Exploring Color Theory

This year I am teaching high school art. On this page you will find some of the resources that I have made for the color portion of the art course. While it is true that the student could and probably should draw these shapes to paint sometimes there simply isn't enough time and that is where these printables come in.

Best wishes to you and have fun teaching color theory. :-)

Supplies

quality mixable paint in these colors: white, black, red, blue, and yellow
paint brushes in various sizes
paint mixing trays, water, paper towels and a protected surface for working
paper that is paint friendly
artist apron for each child (optional)

Color Terms:

Hue: Pure color without the addition of black, white, or gray

Tint: Color with white added.

Tone: Color with gray or its complement added.

Value: The relative darkness or lightness of a color.

Intensity: The strength of a color, especially the degree to which it lacks its complementary color.

Saturation: Vividness of hue; degree of difference from a gray of the same lightness or brightness.

Achromatic: Designating color perceived to have zero saturation and therefore no hue, such as neutral grays, white, or black.

The printables and a brief explanation of each one

Color Wheels

Although a child should try to draw this themselves, I decided to make a printable anyway in case of limited class time. It is preferred that the child use only the 3 primary colors: red, yellow, and blue to paint the color wheel. The child should learn to mix the colors to get the other needed colors.
red and yellow=orange, blue and yellow=green, blue and red=purple

Ives Color Wheel
This color wheel has various sized circles which makes color placement a little easier for beginners.

Ives Color Wheel
This color wheel is the pie type, there are no indicators of where colors go.

Color Wheel Terms

Primary Colors: Colors at their basic essence; those colors that cannot be created by mixing others...
red, blue, yellow

Secondary Colors: The colors achieved by a mixture of two primaries...
purple, orange, green

Tertiary Colors: The colors achieved by a mixture of primary and secondary hues..
red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green, yellow-green, yellow-orange

Complementary Colors: The colors located opposite each other on a color wheel.

Analogous Colors: The colors located close together on a color wheel and have a color in common.

Mixing and Comparing

Scale Chart I
with black lines
Scale Chart I
with gray lines

Scale Chart II
with black lines
Scale Chart II
with gray lines

Comparison Boxes
with black lines
Comparison Boxes
with gray lines

Color Group Terms

Artists can use color groups for their palette to make a visually pleasing color scheme.
Triadic Colors: These are the colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel.

Primary Triad

SecondaryTriad

Tertiary Triad

Split-complementary color schemes

Split complementary is a variation of complementary. There are 12 possible variations. In the first example below, the 3 colors connected are red, yellow-green, and blue-green. Green is the complement of red, but in a split complementary color scheme, the colors adjacent to the complement are used instead of the true complement.