Colour wheel Flashcards
Learn different colour schemas and terminology
What is meant by hue?
A colour at it’s full strength as it appears on the colour wheel.
What is meant by chroma?
The saturation of a colour. It defines the strength of the hue.
What is meant by value?
The relative lightness or darkness of a colour. These are referred to as tints, tones, and shades.
What’s the difference between tint, tone, and shade?
Tint- adding white to a pure hue
Shade- adding black to a pure hue
Tone- adding grey to a pure hue
What’s a primary colour? Name them
Pure colours that cannot be made from other colours.
Red, blue, yellow
What’s a secondary colour? Name them
Colours made from two primary colours. Green, orange, violet
What’s a tertiary colour? Name three
Colours made from from a primary and secondary colour.
Red-violet (purple)
Blue-violet (indigo)
Blue-green (turquoise)
Yellow-green (lime)
Yellow-orange (saffron)
Red-orange (tangerine)
What’s an analogous/adjacent colour harmony?
A group of three or four colours that are adjacent on the colour wheel, with one primary colour included.
eg. blue, blue-green, green
What’s a monochromatic colour harmony?
A harmony consisting of tints, tones, and shades of one colour.
What’s a complementary harmony?
Harmony with two colours that lie directly opposite each other on the colour wheel.
eg. red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple
What’s a near complementary harmony?
A two colour harmony of one colour combined with a colour that is on either side of it’s direct complementary.
eg. green and red-orange(tangerine), yellow and blue-violet(indigo), orange and blue-green(turquoise)
What’s a split complementary harmony?
A three colour harmony consisting of one colour and the colours either side of is direct complementary.
eg. red and yellow-green(lime) and blue-green(turquoise)
yellow-orange(saffron) and blue and violet
yellow and red-violet(purple) and blue-violet(indigo)
What’s a contrasting harmony?
A harmony that includes colours that are unrelated, usually split by three segments on the wheel.
eg. red and yellow
violet and green
blue and red
What’s triadic harmony?
A harmony consisting of three colours that are equidistant on the wheel.
eg. red and yellow and blue
green and orange and violet
What’s a tetradic harmony?
Harmony that uses four colours that are equidistant on the wheel.
eg. green and red and blue and yellow
What’s a polychromatic harmony?
A harmony consisting of a at least five different colours
