of each image with hot glue to create a raised surface that students can feel. Then give students a plain piece of paper to lay over the image outlined in hot glue. Students can then create a texture rubbing with crayon over the paper. As a final step the students can paint over the crayon rubbing with watercolors.

On a printed version of the image, trace the lines with hot glue to create a raised surface that students can feel.

Give students a plain piece of paper to layer on top of the hot glue tracing to create a crayon rubbing.

Paint over the crayon rubbing with watercolors.

Tracing in hot glue

Now that students have investigated various uses of color in three artists’ works, they will fill out the “Colorful Language” worksheet to test their knowledge of color. Next, students will select one work of art from the slideshow as if it were a postcard of somewhere they visited. They will then write a short letter to a friend or family member describing what they saw, what time of day it was, and what the weather was like using the colors from the work of art as their guide.

The Elements of Art is supported by the Robert Lehman Foundation

National Core Arts Standards

VA:Cr2.1.1 Explore uses of materials and tools to create works of art or design.

VA:Cr2.2.1 Demonstrate safe and proper procedures for using materials, tools, and equipment while making art.

VA:Cr3.1.1 Use art vocabulary to describe choices while creating art.

VA:Re7.1.2 Perceive and describe aesthetic characteristics of one’s natural world and constructed environments.

VA:Re7.2.1 Compare images that represent the same subject.

VA:Re8.1.2 Interpret art by identifying the mood suggested by a work of art and describing relevant subject matter and characteristics of form.

VA:Re9.1.2 Use learned art vocabulary to express preferences about artwork.

High resolution image of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral, West Façade

High resolution image of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight

Borrow the DVD Seeing Color: Object, Light, Observer

Download family-oriented guides to Monet and Matisse

Find out more about Monet’s series paintings

Explore works of art by the Fauves, featuring Matisse

Register for evening and weekend teacher professional development workshops and apply to participate in the summer teacher institute

Learn how to make real money from your art!

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Get your free color palette assignment.

Get your FREE color palette assignment !

A lovely short month (shout out for February! Is it just us or does January go on for eleventy billion days?) means that it’s less than two weeks before we kick off Assignment Bootcamp 2021 , and today we’re helping you get warmed up for class with a playful FREE color palette #MATSprep!

Art agent Lilla loves color – she says it’s make or break for her – and looks for inspiration everywhere. This FREE exercise is designed to help you reconnect with your love of color and create a new color palette in a playful, enjoyable way.

Hold up. What’s Assignment Bootcamp ? It’s four glorious months of art-making in the company of a brilliant and supportive crowd of creatives from all over the world. You’ll get something from art agent Lilla every single Monday for four months – maybe a playful downloadable worksheet, a quirky mini assignment, a video tutorial or an interview with an industry expert – and by putting them all together you’ll make four kick-ass portfolio pieces (one per month) for four of the hottest art markets right now. All this for around the same price per week as buying a couple of lattes – no wonder Lilla says it’s probably our best deal!

Okay. And what’s a #MATSprep? It’s a FREE creative warm-up exercise to get you ready for class, and it’s open to everyone, whether you’re a Make Art That Sells student or not. It’ll get you prepared for class, give you taste of what’s to come, and get you motivated and raring to go!

Here’s your free color palette #MATSprep for Assignment Bootcamp 2021 …

Here’s your free #MATSprep! blobby color palette worksheet Download your own blank copy here and get a copy of the instructions here . Then fill it in and share it – don’t forget to use the tag #MATSprep so Lilla can see!

Color is a huge theme in the March Bootcamp assignment, and Lilla has designed this blobby color palette worksheet to get you warmed up for week one of class, to help you re-connect to your relationship with color, to have fun with color, and to help you create a fresh new color palette.

Love the color palette blobby worksheet? You’ll get another one in the first week of Assignment Bootcamp 2021 , along with the big reveal of Lilla’s Color Combo of the Year! Anyone who’s taken any of Lilla’s classes will know that she adores color, and her Color Combo of the Year is a combination of two colors that she really loves. She’ll reveal it exclusively to Bootcamp students in March!

Previous blobby color worksheets by Zoe Ingrams and Erica Root, both of whom are now represented by Lilla Rogers .

