So in those spare moments that you’re sitting around thinking about color and color theory (which for a color geek like myself may be more often than I care to admit), what comes to your mind? Why a color wheel, of course! Really, what is a color wheel, and why do we like to put color into such a simple form?
To get the boring definitions out of the way, here’s what technically a color wheel is:
Wikipedia defines a color wheel as “an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle that shows relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, complementary colors, etc.”
Whew! Now that’s over. Basically, as Wikipedia nicely points out, a color wheel simply shows relationships between colors. Why a wheel? By putting it in the round shape, we recognize that all the colors relate to each other. Whether it shows the 7 colors of ROY G BIV (more to share about that later in a future article), or the 12 colors stemming from red, blue, and yellow, there is no stopping point – the colors simply transition from one to the next. But in playing with color, you don’t have to just play with the wheel. Some of my favorite studies are when I’m simply wanting to see how a certain color transitions to another color.
Whatever the shape, it’s just plain fun for me to see how colors relate to each other!
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