Essential Color Theory Basics for Artists and Designers

hi everybody my name is Julian and today I'm going to be talking about color theory this is a really important topic

for any artist or graphic designer anything surrounding art you need to know color theory and I also get asked a

lot of questions about color theory and things to do with colors a lot so I thought I might as well make a video for

you all so I'm going to start with hue this is pretty straightforward and it's pretty easy to understand

hue is essentially what color the color is so if I draw a little graph here I want to draw a red in the middle will

draw orange yellow will draw purple next to the red and then pink you can see this color is basically changing and

yeah pink should be next red but let's ignore that so essentially hue is just what color it is so if we have a color

red here and we duplicate this and we change it we've just shifted the hue from a red to an orange and then we've

shifted the shoe to the orange to a yellow and then was just add the hue from a yellow to a green and so on it's

basically just what color you have selected there's not much more to it the next is saturation so this is a word

you probably gonna see a lot if you work with Photoshop or any sort of digital program and you'll probably hear it a

lot too in the art world this is essentially the intensity of the color this doesn't change how light or dark

the color it is it doesn't change what the color is it just changes how intense that actual color is so like you can see

on my screen I've got a bunch of dots the left-hand dot is a hundred percent saturated the right-hand dot is 0%

saturated so no saturation of a color is just gray and this applies for any color so you can see as I shift these colors

around here the left is always saturated the right is always not saturated so fully saturated green slowly getting D

saturated into gray the next is lightness and this can also be split up into tints and shades so this is

basically how bright or darker color is this doesn't affect the hue or the saturation or anything like that it's

basically just adding white or black into the color so if I sort of draw some little rectangles here you can see I'm

sort of making lighter and lighter so they're basically tints and then I'll make some more and

I'll make it darker and darker and these are some shades so you can see the darkest colors sort of like a dark brown

but it's still quite saturated and rich in color and then the light colors basically like a pink and it still has a

lot of color it's just very light so you can sort of use a general term to call it lightness or brightness of the color

or if you just make it darker it's called a shade if you make it lighter it's called a tint so next up is color

groups this is probably one of the more confusing parts of color theory I'll try to make it pretty straightforward for

you all because it's pretty simple once you understand it so I'm going to draw a little color wheel here and I'm

basically going to show how different colors relate to each other essentially color groups are basically dis color

schemes you could use these color screens for an artwork or for a painting or anything you're creating it's just a

way that colors can look cool together and sort of interactive each other so what I've drawn right here is a

monochromatic color scheme it's essentially what we just talked about with tints and shades depth only one

color so if I was to make a painting just out of reds and nothing else that would be a monochrome color scheme and

it's one type of color scheme that we can use the next is analagous or analog for sure I guess you could say and this

is basically what color is next to another color so I'm going to draw a little color wheel here and this sort of

analog color scheme is basically picking three colors on this color wheel and they all just need to sit next to each

other so if I draw some little lines here let's say we're going to pick yellow and then we'll pick orange in the

middle out if we spell it right and then we'll pick a red - and that's analagous color scheme we've picked three colors

that all sit next to each other and this can apply for any colors so if I just rotate this over here and spin it around

it can work for any colors so I could pick a green a yellow and an orange I could pick a blue or purple on a red

they just need to sit next to each other in the color wheel next is complementary you'll probably hear this a lot in sort

of art and design and this is basically colors that are opposite each other in the color wheel you've probably seen a

lot of movie posters love to use the colors orange and blue they're complementary colors they work really

good together I'm saying with green and red and yellow and purple so basically it

doesn't matter what the colors are they just need to be opposite each other in the color wheel and they are

complementary colors the next color group we're going to talk about is triatic so this is essentially making a

triangle on the color wheel so if we pick orange green and purple and make a little triangle that's a triadic color

scheme they all sit at a triangles point away from each other so if you just made a perfect triangle anywhere in the color

wheel as long as they all sit evenly that's a triadic color scheme there's a lot more color schemes than these ones

I've just listed here though these are sort of the core fundamental color schemes or color groups and to be

completely honest you don't always use all those other color groups it's more or less theory you do apply it in like

when you're actually creating your artwork though I can say as an artist who works in the field I don't often

actually refer to the color groups and the next part and one of the most important parts is the meaning behind

colors so a lot of people don't actually understand that a lot of colors are picked for very specific reasons and

each color actually has a meaning behind it and it gives off a certain emotion whether you like it or not each color

actually does have a motion and meaning behind it for anybody it's not subjective um all of these colors do

actually give off a bodily sort of emotion and an impact that we don't actually realize so red is most commonly

associated with passion and danger and fire and heat that's why stop signs are red orange is often associated with

energy and creativity yellow is sort of happiness joyfulness energy being active you'll see this a lot of advertising

people using these colors as well black sort of obvious um it's really associated with death and also power as

well green most commonly associated with nature as well as healing and medicine

you see a lot of health symbols in games be green for this reason blue is also a calming color see a lot of hospitals

painted blue for this reason it's also associated with wisdom purple is often associated with wealth actually the

reason this is is because the color purple the actual dye was a lot harder to create and make a few hundred years

ago so it was often only sort of worn by kings and queens and Royals so that's

why it's sort of associated with that and what is obviously known as sort of purity and peace basically the opposite

of black we also have warm and cool colors green is somewhat of a neutral color but let's just say it's cool

so obviously red your orange yellow oil somewhat warm colors blue purple and green are somewhat cool colors and you

can also make any color on a color wheel warm or cool so I've duplicated the green here so you can see the dot on the

left of the green has a bit more yellow added to it so it's a bit more warm and then the dot to the right of the green

dot has a bit more blue added to it so it's a bit more of a turquoise color and that's more of a cool color so if people

refer to warm or cool colors it's essentially how much yellow or how much blue has been added to a color so yellow

being warm blue being cold so next I have a little test for everybody watching so I want you to go through

this with me so I'm gonna draw three blue dots on my screen right now and I'd like to basically get your idea of

what's happened to these blue dots so I've got one I've got two I've got three so on the first dot I'm going to change

something about this dot and I want you to write in the comments what I've changed about that dot the second dot

I'm gonna change something about this dot as well I want you to let me know what did I change what type of color

sort of meaning did I change and the third dot I'm actually going to create a color scheme and I want you to tell me

what color scheme or color group that third sort of grouping is so write in the comments what one two and three are

I love to hear all of your feedback so that's it those are the basics of color theory obviously there's a lot more to

it though I really do think once you know those core things you really have a way better understanding of what Col

theory is and how to actually create artwork and work with colors once you know those things that I've gone through

in the video you can really do anything so I hope you enjoy the video of course likewise if you have any ideas for

future videos or anything else you'd like me to cover be sure let me know in the comments I'd love to hear

everybody's feedback so I hope you have an amazing to everybody it's been Julian or flow graphics here see ya