Get your color palette worksheet here

Ready to play and have fun with your new color palette? Download your own blank copy here and get a copy of the instructions here . You can complete it in whatever media you like, as many times as you like: do it digitally, find small items around your home and place them on the worksheet, tip on paint. If you’re homeschooling right now (in which case, you have our utter sympathy) then get the kids involved: hey, this is educational, right? Don’t forget to share online and use the tag #MATSprep so that art agent Lilla can see what you do!

matsNLtest emmaLind Make Art That Sells Get your FREE color palette assignment!

Are you ready to make Monday your favorite day of the week? Want more creative exercises like this that will help you make eye-catching portfolio pieces in an enjoyable way? Want to get something from art agent Lilla every week for four marvellous months? Sign up for Assignment Bootcamp now ! HURRY: class starts Monday, March 1st!

bookyourplacenow Make Art That Sells Get your FREE color palette assignment!

The Make Art That Sells team xxx

P.S. Join Lilla for a FREE live Zoom event on Monday, March 1st at 12 noon ET/5 pm GMT! Plus keep an eye out for next week’s newsletter for some HUGE NEWS!

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5 Color Practice Exercises that will change your Perception

Hello, creatives! In this post, I am sharing with you a list of 5 simple and fun color practice exercises to help you make fresh color associations and learn more about creating your own color schemes , especially with paint.

The more you practice color, the more you gain confidence in using it and coming up with new palettes that help you express yourself better in your art, style, designs, and projects.

Besides, these exercises are more for beginners, but practicing is always great no matter which part of the learning process you’re at.

The 5 Color Practice Exercises

Color wheel practice.

Make a color wheel using primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) and their secondary colors (orange, green, and purple). Mix these colors together to create tertiary colors. This exercise will help you understand color relationships and how colors can be combined to create new hues.

Monochromatic painting

Choose one color and create a painting using different shades and tints of that color. This exercise will help you understand how to create depth and interest using variations of a single color.

Complementary color experiment

Firstly, choose complementary colors (colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as red and green) and experiment with using them in different ways in a painting or design project. This helps you understand how to create visual interest and balance using complementary colors.

Analogous color scheme

Begin by choosing a group of colors that are next to each other on the color wheel (such as blue, green, and yellow) and then create a painting or design project using these colors. This exercise will help you understand how to create harmony and balance using analogous colors.

Color blocking

Use different colors to create geometric shapes or patterns in a painting or design project. This exercise will help you understand how to use color to create contrast and interest.

Color swatch project

Create a collection of color swatches by mixing different colors together and painting them onto small squares of paper or cardboard. The more you do this exercise will help you understand how colors can be mixed to create new hues and how they look when applied to a surface.

That brings us to the end of this list. Do you have any other exercises or ways you practice your colors or create your own palettes? Let me know in the comments and enjoy creating!

Other articles you may find interesting:

Explore Colour Trends: Where do artists find color inspiration?

Intuitive art exercises to connect with your inner artist

Free Tools to Pick a Harmonious Color Palette for any Art Project

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Color Me Interested: 12 Exciting Ways to Teach the Color Wheel

Teaching color theory the same way every single year can get boring. Color wheels are often the “go-to” for teaching color theory since they require students to mix colors and show color relationships. We have the antidote to color wheel boredom if you’re looking for a new approach! Say hello to a rainbow of creative and engaging activities that will have your students begging for more. Get ready to paint the town red (and every other color in the spectrum) with these fun and innovative ways to spruce up the color wheel.

For more information on how to break down color theory for your students with experimentation and fun games, check out the Color Theory Basics Pack in PRO Learning . Take your students beyond color theory and get them to apply their newfound knowledge. For detailed lessons with step-by-step instructions aligned to standards, download the Applied Color Theory Collection in FLEX Curriculum .

Foundations of the Color Wheel

Before we go over engaging color wheel projects, let’s dig into why we should teach the color wheel. The history of the color wheel is a long and fascinating one, tracing back to ancient times. Here are some of the brief highlights . The Renaissance saw the first formal color theory with Aron Sigfrid Forsius, who created one of the earliest color diagrams in the early 1600s. Later, Sir Isaac Newton discovered a scientific approach to color using light and a prism . The color wheel is more than a modern, mandatory foundational art activity. It’s steeped in history, science, and tradition!

Even though color wheels have historical and scientific significance, there are many reasons to spend time on them in the art room. Let’s take a look:

Shows color theory in action and gives a visual representation of color relationships .
Reinforces measuring, math, and geometry concepts and skills.
Integrates other subjects like science, marketing, and psychology .
Requires minimal art supplies.
Allows students to practice color mixing.
Develops vocabulary to communicate about color.

