Color is a powerful element to energize our art works.  You can use color to create the effects you want.                       

It is easy to study colors through a color wheel, especially one you made for yourself.

In color theory, a wheel is created with the primary colors spreading equally around the rim.  Red, blue, and yellow are considered the primary colors because they cannot be made by mixing from any other color.  On the wheel, the secondary colors are placed between this three.  Each is a mixture of two primaries.  Red and yellow make orange.  Blue and yellow make green.  Red and blue made violet.

By mixing secondary colors with primary colors, we will obtain six other colors.  Yellow green is the mix of yellow and green.  Blue green is the mix of blue and green.  The other four colors are blue valet, red valet, red orange and yellow orange. 

As you can see from the above picture, it is an arrangement where orange is directly opposite blue on the wheel.  All the colors directly across from each other on the wheel are known as complementary colors.  Complementary colors are a contrast to each other.

The color wheel makes some very basic color relationships easier to see and understand.  This basic understanding of how color works can help you in your own development as an artist.

When you are planning your next painting, draw a simple color wheel grid on a scrap of silk.  Spot the dominant colors you will be using in the appropriate areas of grid.  You will immediately see what your complementary colors might be, and easily develop and evaluate color harmony and balance.