What is color theory in drawing? The circle of primary, secondary and tertiary colors. The integration of colors in artistic education

a definition :

        Color theory is an experiment carried out by scientist Isaac Newton, who attempted to prove that the sunlight coming towards us is light made up of a group of colors and not just white light. This is the result of Newton's attempt to study the causes of color distortion. In the telescope images, he therefore drilled a small hole in his bedroom window to let in a small part of the rays. The sun was shining through it, then he placed a glass prism in front of the light. The result was, as Isaac deduced, that the light was diverted from its path and seven colors appeared: red, yellow, green, blue, orange, indigo and violet, which were called spectral colors, while the experiment was called diffusion of light, and the conclusion they reached Newton's theory is that white light is composed of seven colors. This is what nature has given us with a rainbow, which is the same experience as white light penetrating water droplets.

      To further prove his theory, Newton attempted to reduce spectral colors to white. After several attempts, he came up with the idea of placing all the spectral colors inside a disk in a specific order, then placing them on his helicopter and making it spin and rapidly increase its speed until so that the disc turns white.

Colors in art education:

     This discovery opened up great horizons for studying and delving into colors, because the experience was beneficial in all fields, whether design, photography or spectroscopy. He created a set of optical concepts, including the optical spectrum and the visible spectrum, in an attempt to understand the eye's ability to distinguish colors, and the general conclusion was: lights are affected by certain sources, and the subtractive conclusion is the interaction of the colors of a source with a surface and the emergence of a new color.

       Art also is the result of different ideas about colors, including the art of dyeing, which is a study of color gradations based on Edison's discovery and which then extracts from spectral colors the basic colors for the color calibration, which are as follows:

- The basic colors: red, blue and yellow, which are original and cannot be extracted by mixing other colors and merging them together. We obtain the black color, while their absence gives the white color, that is to say the color of the drawing surface, that is to say the paper or the canvas...

- Secondary colors: They are extracted from the combination of two primary colors in the same quantity, i.e. a combination

Yellow + red = orange

Yellow + blue = green

Red + blue = purple

- Neutral colors: black, white, gray and brown, which are obtained by combining

Red + blue + yellow = black / color gradient, we also get brown

White + black = gray

It is called neutral because it is considered colorless and is compatible with all types of colors

Black is added to a color to make it darker or opaque

White is added to color to lighten it or make it more open

Gray is added to color to achieve the intermediate degree between lightness and darkness or shading of the color.

- Intermediate secondary colors (triples): These are the result of a difference in the amount of primary color combination, e.g.

Red + red + yellow = reddish orange. The red is now straighter at the shoulders.

- Warm colors: They are also called hot colors because they are linked to the colors of heat, that is to say everything that is a source of fire, which is

Red, orange, yellow and all their shades

- Cool colors: These are the colors of nature, such as grass, sky and water.

Green, blue, purple and all their shades

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