Colour Wheel Presentation
Senior 3 · Fine Arts
Colour Wheel Presentation
Lesson 1 of 4
20 min
In 1708 a handbook for painters of miniatures, small portraits painted in watercolour, was printed in The Hague. It contained one of the earliest known painted colour circles. Count its segments: there are twelve, each with a French name such as Jaune (yellow), Orangé (orange) and Vert bleu (blue-green). Over three hundred years later, art students all over the world still build the same twelve-part circle. In this unit you will mix one, construct it accurately and present it as a finished piece of work.
Definition
Primary colours (in painting): red, yellow and blue. They cannot be mixed from other paints.
Secondary colours: orange, green and violet, each mixed from two primaries.
Tertiary colour (also called an intermediate colour): a colour mixed from a primary and the secondary next to it on the colour wheel. Its name gives the primary first, joined by a hyphen. Example: yellow + green = yellow-green.
12-part colour wheel: a circle divided into twelve equal segments showing 3 primaries, 3 secondaries and 6 tertiaries in their natural order.
| Secondary | Mixed from | Sits between | Opposite on the wheel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orange | red + yellow | red and yellow | blue |
| Green | yellow + blue | yellow and blue | red |
| Violet | blue + red | blue and red | yellow |
Each secondary sits halfway between the two primaries that make it, and opposite the one primary it does not contain. Keep this pattern in mind: the wheel is a map of how colours are made.
Between each primary and its neighbouring secondary there is a gap on a six-colour wheel. A tertiary fills it. Mix yellow with orange and you get a colour halfway between them: yellow-orange. Doing this six times, once in every gap, turns a six-part wheel into a twelve-part wheel.
Look at the pattern in Figure 1. Primaries are every fourth segment (12, 4 and 8 o'clock). Secondaries are halfway between them. Tertiaries fill all the odd-numbered places in between, so every tertiary touches one primary and one secondary.
You will meet one other use of the word. Some older books call the dull colours made by mixing two secondaries "tertiaries": orange + green gives an olive, for example. In this course, as on the 12-part wheel, a tertiary always means a primary mixed with a neighbouring secondary.
| Tertiary | Where you might see it in Rwanda |
|---|---|
| Yellow-orange | the pulp of a ripe passion fruit |
| Red-orange | the flowers of the African tulip tree (Spathodea) |
| Red-violet | bougainvillea flowers on garden walls |
| Blue-violet | jacaranda blossom |
| Blue-green | shallow lake water on a bright day |
| Yellow-green | new tea leaves on a plantation |
Natural colours are rarely pure, so these are approximate. Training your eye to say "that is closer to yellow-green than to green" is exactly the skill the wheel teaches.
Worked example: placing colours on the wheel
Mugisha is given five colours: blue, violet, red-orange, green and blue-violet. Classify each and find the segment between blue and violet.
Step 1. Classify. Blue is a primary. Violet and green are secondaries (blue + red, yellow + blue). Red-orange and blue-violet have two-part names with the primary first, so they are tertiaries.
Step 2. Find the gap. Blue (primary) and violet (secondary) are neighbours on a six-part wheel. The tertiary between them takes the primary's name first: blue-violet.
Step 3. Check the angle. Twelve equal segments share a full turn, so each takes . Blue and violet are two segments apart, , and blue-violet sits at the midpoint, from each.
<em>Steps on how to achieve a COLOUR WHEEL (Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colours)</em>, from the Irene Ewere Art channel. As you watch, say the name of each tertiary as it is mixed, primary first, and check where it goes on Figure 1.
Warning
Common naming mistakes. Writing the secondary first ("orange-yellow"), inventing tertiaries from opposite colours ("red-green"), and calling every brownish mix a tertiary. Check each name against the six in Figure 2.
Tip
3 + 3 + 6 = 12. Three primaries, three secondaries, six tertiaries. On the clock face: primaries at 12, 4 and 8; secondaries at 2, 6 and 10; tertiaries on every odd hour.
Practice
Name the three secondary colours and the primaries that make each.
Write the name of the tertiary made from: (a) red and violet; (b) yellow and green; (c) blue and green.
Which of these are tertiaries: orange, red-orange, blue-violet, green, red-green?
On the clock-face wheel with yellow at 12, what colour is at 3 o'clock, and what is at 7 o'clock?
Explain why a 12-part wheel has twice as many tertiaries as secondaries.
Observation task. Find three objects at home or at school and name the colour of each as precisely as you can on the 12-part wheel. Give the object and the wheel colour.
1. Orange (red + yellow), green (yellow + blue), violet (blue + red).
2. (a) red-violet; (b) yellow-green; (c) blue-green.
3. Red-orange and blue-violet. Orange and green are secondaries; "red-green" is a mix of opposites, not a tertiary.
4. 3 o'clock is red-orange (between orange at 2 and red at 4); 7 o'clock is blue-violet (between violet at 6 and blue at 8).
5. Each secondary has two neighbouring primaries, one on each side, so each of the 3 secondaries makes 2 gaps: tertiaries.
6. Answers vary, e.g. a tomato: red; a banana leaf: yellow-green; a school jumper: blue.
Why do you think painters in 1708 and art students today both found it useful to arrange colours in a circle rather than in a straight line?
Sources and credits