Keep reading for 12 ways to reinvent the color wheel in your curriculum!

We compiled your top ideas for introducing the color wheel in new and creative ways. Adapt the ideas below for multiple grade or ability levels. You can also try a combination of ideas and see what works best for your students.

1. Color Wheel Disco Ball

Sari Shryack is an oil painter who specializes in creating images of disco balls. Look at her amazing disco art and analyze how she uses color, line, and shape to create her work. Then, have students compose their own disco ball and incorporate color mixing, including tints and shades, into their design.

2. Color Wheel 2.0

Ramp up your existing traditional color wheel project by adding a fun twist or complexity requirement. Or, have students select from provided options to incorporate more choices.

Here are some ways to take color wheels to the next level:

Choose a theme to reflect in the design’s symbols and imagery. Popular themes are food, names, TV shows, video games, and animals.
Paint with a CMY or RBY color palette.
Collage bleeding tissue paper in lieu of paint.
Design an eye with a color wheel for the iris.
Add a radial mandala design on top with permanent markers.
Compose a graffiti name in complementary colors on top.

3. Rainbow Snack Time

Mix food coloring with white frosting to create an edible color wheel. Students can frost cookies or cupcakes. For a group project, students collaborate to make a color wheel cake! Whenever bringing food into the art room, adhere to your district and school’s food and allergy guidelines.

4. Color Mixing Lab

Set up a lab where students experiment with mixing primary colors to create secondary and tertiary colors. Formally record findings in a lab report. This is a great opportunity to incorporate science and technology in the studio!

5. Color Wheel Dioramas

Have students create a miniature scene that reflects their interests and includes all 12 colors of the color wheel. Students will have a ball collecting items for their tiny dioramas and mixing the colors they need to paint their diorama items. Take it a step further and prompt students to consider how the placement of their colored items represents color relationships.

6. Clay Color Wheels

Did you know you can color white air-dry clay or modeling compound with markers or watercolor paints? Students take three large balls of clay and mix one primary color into each. Divide the balls into smaller sections and mix the colors together to make secondary and tertiary colors. Sculpt into small figurines or roll into a slab and add texture. Punch holes into each and thread string to create a mobile, windchime, wall hanging, or piece of jewelry.

If you have a kiln, create a similar ceramic piece. In lieu of adding color with markers or watercolors, experiment with the correct mixtures of primary colored underglaze to get the secondary and tertiary colors.

7. Color Wheel Fashion Designs

Design outfits or accessories to showcase different color schemes from the color wheel. Color schemes can include primary, secondary, tertiary, warm, cool, triadic, complementary, split complementary, and analogous. Students mix watercolors to practice their color mixing and add color to their fashion sketches. If you have the time and resources, bring student designs to life with a wearable art unit and host a fashion show .

8. Patterned Animal Color Wheel

Cows, zebras, cheetahs, tigers, lizards, snakes, birds, and more—from spots to stripes, all of these animals have patterns. Why not make these animals into beautiful color wheel creatures? Simplify and stylize the patterns and transfer them onto a traditional color wheel. Create contrast so the design stands out by using tints and shades or complementary colors.

9. Color Wheel Landscape

Discuss space with backgrounds, midgrounds, and foregrounds, and paint a landscape. Students incorporate all 12 color wheel colors, practice blending skills, and demonstrate color theory with color placement. Add another facet with atmospheric perspective where students mix tints and shades to create depth.

10. Color Wheel Games and Puzzles

Host a game day where students fuse play with color mixing! Take a brain break and play Hues and Cues or Color Wheel . To learn how to create your own color-mixing game, check out this article . Consider gathering puzzles from your local thrift store and spray-painting them white. Students select 12 pieces that fit together. Mix the 12 colors of the color wheel and paint the blank puzzle pieces. Permanently adhere them together to create a bookmark, keychain, or other creation!

11. Tie-Dye Color Wheel

Provide students with white t-shirts, bandanas, or other fabric. Students tie-dye the fabric using only the primary colors. Watch with wonder as the colors bleed together to make secondary and tertiary colors!

