The color wheel is a perfect tool for creating colorful patterns for your works of art, for interior decoration and for all occasions when you need to match colors. Making one is pretty simple and it's also a lot of fun learning how to add and remove colors to get the hue you want.
Steps
Step 1. Study the color wheel
This is a standard way of explaining how colors mix. The visible light spectrum is separated into 12 different colors and the wheel shows how they relate to each other, as well as the effect they get when used together.
- Primary colors: they must be translucent and when mixed together you get black, not brown. The red color is positioned to the right of the wheel, the yellow PY150 is placed at 12 o'clock to the right of the transparent magenta PR122; the third primary color is cyan PB15. These colors are called primary because they cannot be obtained by mixing other pigments. All three, together with white, are the basis of all the colors used in painting; any translucent color can become opaque by adding white, while red, blue and green pigments are secondary.
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Secondary colors: obtained by mixing two primary colors.
- Translucent yellow + translucent magenta = red, orange and scarlet;
- Translucent yellow + translucent cyan = yellow-green, green and turquoise;
- Translucent cyan + translucent magenta = blue, purple and violet.
- Tertiary colors: they are made by mixing a secondary with an equal dose of primary color.
- Complementary: they are located in diametrically opposite points of the color wheel and match well with each other.
- Triad of colors: use three analogous colors; the central one has an opposite color which is part of the triad. When mixed together, the three shades of the triad generate the neutral black color.
Step 2. Start on a white background
- To make the circular shape, you can use a plate or compass;
- Draw 12 circles along a circumference;
- Draw the primary triangle inside the circle.
Step 3. Draw a circle on top, but outside of the primary triangle and color it yellow
- Add an outer circle to the lower right vertex of the triangle and color it with magenta;
- Draw a third circle outside the lower left corner of the triangle and color it with cyan;
- These three circles represent the primary colors.
Step 4. Draw an inverted triangle that overlaps the first one by adding a circle to each vertex
- Draw the first circle on the right side and color it red;
- Then draw a circle on the left and color it green;
- Finally, draw the third circle on the bottom and color it blue;
- These three circles represent the secondary colors.
Step 5. Draw six more circles, with smooth lines, between the first six largest
- Place the first one between the yellow and the red coloring it with orange;
- The second must be between red and magenta; in this case you have to color it scarlet;
- The third is placed between magenta and blue, it must be purple;
- The fourth (cobalt blue) is positioned between blue and cyan;
- The fifth must be turquoise and you must draw it between cyan and green;
- The sixth and last circle is yellow-green and its position is between green and yellow;
- These six colors are the tertiaries.
Step 6. Draw a circle in the center of the triangles and color it black
Advice
- Try different techniques to improve your skills; for example, use crayons, markers, colored pencils, tempera and various types of paints.
- Try using markers, a scriber pen, or even an ink brush to go over the final strokes.
