Primary and Secondary Colors

An understanding of how colors work is fundamental to any artist. Most artists deal with color directly in their work. Even those whose art work is primarily in black and white, or with shades of gray, must deal with traslating what they see in every day color into perceptable images in their media. Here are some basics of color that every art student should know.

Primary Colors

The most basic colors in the artist's palette are primary colors. These are colors that are mixed to create all other colors and which cannot be created by mixing other colors. The primary colors in the artist's palette are red, yellow and blue.

Secondary Colors

Secondary colors are the colors that are made by mixing two primary colors together in equal amounts. Red and yellow combine to form orange, red and blue combine to form purple, and yellow and blue combine to form green.