For more resources on how to get started with tie-dye, check out the Tie-Dye Techniques Pack in PRO Learning or the following articles:

A Step-by-Step Guide to Tie-Dye in the Classroom
Tie-Dye in the Classroom at a Glance
6 Exciting Tie-Dye Techniques to Try This Summer

12. Blooming Color Wheel

If you have the budget, purchase some white roses or carnations. Students mix primary-colored dyes to make secondary and tertiary colors. Stick the flowers into the dye and watch the science of osmosis ! When the flowers are dyed, press them to use for collages or place them in a still life. You can also gift them to other teachers to show appreciation!

For a more budget-friendly version, use primary-colored watercolors to dye white coffee filters. Scrunch, fold, or cut them into elaborate flowers to make a colorful display!

Teaching the color wheel doesn’t have to be a snooze-fest. Infuse creativity, fun, and exploration to engage your students in a colorful world of learning. Let’s say goodbye to those old, dusty color wheels and hello to vibrant, exciting ways to demonstrate color theory! Whether you’re painting a masterpiece, designing a website, or just choosing what to wear, understanding the color wheel is an essential skill with many life applications. Go forth and show your students how to color their world with creativity and enthusiasm!

What new ways will you use to introduce the color wheel to your students this year?

Do your students love or hate making color wheels?

Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.

Rebekah Hower

Rebekah Hower, a middle school art educator, is a former AOEU Writer. She is passionate about creating an engaging and relevant environment for students to discover and experiment.

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Green Line to pulse with colorful lights in art project timed to DNC

‘next stop: chicago’ hopes to draw conventioneers, locals out of downtown with seven installations along the cta line..

A "canvas of light" will illuminate a 50-foot-long stretch of the Green Line at the Washington/Wabash Station as part of "Next Stop: Chicago."

An artist’s rendering of the “canvas of light” that will illuminate a 50-foot-long stretch of the Green Line at the Washington/Wabash Station as part of “Next Stop: Chicago.”

Courtesy “Next Stop: Chicago”

Pockmarked, grime-dulled and home to countless huddling pigeons, the underside of the Loop’s elevated tracks isn’t typically a place to linger.

Well, not yet.

But on Aug. 15, a “canvas of light” in magenta, blue and green — among other hues — will illuminate a 50-foot-long stretch of the Green Line at the Washington/Wabash Station. The permanent art installation is part of a soon-to-be-unveiled project in seven locations across the city intended to draw attention, in part, to Chicago’s haves and have-nots — and timed to coincide with the Democratic National Convention and its national spotlight.

The Green Line connects downtown and the convention locations to the West and South Sides — home to many of the city’s most underserved neighborhoods. All of the art projects are strung out at locations along the Green Line.

“We wanted to time it during the convention because it’s ... when everyone in Chicago really needs to rally around the city. It’s also a time when people who are coming in for the convention are thinking about things like, ‘How do we think about infrastructure in large cities moving forward?’ Or they should be thinking about that.” said Abby Pucker, founder of Gertie, the Chicago-based civic and cultural agency that coordinated the project, titled, “Next Stop: Chicago.”

Admission is free to all events and exhibitions.

The L track lights are programmable, and, according to the organizers, can be synced “to movements and sounds like your heartbeat, the tap of a drum, or to the rhythm of your favorite song. The result will be a canvas of light for any person, anywhere, to use as a vehicle for expression.”

The overall project — funded with $400,000 in grant money from the Joyce Foundation and the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, among others — features the work of emerging and lesser-known Chicago-based artists in Garfield Park, Washington Park, Bronzeville and Englewood.

Cooking demonstrations, open mic events and a range of artistic performances are planned. One show is already on display — “The Heavenly Body,” an exhibition at Blanc Gallery, 4445 S. King Dr., which features a “meditation on the cultural significance of roller skating and roller skating rinks within Black American life across the US Midwest.”

Pucker said she hopes the project will highlight a story that sometimes gets lost in the blizzard of news about the city’s gun violence.

“Yes, there’s also trauma and there’s also violence,” she said. “And there are also really hard things that we need to confront, but part of the strategy to ... (lessen that) is investing in creative endeavors, is investing in community and place-making initiatives,” Pucker said.

To find out more about the project, go to: nextstopchicago.co

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How Fine Art Photographer George Byrne Creates Surreal Dreamscapes

A surreal image split in two. Left: Abstract, pastel-colored buildings against a cloudy sky with a crescent moon. Right: Minimalist cityscape with a yellow-and-white building, two trees, yellow sidewalk, streetlamp, and road with white arrows.

Australian-born, Los Angeles-based photographer George Byrne creates large-scale architectural and landscape photographs that are spiritually grounded in modernist painting, exceptional technical achievements, and, most importantly, successful art.

