USING COLOUR with a COLOUR WHEEL

All pages and text by Adrienne Lubbe

PRIMARY COLOURS (red, blue and yellow) are the basic building blocks of the colour wheel.

Each subsequent colour is the result of mixing a combination of those three colours.

SECONDARY COLOURS (orange, green, purple) form the second level of the colour wheel

INTERMEDIATE  or TERTIARY  COLOURS represent all the remaining colours between primary and secondary.

When mixing paint colours, by adding black or white to the base colour one can create

tints (lighter) and shades (darker) of one colour.

This forms a well known colour scheme known as MONOCHROMATIC colour scheme

The above page conveys the feel of snow because of the texture and colour of the paper and is also a good example of a MONOCHROMATIC colour scheme (excluding the colours in the photos) using the blue/grey colour as the base colour and creating tints of the colour with white added in varying quantities. This is one of the most popular colour schemes to use. One must be careful not to let it get too static and boring because of a lack of colour contrast

 An ANALOGOUS layout uses colours adjacent to each other on the colour wheel.

Tints and shades of these colours have been used in this layout.

This is also a popular choice especially when it comes to autumn colours.

 A COMPLEMENTARY colour scheme is created by choosing colours opposite each other

on the colour wheel. This normally creates a more vibrant layout because colours opposite

each other on the colour wheel tend to intensify each other.

TERTIARY or SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY colour schemes use the four colours

adjacent to a pair of complementary colours. This is a more complicated colour scheme

A TRIADIC colour scheme is composed of three colours spaced 

equidistant around the colour wheel. This makes for a vibrant colour combination as shown below.

Another principle one can follow when designing with colour

 is to use the GALLON, QUART, OUNCE RULE

In the page below there was one dominant colour (orange) used - GALLON

The background colour (brown) was used to a much lesser extent - QUART

Then touches of red were used in the stars - OUNCE