Understanding make a color wheel empowers you to create virtually any imaginable color in paint, and it also trains your eye to recognize subtle differences in color tones. It is an exercise that is at once simple in its execution yet complex in its significance. The basic color wheel consists of 12 colors placed on 12 equal sections of a circle.
The relationships between the colors on the wheel make it easy to adjust hues to the desired brightness and dullness or lightness and darkness to achieve exactly the color you are aiming for. Adding small amounts of a color's complement, which is the hue exactly across from it on the wheel, will decrease the intensity of the tone. Any color tone, whether bright or dull, may be tinted by adding white, or shaded by adding black. The possibilities become infinite.
Instructions
1. Draw a circle on your white board at least 6 inches in diameter using the compass. Then, using the same center point for your compass, draw a concentric circle that is 2 inches smaller in diameter. You now have a "wheel" that is 1 inch wide.
2. Divide your wheel into 12 equal sections. The easiest way to do this is to use a protractor to create twelve 30-degree angles from the center point of your circles.
3. Paint the three primary color sections on every fourth section of your wheel, so that they are equidistant from each other on the color wheel. The three primary colors are red, blue and yellow. All of the other nine colors on the color wheel will be mixed from these three colors.
4. Carefully mix the secondary colors and paint them in the center sections between the two primaries they are mixed from. The three secondary colors are green, orange and violet. Each of these is mixed by combining equal parts of two primaries. Red and blue create violet, blue and yellow create green, and yellow and red create orange.
5. Carefully mix and paint the tertiary colors in the remaining wheel sections. The six tertiary colors are blue-green, yellow-green, red-orange, yellow-orange, blue-violet and red-violet. Each of these colors is mixed by combining equal parts of a primary color and a secondary color. These colors are placed on the circle section between the two colors from which they are mixed and complete the color wheel.
6. Label your 12 colors, indicating what type of color each one is below its name. For example: Yellow---primary; Green---secondary; Blue-violet---tertiary. Your color wheel is now complete.