PetaPixel chatted with Byrne to discuss his latest series, Synthetica . Topics include Byrne’s aesthetic style, photographic approach, how Synthetica fits into Byrne’s larger body of work, and how people’s view of his work has changed in the age of artificial intelligence.

Black and white portrait of a man with short, slightly messy hair and a beard, wearing a plain dark t-shirt. He is sitting and looking directly at the camera with a neutral expression against a simple, light background.

Byrne’s images are absolutely not AI-generated, but his style and the subject matter have always teetered on the edge of surrealism and offer a glimpse at what can feel like an unreal world.

Art is always viewed and appreciated within the context of the people viewing it, and that is an ever-shifting viewpoint. It’s interesting to consider how people’s views toward AI, technology, and how art is created can change how Byrne’s work is considered.

Colorful, modern architectural scene featuring pastel blue, pink, and green walls with minimalistic design elements. A curved green staircase with a small blue door is set against the blue wall, and a palm tree-lined beach and ocean stretch out in the background.

“Looking back, the timing of the Synthetica show was pretty uncanny. There I was in the studio grinding away on a show I was calling Synthetica , and then AI photography lands. I was like, ‘What the hell do we do with this!?'” Byrne tells PetaPixel . “The technology was still in the beta stage, but it completely blew us away. I’ve been tracking it closely ever since, I find it fascinating.”

Byrne could see a place for AI-generated art in his concept stage to help get ideas into some semblance of form faster and with less work. “But using something like Midjourney to come up with photos using prompts is of no interest to me.”

“I really don’t mind if people think my work is AI generated,” he adds. “There are hundreds of hours of work that’s gone into my images that I’d be happy to show people if they were interested. But really, even if I did use AI, I don’t think it matters, and I don’t judge those who use it.”

A minimalist architectural scene with clean lines and bold colors: white walls, an orange roof edge, a green window panel, and a yellow awning casting a shadow. A gray fence runs across the foreground, with a patch of blue visible on the ground.

“All artists have ever done is use the tools in front of them. My understanding of [AI] technology right now is that it’s a brilliant imitator, aggregator and problem solver. But it’s nowhere near able to compete with human motivation because it has no motivation. It has no lifespan, no mortality, no visceral experience — to me this is where art comes from,” the photographer explains. “But get. Back to me in a year or two and maybe all that will change.”

As for AI technology at large, Byrne says he’s ambivalent but worries for people whose jobs will be threatened by it. He also thinks it’s “crazy that 300 nerds in Silicon Valley should get to release a technology that changes the direction of human civilization without any consultation.”

“Did we ask for this?” he adds. “But I guess that’s always how most technological leaps work. They just happen. And we adjust, and life goes on.”

A red-brick wall with a painted left-turn arrow sign. Two tall palm trees and colorful poles (one blue, one yellow) stand on the sidewalk. In the background, mountains and a clear blue sky. A traffic light with a green signal is visible on the upper left.

Synthetica : Creating Real-World Dreamscapes

While at first blush, Byrne’s latest series, Synthetica , looks very similar to some of his prior work, like Inner Visions in 2021 and Color Field in 2017, among others, the photographer notes that there are significant aesthetic and stylistic differences between them.

Yes, there’s a spiritual thread that connects them all, but Byrne has embraced larger-scale planning and compositing that turn his landscapes into dreamscapes, which the photographer refers to as “Frankenstein landscapes that don’t really exist.”

A liquor store with a large yellow "LIQUOR" sign stands beside a road in a desert landscape. A Joshua tree is near the entrance, and there are signs for check cashing, bill payments, and money orders. A mural of a woman swimming decorates the side wall.

This is a stark change in the process compared to Byrne’s earlier series, which mainly comprised single images subtly changed through post-processing.

There are also conceptual shifts that underlie some of the compositional differences. Byrne’s earlier work was created, at least in part, with social media like Instagram in mind. These images had to work on a smaller scale, so they relied more on large, vibrant color blocks.

In 2021, with Innervisions , Byrne began to shift away from considering Instagram presentation in his process. He cites changes with Instagram as a platform and also the influence of photographer Gregory Crewdson .

A minimalist urban scene features a pink stucco wall with the shadow of a palm tree, three circular light fixtures, and a geometric yellow roof detail. Adjacent is a white brick wall, a green pole, and clear sky with a distant moon in the background.

