Study guide

Color Theory

A short course on color for painters.

How color works on the canvas: what light and the eye do, how colors are named and measured, how they change one another, and how pigments behave. Concept pages explain one idea with a historic plate or an original diagram; example pages show it in a public-domain painting.

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• Diagrams are original to this site or historic public-domain plates; paintings are public domain or openly licensed. Sources and licenses are listed under Image credits.

Contents

• A Short History of Color Theory
• Light and Seeing
• Describing Color
• Value and Temperature
• Harmony and Contrast
• Interaction
• Paint and Pigment
• Composition and Meaning

Image: Made for this site · Original work