Understanding primary, secondary and tertiary colours

Put your colour wheel in motion.

The colour wheel represents all visible colours. It’s the standard tool for viewing and understanding colour combinations. Arranged in the order the colours appear in the light spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet), Sir Isaac Newton created the first colour wheel in 1666.

There are two types of wheels: one based on the primary colours of RYB (red, yellow and blue) and one based in RGB colour (red, green and blue). Typically, print artists use the RYB colour model, as it’s best suited to illustrating the correlation between physical colours in inks and paints in the colour mixing process.

For designers or artists who work in the digital medium, the RGB colour palette is most typically used, as those colours are found in the photoreceptors of the eyes. The light source of a monitor or screen can create any colour you can imagine with the combination of different shades of red, green and blue. However, if printing is your ultimate goal, digital artists and designers can use or convert files to, CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). These are the four basic colours of ink used in printing colour images.

What is colour theory?

Colour theory is the creative and scientific use of colour. It’s a system of logic that places guidelines and rules of how colours contrast, mix and match with each other.

“When it comes to colour theory, there’s no set list of ‘Don't do that,’” says illustrator Alyssa Newman. “It’s a push-pull thing and it comes down to preference.” With so many options, how do you decide what colour palette works best for your illustrations? The colour wheel comes to the rescue. You can use it to determine what colour scheme matches the mood you’re trying to set.

The grand colour scheme of things.

Do you want colours that flatter each other? Choose colours that are located right next to each other on the colour wheel. These are called analogous colours. You’ll need to have the proper contrast, so most illustrators choose one dominant colour, along with a second supporting colour and a third colour to be used as an accent or highlight.

This is a simple method to develop a colour system, but it’s not without its flaws. “There are mixed opinions with this approach because it’s very easy to have a calming colour palette, but then you also have very low contrast and all the colours blend together,” Newman says. For instance, yellow-green, yellow and yellow-red are all vivid colours, each with their complexity, but when used together in a painting, it can look like a primary yellow. Luckily, digital illustration doesn’t have the same properties as traditional art, so it allows some flexibility in how you use the colour palette you choose.

“With illustration, you can definitely get away with taking the analogous colour palette for your secondary colours. And then picking your primary colour that is opposite on the colour wheel,” says Newman. This is what’s called a complementary colour scheme. If you choose a colour on the opposite side of the wheel, it gives whatever you colour the most substantial contrast while it remains pleasing to the eye. Keep a colour wheel handy to determine what the best complementary colours are for your next project.

Get the temperature right.

Colour wheels are arranged in order of how those specific colours appear in the visible light spectrum. The left side has warm colours, based in red, while the right side has cool colours, found in blue. While these classifications are stable, more subtle colour connections are relative, meaning that a warm colour can be considered a cool colour and vice versa, depending on their relationship with the neighboring colour. Colours from the same hue can also be regarded as colder or warmer than one another based on what colour they appear beside.

Before you create, think about what type of emotions you want to portray. Cold and warm colours have unique properties that can change an image in a variety of ways. Cool colours offer a calm, soothing feeling, while warm colours are energising and happy. Warm colours make things look closer to the viewer, whereas cool colours give a faraway look to an image.

Make your next piece in living colour with Adobe Creative Cloud.

Let your imagination run free and play around with different colour combinations to achieve a distinctive look, customised to your next project. “Secondary colours open the door to interesting colour combinations that make people feel like it’s their project, it’s original,” says designer Jacob Obermiller. “It’s not just blue, yellow, red or black. It now has some character and ownership to it.” The Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan has all the tools you need to give anything you create its own character.

If you’re interested in learning more about colours, explore colour photography, how to colourise black-and-white photos or how to calibrate your monitor for more vivid colours. The better your understanding of colour, the better you can find the perfect look for each new piece you create.