“[Crewdson’s] pictures are built to be seen in person, not on screen. He plants detailed symbolism in his images, and there is an epicness that doesn’t translate as well to a 3×3″ backlit screen,” Byrne explains.

Looking closer at the long-term shift in style and approach, Byrne mentions an image from Innervisions called Black Monolith, 2021 .

“This was the image that set the table for the work I would go on to produce 2 years later for Synthetica .”

Beyond creating images that aren’t tethered to the need to be understood on a smartphone, there are also narrative differences in Synthetica .

A minimalist scene of a parking area shows a large, open-fronted cubical structure with pink borders enclosing three palm trees. A white van with an open door is parked to the right, and mountains are visible in the background under a blue sky.

“ Synthetica is the first show where I opened the field of view to include scenes from all over America, not just California and Miami. I wanted to use a broad range of subject matter to see if it could be cohesive,” Byrne says. “I felt like this approach would also reflect the American project more broadly, the sewing together of disparate threads into a single, complex entity. The images are about layers, time, and synthesis.”

Looking Closer at the Photographic Process of George Byrne’s Work

For most viewers, it’s easy to appreciate and enjoy Byrne’s work, and there are many different ways to understand each image, as informed by someone’s viewpoint and experience. However, for photographers, Byrne’s work elicits something more: Wonder. How does he do it?

“After years of exhibiting, I see there are two main groups: those who leave their preconceptions of what photography is at the door and just experience the images as if they were paintings, and those who really want to get to the bottom of what’s going on, what’s real and what isn’t, how they’re made, etc.,” Byrne says. “Both are very valid responses.”

A barefoot man in a black outfit stands in a bright studio, holding a coffee cup. He is surrounded by large, colorful artworks on easels and the floor. The room has a high, white, wooden ceiling with a hanging light, wooden beams, and art supplies neatly arranged.

“Personally, I’m more the latter, when I see a giant Andreas Gursky or Gregory Crewdson photograph in museum, I tend to analyze every inch of it to see if I can work out how it was made, then, after I have failed at that, I take time to experience the work of art. I think most photographers are like that, it’s hard to shake.”

How Byrne makes his photographs changes quite a bit depending on precisely what he’s creating.

There’s the primary shooting stage of the process, during which Byrne heads out and shoots a bunch of new photos, primarily using Pentax 67 medium-format film and lenses ranging between 75 and 300mm.

A surreal image showing geometric building-like structures in various pastel colors (green, blue, pink, grey, and purple) against a backdrop of a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. A yellow circle resembling a sun is partially visible behind the green structure.

Then he “locks himself in the studio for three to six months and goes to work.”

“The first step is trying to familiarize myself with the new stockpile of images, this can take weeks. Then I look for links, for clues. I read a lot of books and look at a lot of other artists. I try to work out what I’m trying to say and think of fresh ways of approaching what I’m doing. I usually end up with 50-60 ideas or ‘sketches,’ then over weeks and months I whittle it down to 15-20.”

A minimalist urban scene featuring a white building with geometric shapes, a staircase, a palm tree, and a red silhouette of a walking person. The sky is clear and blue.

Once Byrne has locked in his ideas and sketches based on the images he’s shot, he re-scans all the selected negatives using a high-powered drum scanner. Then, he works with his studio manager, Danny Duarte, to assemble everything into the final composites.

“Danny and I have been working together on assemblage for more than five years now, and his brilliance with post-production is a big part of why my images look so good; we collaborate well. So that’s how I bake the bread,” Byrne explains.

He usually exhibits 15-20 new photographs every 12-18 months.

A person stands in the distance on an empty desert road framed by two large mural-covered walls with palm trees on top. The walls depict desert landscapes and part of the word "HOLLYWOOD." The foreground features a colorful, empty basketball court.

The Move From Black and White to Color Photography Was Born From Opportunity and Commitment

While the vast majority of Byrne’s portfolio is in color, his very first featured series is comprised of more traditional black and white landscape photographs. It sits in stark contrast to the rest of his work.

“A big part of what led me to where I am is the commercial reality of becoming a full-time artist,” explains Byrne. “When I first started selling the color work I was posting on Instagram in 2014, I was working in a café. I was a seriously broke, struggling musician, and while I loved photography, being an artist was not something I thought was possible.”

A serene coastal scene with a clear blue sky. A single, tall palm tree stands near a calm ocean. On the left, part of a pale building with a railing and a pink towel draped over the balcony can be seen, and a sailboat is visible on the horizon.

