About Colours
- That aspect of things that is caused by differing qualities of the light reflected or emitted by them, definable in terms of the observer or of the light, as:
- The appearance of objects or light sources described in terms of the individual's perception of them, involving hue, lightness, and saturation for objects and hue, brightness, and saturation
- The characteristics of light by which the individual is made aware of objects or light sources through the receptors of the eye, described in terms of dominant wavelength, luminance, and purity.
- A substance, such as a dye, pigment, or paint that imparts a hue.
Understanding Colour
Colour is crucial to visual communication. It's a basic property of light. It captures your eye. It touches your heart. It moves you subtly. Irrespective of the nationality, language or religion, colour is, indeed, an important part of our lives.
The Colour Wheel is a visual aid in helping us understand the principles of colour. It describes the relationships between colours. It is also an excellent tool to help create harmonious colour schemes for painting, interior decorating, and commercial colour applications.
Primary Colours
At the core of the colour wheel are three primary colours - Red, Yellow and Blue. The primary colours are unique and cannot be created by mixing any other colours. When mixing these 3 colour hues, at least in theory, all the other hues of the colour wheel, including black can be created.
Colour Associations
Primaries form the ultimate contrast of hue and the greatest luminosity. Primaries express fundamental qualities, folk art, embroidery, costumes, etc. They are exuberant, decorative, tonic, vigorous, decisive.
Secondary Colours
Next on the colour wheel are the secondary or complementary colours. Three secondary colours are produced from the mixing of one primary colour with another. These colours are Orange-Green-Violet.
Colour Associations
Secondaries form the second most contrast of hue. The intensity of colours diminishes as hues are further away from the primaries.
Tertiary Colours
Tertiary colours are created by mixing one secondary and one primary colour. E.g. blue + violet = blueviolet.
Three or more separate colours are mixed (one primary and one secondary - the combination of two primaries), and in the colour wheel each tertiary colour being created will be an equal combination of the two colours, left and right, one being a primary and the other, a secondary. The tertiary colours are yellow-orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green and yellow-green.
Colour Associations
Tertiary colours have less distinctive colour contrasts and often imply the concrete, mundane, and earthly simplicity. They are associated with cosmic universality, celestial, medieval manuscripts, stained glass, other religious art.
Optics - Colour Vision
Contrasting colours are separated by two or three colours on the wheel and create bold, vivid images. They have a huge impact on the appearance of the main colour. Here, the middle squares are actually the same shade of red. Setting one against a green background makes it seem redder than the square set against orange.
The colours opposite to each other on a colour wheel are complementary colours while analogous colours lie adjacent to each other on the wheel. Complementary colours (blue and orange) create exciting, even vibrating, effects. In contrast, an analogous colour harmony (blue and blue-green) is less vivid, even calming.
Colour Speak
Hue: Undiluted colours, the true colours of the spectrum
Colour: Any colour or shade
Saturation: Brightness of a colour
Value: Lightness and darkness of a colour
Brilliance: Lightness of a colour
Tint: A colour with the presence of white; lighter shade of a colour. E.g.Pink is a tint of red.
Shade: A colour with the presence of black; darker shade of a colour. Navy is a shade of blue.
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