Art

Hue

The name of a color, such as red, orange, blue, etc.

Value

The lightness and darkness of a color.

intensity

The strength, brightness or purity of a color.

Primary Colors

RED, YELLOW, BLUE. The colors from which all other colors can be mixed

Secondary Colors

ORANGE, GREEN, VIOLET. Made by mixing two of the primaries.

Tertiary Colors

Colors made by mixing neighboring primary and secondary colors on the color wheel. RED-ORANGE, RED-VIOLET, etc.

Complementary Colors

Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel, such as red/green, blue/orange, etc. You can lower the intensity of a color by adding a small amount of its complement to it. The more complement you add to a color, the duller the color looks. Finally, the color will appear gray. (or brown).

Warm colors

Colors on one side of the color wheel which contain red, orange and yellow. (Think of fire).

Cool colors

Colors on one side of the color wheel which contain blue and green (Think of water).

Tints

Colors to which white is added.

Shade

Colors to which black is added

monochromatic

Refers to variations of a single color; one color plus white (tint) and/or black (shade).

analogous

Colors that are next to each other on the color wheel and have a common color. Violet, red-violet, red red-orange have red in common.

triad

Three colors spaced equally apart on the color wheel, such as orange, green, violet.

split complement

One color plus the colors on each side of its complement (or opposite). (blue, red-orange and yellow-orange)

Color Wheel

A system of organizing colors; colors are arranged in a circle in the order of the spectrum.