However, as interest in Byrne’s work grew, and he was making more sales, he got new opportunities to exhibit his work.

“I quickly dropped everything and became laser-focused on trying to make the most of what was happening,” he recalls.

“I was 37, 38 years old at the time, and aware of how hard it was to get a break. I was very driven.”

The work that helped get Byrne his “break” was his color work, so he redoubled his efforts on the color photography.

The image shows a bright pink building with the word "Jewelry" in large, bold red letters and dollar signs on both ends. There are colorful bollards in the foreground and two small windows with shutters above. The sky is clear and mountains are in the background.

“I realized if I was going to get this color work to where I wanted it — in museums — I needed to get serious and upscale what I was doing, get bigger cameras and really immerse myself in the craft, I had a lot to learn both technically and theoretically. I needed also to get clear about what my work was about and what I was trying to say — this is when my five years of art school came in handy!”

“For me to get on top of what I was doing with color photography, I needed to clear the decks and focus on it, so my black-and-white work stopped happening.”

However, Byrne says he hopes to get back to it, and is sure he will “in time.”

That said, one image in Synthetica calls back to the original monochromatic landscape work that Byrne shifted away from. The image, Jenny Lake Wyoming, 2024 may be a color photo, but it is very much like the traditional landscape work Byrne was doing when he was struggling to make ends meet as an artist.

A rugged mountain range with rocky, snow-dusted peaks under a clear sky at dawn or dusk. The moon is faintly visible in the sky, adding to the serene and majestic atmosphere. Sparse patches of vegetation dot the mountainsides.

“The inclusion of the Jenny Lake image was a bit of a mystery to me too, it was one of a whole bunch of landscapes I’d taken on a road trip through Yellowstone National Park in 2022. I just loved these landscapes so much and I was a little frustrated that they didn’t fit in, so I thought ‘f*** it.’ I was so taken by this magnificent mountain, and I couldn’t seem to shake the image. So, I made some changes to it, and decided to exhibit it as a lightbox.”

Byrne says Synthetica was partly about departure, experimentation, and large-scale, high-resolution images, so the image fits.

“Mountains have been such an important feature of my work for years, so it started to make sense that I exhibit and impression of one, unimpeded, as a way of paying homage. In the same way that a musician might give a back-up singer an opportunity to get out front and sing a song. I’m not sure if it worked with the other images but I enjoyed doing it.”

A green building labeled "Rego Sport Tuning" features colorful geometric murals on its façade. The structure stands on a road with a red curb, overlooking a scenic water body and distant mountains under a clear blue sky. A small moon is visible in the sky.

Large-Scale Compositions and Large-Scale Goals

“The works in Synthetica do play on scale more than previous work. There are myriad visual misdirections baked into these images that are key to how you experience them,” Byrne explains.

“In this sense, I’m leaning on one of the core principles of Cubism: sewing together multiple counter-perspectives and presenting them to the viewer as a single cohesive whole. The result is a sort of fission in the mind, whereby the harmony of the composition pushes against the disharmony of the formal arrangement.”

Ultimately, Byrne knows that viewers may find different meanings in his work, no matter his goals.

A large red wall with a rectangular cut-out in the shape of a U.S. state reveals hills and grassy fields behind it. Two yellow bollards stand in front of the wall on a concrete surface, with a blue sky overhead.

For example, one of his friends recently acquired a print of Black Monolith 2021 because it spoke to her about her perceptions of Los Angeles and her experiences there, in ways Byrne says he never would have considered or thought of.

“That’s the highest praise I could ever hope for! I just hope the work is inspiring to people, that they’re reminded of the magic in the air. I hope my work makes people feel good.”

More from George Byrne is available on his website .

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Create and assign color categories in Outlook

Color categories allow you to easily identify and group associated items in Microsoft Outlook. Assign a color category to a group of interrelated items—such as notes, contacts, appointments, and email messages—so that you can quickly track and organize them. You can also assign more than one color category to items.

You can choose from a set of default categories or create your own, and then assign the categories to your Outlook items. The category colors are displayed in your Inbox, and within the open items themselves. You can rename the categories to something more meaningful to you or choose different colors for the categories. This flexibility enables you to design a color category system that fits your personal work style.

Note: If you are using Outlook with an IMAP account, you cannot assign categories to an item. The IMAP email account type does not support categories.

