ScrapMentor - Scrapbooking 101
Week 7 - Art Theory
Color Theory Part I
Color is one of the most powerful elements in any art form, including papercrafting, so a working knowledge of the basics of color theory is an important tool for you to have. Color theory
is a very broad subject, encompassing all of the ways in which various colors come together to create a finished piece. In this course, we will be covering some of the more basic aspects of
color theory.
The Color Wheel
The color wheel is a useful tool for artists who employ a variety of media - everything from painting to ceramics to graphics design to
scrapbooking. Color wheels show the colors of the rainbow arrayed in the traditional "ROYGBV" order. "ROYGBV" stands for "red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet." The placement of colors
on the color wheel helps you identify which colors will either complement one another well, or will provide a pleasing contrast to one another. They can be purchased from almost any
art supply house or craft store. There is also a color wheel included in the December 2004 issue of Memory Makers magazine.
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Colors
There are three primary colors - red, blue, and yellow. All of the other colors in the rainbow are made from combining these colors in different
amounts. On the color wheel, red, yellow, and blue are located at the corners of an imaginary triangle.
Mixing two primary colors together gives you the secondary colors - green, purple, and orange. These colors also form a triangle on the color wheel.
If you mix one primary color and one secondary color, you get the tertiary colors - yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green,
and yellow-green. These lie in the spaces between the primary and secondary colors in the color wheel.
Next week, I'll discuss using what you've learned about color theory so far to choose pleasing color schemes.
Homework
There is no homework for this section.
Supplemental Reading
- Memory Makers - Dec 04 - pp. 62-64 (including pullout) - "Practical Color Theory"
- Simple Scrapbooks - Jan/Feb 03 - pp. 64-73 - "Color Magic"
Please respect the ScrapMentor copyright in using this courseware. You are welcome to print a single edition of courseware for your own personal use, but you are not permitted to copy, distribute, or reproduce - in whole or in part - any of the courseware for others, without the express written permission of the owners of Scrap-Poodle. You may not charge for ScrapMentor courseware, nor present it as your own.
** This content was previously published at
www.Scrap-Poodle.com . It is presented
here for the convenience of former members of that site, and scrapbookers and
stampers at large. Please do not reproduce this information in any format
(except for printing a copy for personal use) without permission of Dana Jones,
original publisher of this information. **