color Vocabulary
HUE - The name of a color as it appears on the color wheel: red, orange, yellow, red-violet, etc.
PRIMARY COLORS - Red, yellow, and blue. With these three colors (and black and white) all other colors can be made. The primary colors themselves cannot be created by mixing other colors.
SECONDARY COLORS - Those colors which are created by the mixture of two primary colors in approximately equal proportions. The secondary colors are orange, violet and green.
TERTIARY COLORS - Those colors created by the mixture of an adjacent primary and secondary color (Mixing a primary color with the secondary color that is next to it on the color wheel). **The tertiary colors are named by combining the names of the two parent colors, with the primary element listed first: orange + red = red-orange.**
VALUE - The natural lightness or darkness of a hue or the amount of white or black in a color, pink is a light value of red, navy-blue is a dark value of blue, etc.
TINT - Hue plus white (or water).
SHADE - Hue plus black.
INTENSITY - The purity of a hue. A hue at its highest intensity has no other color mixed with it. A hue loses its intensity as another color is added to it.
WARM COLORS - Red, orange, yellow: warm color tend to advance or appear closer in visual space.
COOL COLORS - Violet, blue, green: cool colors recede in space.
OPAQUE - Having covering power; not permitting (allowing) paper or other color to show through.
TRANSPARENT – Having minimal covering power; allowing paper or other color to show through.
ANALOGOUS - A color scheme that consists of any three or four adjacent (next to) colors on the color wheel.
MONOCHROMATIC – A color scheme that is made from one single color mixed with black or white (tints and shades)
COMPLEMENTARY COLORS - Hues which are opposite each other on the colors wheel. The complement of red is green, the complement of yellow-orange is blue-violent, etc. When two complements are placed next to each other each color appears at its highest visual strength.
SPLIT-COMPLEMENTARY - A split-compliment color scheme includes a main color and the two colors on each side of its complementary (opposite) color on the color wheel.
TRIAD - Three colors spaced equally on the color wheel
NEUTRALS - Neutrals include black, white, gray, and sometimes brown and beige. They are sometimes called “earth tones.”