Select a tab option below for the version of Outlook you're using. What version of Outlook do I have?

Note: If the steps under this New Outlook tab don't work, you may not be using new Outlook for Windows yet. Select the Classic Outlook tab and follow those steps instead.

In new Outlook, you have the following options:

Assign a color category | Rename a color category | Create a color category

Assign a color category to an email message

To assign a color category to a message from the message list, right click the message.

Select Categorize , then select a category from the list. If you want to assign a second or third color category, you can perform this action multiple times.

To assign a color category from the reading pane or an open message, select Categorize on the ribbon and then select a category from the list.

Note: The Categorize drop-down displays the most recently used categories. If you have additional categories, you'll need to select Manage categories to get the rest of the list.

Rename a color category

The default color categories have generic names, such as Red Category and Blue Category. To easily identify and organize your categorized items, you can rename the color categories by using names that are meaningful to you.

On the ribbon, select Categorize , then Manage categories .

Rename the category then select Save .

Create a new color category

On the ribbon, select Categorize , then New category .

Name your category , select a color, then select Save .

Your new category will be listed in Categorize .

In classic Outlook, you have the following options:

Assign a color category | Rename a color category | Create a color category | Set a Quick Click category | Assign a shortcut key to a category

To assign a color category to a message from the message list, right-click the message.

Tip: If you right-click the message and you only get options to flag the message, try right-clicking in the blank space to the right of the sender's name.

To assign a color category from the reading pane or an open message, select Tags , then Categorize on the ribbon and then select a category from the list.

Note: The Categorize drop-down displays the ten most recently used categories. If you have additional categories, you'll need to select All Categories to get the rest of the list.

The first time that you assign an existing color category to an item, you will be prompted to rename the color category.

If you change a color category that is already assigned to items, all of the items that have that category assigned are updated to the new name.

Select All Categories .

In the Name list, select the name of a color category, and then select Rename .

In the Name list, type the new name for the color category.

To automatically assign the color category that you are renaming to items that are selected in the main Outlook window, select the check box next to the color category in the Name list, and then select OK .

Create a color category

In any message folder, in the Tags group on the Ribbon, select Categorize , then All Categories .

Note: For calendar items, the Tags group appears on the Appointment or Meeting tab. For an open contact or task, the Tags group appears on the Home tab.

In the Color Categories dialog box, select New .

Type a name for the category and select a color and optionally, a shortcut key. Then select OK .

Set a Quick Click category and assign it to messages

A Quick Click category is a default category that you can set in certain table views. For example, if you turn off the reading pane or move the reading pane under your message list, you'll see additional columns in your Inbox, including Received, Category, and Mention. To assign a Quick Click category in one of these views, you can click in the category column to set a category.

On the ribbon, in the Tags group, select Categorize > Set Quick Click .

Use the drop-down to select a color category, then select OK.

Tip: From an open message, you can click Set Quick Click on the Categorize menu to set the default color category for all future messages, not just the message that is selected.

Assign a shortcut key to a category

By associating a keyboard shortcut key with a category, you can quickly assign the category to an item, such as an e-mail message, by selecting the item in your Inbox or another category view and then pressing the shortcut key. You can also use the shortcut key to assign a color category to multiple items at the same time.

At the bottom of the menu, select All Categories .

In the Name list, select the check box for a color category.

In the Shortcut Key list, choose a keyboard shortcut.

In Outlook, you have the following options:

Assign a color category | Rename a color category | Create a color category

Name your category , then select Save .

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Torah-inspired Psychedelic Art? The Leader of This New Zealand Shul Is Anything but Conventional

Asher Etherington is the unorthodox young head of the largest Jewish congregation on New Zealand's South Island, in Christchurch. His latest pet project is illustrating the entire Torah using AI. A third and final report from New Zealand

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand – With such an un-Jewish-sounding name, this city was probably destined to have a synagogue president who defies conventions.

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Color Wheel Project to Teach Color Theory in Elementary Art

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Use this Color Theory for kids inspired by Disney PowerPoint Presentation: Click Here

Another idea is to use this color wheel and have them color in the areas with the appropriate color. Click Here for the PDF

Here are some finished Creative Color Wheel pieces!

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4 Color Theory Exercises That Are an Easy Way To Improve Your Painting Skills

Improve your painting with these fun and easy color theory exercises

Practice mixing colors.

Match color swatches.

Practice pairing complementary colors.