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