WATERCOLOR COLOR WHEEL

Color Wheel, watercolor art theory

All these colors are made with only 3 basic colors called primary colors. They come first. Like the first school you start with is primary school, the first colors we start with are primary colors. Even brown and black can be made with the three primary colors!

Orange, green, and purple are called secondary colors. They come second (secondary). Notice that I have some color dots on my color wheel. Those colors with one dot near them are primary colors. Those colors with two dots near them are secondary colors.

The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. It takes primary colors to make secondary colors.

If we mix yellow and red together we get orange. If we mix yellow and blue together we get green.

If we mix red and blue together we get purple.

You will need a couple (2) shiney paper plates, a container of water, a paint brush, some watercolor paints (red, yellow, and blue), some watercolor paper, some paper towels or cloth rags.

Squirt just a tiny bit of each color of paint onto one paper plate. Dip your brush to wet it with a little water and mix it with the edge of the yellow paint to make a watery mixture. Put the watery yellow mixture onto the other plate. Then swish your brush in the water to clean it.

Do the same with the red paint and transfer it onto the other plate across from the yellow mixture. Mix the two together until you have orange. You may need a little less red than yellow because red is so dark. Paint a little on your watercolor paper like I’ve started to do here. Always swish your paint brush in your water between colors to clean it.

Now do the same thing with yellow and blue. And have fun painting on your paper.

Then experiment with red and blue…have fun painting on your paper. Now just do anything you want and have fun seeing what happens. I wish I could see what you are doing!

Here are some Christmas Pictures to practice drawing with a grid.

As we continue to paint a watercolor color wheel, if you missed lesson #8 go back to that post and take a look! It will show you the materials you need and examples of me mixing color with a brush.

We learned about the three basic colors that make up all the colors of the color wheel: primary colors. They are red, yellow, and blue. See where I put one color dot next to each primary color on the color wheel.

Then we mixed primary colors to get secondary colors. They are orange, green, and purple. See where I put two color cots next to each secondary color.

Now I will tell you about the third group of colors. They are called tertiary colors. ( I don’t know why they don’t just call them third colors! Tertiary and third both start with the letter T – that’s how I remember). I have also put three color dots next to each tertiary color on the color wheel.

Here I have mixed the primary color yellow with the secondary color green to get tertiary yellow-green.

Next I mixed secondary green with primary blue to get tertiary blue-green.

Then I mixed primary blue with secondary purple to get tertiary bluish-purple.

Here I mixed primary red with secondary purple to get tertiary reddish-purple.

Then I mixed primary red with secondary orange to get tertiary red-orange.

And lastly I mixed secondary orange with primary yellow to get tertiary yellow-orange.

Yellow-green, blue-green, and bluish-purple: all tertiary!

Reddish-purple, red-orange, and yellow-orange: all tertiary!

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