Tired of Black and White? Learn the Color Wheel!

In most digital art programs, you deal with a range of color options. The main option that we are using is the RGB (red, green, and blue) format. There is another useful mode, where few are familiar with, is the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and key [black]) mode of painting.

In CMYK format, you basically paint with the colors used by modern day printers.

There are advantages to each of them that your digital program can use. If you decide to use CMYK, it is printer friendly so you know exactly how the printed digital painting will look like. For human eyes, however, it’s best to just use RGB. The colors will be slightly off, but will not make a huge difference at all.

Don’t worry about the CMYK format as your digital program can switch between colors with a few clicks.

1. Learn the color wheel!

The color wheel consists of three primary colors and three secondary colors. Primary colors are colors that exist without the mixing of any other colors. Secondary colors, on the other hand, need to be mixed with two primary colors to be produced.

The primary colors are blue, red, and yellow, while the secondary colors are purple, green, and orange respectively.

When you learn the wheel, you will know what colors to apply in your digital paintings correctly. For example, an aqua colored body of water can only exist if the sky is blue and the algae underneath the water are green.

It is that mix between the color green and blue will create the aqua color for the ocean.

2. Color harmony and contrast

The mixing of colors really ties into the idea of color harmony and color contrast very well. As you learn the color wheel you will discover that certain colors exist because other colors exist. For instance, red and blue does not exist in a painting if there is no purple to link these two primary colors.

It’s the same thing with any secondary colors in that orange or green can’t exist without some value of yellow, red, or blue in your digital painting.

For color contrasts, any colors on the opposite side of the color you want to use are called complementary colors. For example, the complementary color of blue is orange, not red. The complementary color of red is green, not blue. Not only that, but the complementary color of yellow is purple and not green.

This is why you need to learn the color wheel as it helps you to find which colors are complementary to each other!

3. Learn with practice!

As always, start up a new layer. If you want, you can draw a random shape to be filled in later. Next, what I want you to do is find the gradient tool in your digital art program.

Just a refresher, the gradient tool will allow you to make color gradients based on the colors you have chosen. Now, use the gradient tool to place different colors down on the canvas.

Pick as many colors as you can to learn the color wheel. The object is to learn about color harmony and contrast and to explore the options available for your gradient tool. If the colors are apposing each other, then there is a color contrast.

However, if the color has a primary or secondary color that links all the colors together, then it has color harmony. Just think of color harmony as an area of color illuminated by a single light source.

I personally see if I can add more color bands to each gradient. If necessary, you may have to learn how to insert additional colors between each different color points if your digital art program is unable to provide the colors that you need.

Either way, the goal of this exercise is to get your eyes to look for the colors that link each color value to one another. This is your harmony!

4. Continue to learn the wheel

After learning the basics, you will obviously need to apply these colors somehow. Again, this is done through color harmony. However, there are other aspects to determining the flow of color.

What about contrast? What about light and temperature? What will happen when these colors are in a dark area? These things will surely impact your color selection.

In the next article, I will teach you how to use the wheel. For now, just continue to learn the color wheel at your own pace. Try with other gradients and see if you can find intermittent colors to pick out. Does it feel harmonious to you?

How about creating your own wheel with the CMYK color charts? See if you can reproduce your own color wheel! Depending on your program, it may not be able to! This will help you out with learning about the gradient tools available in your digital art program.

As always, the motivation to experiment and practice will get you far as you learn the color wheel!

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Return from Color Wheel to the 2d Digital Art Guide.