Vision and color are at the heart of painting. Here is the most comprehensive discussion for artists of color perception, color psychology, "color theory" and color mixing available online, and one of the most comprehensive available anywhere in any format.

  modern color theory
talking about color  the 18th century heritage  substance uncertainty  additive & subtractive color mixture  color geometry  color mixture gamuts  talking about paints  many painters's palettes  interdependence of colormaking attributes  color symbolism  summary

  additive & subtractive color mixing
additive color mixing (in the eye)  subtractive color mixing (in substances)  substance uncertainty  "theory" vs. experience

  learning color through paints
three guiding principles  27 color study topics

  tonal value
the dominance of value  the value scale  hue, lightness and saturation  the artist's value wheel  grayscales & gamut mapping  painting values.

the artist's value wheel (HTML  PDF)

  color temperature
warm vs. cool colors  warm/cool contrast effects  the origin of warm/cool  the warm/cool contrast in paints  unsaturated color zones  painting warm or cool

  color wheels
creating a color wheel  "primary" color wheel  secondary color wheel  tertiary color wheel  more is less? a gamut comparison  color names

  mixing with a color wheel
saturation costs  the color wheel fallacy  basic mixing method  split "primary" palette (dogma & critique)  unequal color spacing

basic mixing method

  an artist's color wheel
visual vs. mixing complements  the artist's color wheel  tour of the color wheel  why the difference?  making your own color wheel

the artist's color wheel — CIECAM version (HTML  PDF)
watercolor mixing complements

  color harmony & contrast
basic issues in color design  traditional hue harmonies  three theories of color harmony  introduction to full color harmonies  dynamics of full color harmonies  a natural color harmony  ruskin's last word

  color in the world
the causes of color  surfaces & lights  surface & shadow color  special material colors  physical color changes

color
theory

 
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