We all know the technique of memorizing the colors of the rainbow from school. Something similar to nursery rhyme sits deep in our memory: “ TO every O hunter and wants h nah, G de With goes f adhan." The first letter of each word means a color, and the order of the words is the sequence of these colors in the rainbow: To red, O range, and yellow, h green, G blue, With blue, f purple
Rainbows occur because sunlight refracted and reflected by water droplets floating in the atmosphere. These droplets deflect and reflect light differently different colors(wavelengths): red is less, violet is more. As a result, white sunlight is decomposed into a spectrum, the colors of which smoothly transition into each other through many intermediate shades. Rainbow is the most clear example what visible white light is made of

However, from the point of view of the physics of light, no colors exist in nature, but there are certain wavelengths that an object reflects. This combination (superposition) of reflected waves hits the retina of the human eye and is perceived by it as the color of an object. For example, green color birch leaf means that its surface absorbs all wavelengths of the solar spectrum, except for the wavelength of the green part of the spectrum and the wavelengths of those colors that determine its hue. Or Brown color school board Our eye perceives blue, red and yellow wavelengths of varying intensities as reflected wavelengths.

White, which is a mixture of all the colors of sunlight, means that the surface of an object reflects almost all wavelengths, while black reflects almost nothing. Therefore, we cannot talk about “pure” white or “pure” black colors, since complete absorption of radiation or its complete reflection in nature is practically impossible.

But artists cannot paint with wavelengths. They use real paints, and even a fairly limited set (they won’t carry more than 10,000 tones and shades with them on an easel). Just like in a printing house, an endless amount of paints cannot be stored. The science of color mixing is one of the fundamental ones for those who work with images, including airbrushing. Compiled great amount tables and guides for obtaining the desired colors and their shades. For example, these*:

or

Human eye- the most universal “device” for mixing. Studies have shown that it is most sensitive to only three primary colors: blue, red-orange and green. Information received from excited cells of the eye is transmitted along nerve pathways to the cerebral cortex, where complex processing and correction of the received data occurs. As a result, a person perceives what he sees as a single color picture. It has been established that the eye perceives a huge number of intermediate shades of color and colors obtained from mixing light of different wavelengths. In total there are up to 15,000 color tones and shades.
If the retina loses the ability to distinguish any color, then the person also loses it. For example, there are people who are unable to distinguish green from red.

Based on this feature of human color perception, the RGB color model was created ( Red red, Green green, Blue blue) for printing full-color images, including photographs.

The color gray and its shades stand a little apart here. Gray color is obtained by combining three primary colors - red, green and blue - in equal concentrations. Depending on the brightness of these colors, the shade of gray varies from black (0% brightness) to white (100% brightness).

Thus, all colors found in nature can be created by mixing the three primary colors and changing their intensity.

*Tables are taken from the public domain on the Internet.

Astronomer, writer, chemist, physicist, philosopher - Isaac Newton. And he once conducted an experiment with a prism through which ordinary sunlight passed. Imagine the natural scientist’s surprise when he saw white light - a real rainbow. And then, in the course of further experiments, other scientists realized that in fact there are only three primary colors.

Every hunter wants to know...

Everyone is Red

Hunter - Orange

Wishes - Yellow

Know – Green

Where - Blue

Sitting - Blue

Pheasant – Purple

This well-known mnemonic encrypts all the primary colors of the spectrum. Observant people have already noticed that there is no black and white here. But such states are usually not considered in the spectrum, and therefore they are not included in the proverb.

However, from all this diversity, scientists have identified only three primary colors - blue, red and yellow. And all other colors, tones, halftones and shades are obtained from mixing these three colors. As this is well known, for example, to artists who are familiar with the palette and know how to achieve the desired shade.

Man and colors

The human eye is able to perceive colors because the retina has three types of special cones that work independently. They contain different pigments that respond to certain colors, red, green and so on.

In fact, each cone reacts to all light waves (except ultraviolet and infrared), but “its own color” is felt better by the pigment. Then the received signals are transmitted to the brain and it then analyzes the information received and gives us an understanding of this or that shade.

It is interesting that primary colors cannot be called a property of the color itself; rather, they are determined by the human ability to distinguish them. In addition, this is influenced by various technical technologies that reproduce color.

From the point of view of psychophysiology, scientists believe that there are actually four “pure” ones - red, green, yellow and blue. Among them, yellow and blue form one axis in color contrast, and red and green form another. However, there are people who cannot distinguish between primary colors or any individual shades. They are called colorblind. Contrary to popular belief, they do not see the world as a black and white photograph, but simply cannot perceive specific colors well.

Knowledge of the law of drawing up color combinations and the color wheel allows you to work without errors with different color palettes and create various color combinations.

Introducing ten types of color combinations:

Achromatic colors

Achromatic colors (without admixture of shades), i.e. pure ones do not exist in nature. Black (or grey) will always have an undertone. As brightness decreases, all colors tend to black. And, conversely, with increasing brightness they tend to white.

Primary colors

Main on color wheel are: yellow, red and blue. These colors form the foundation of the color wheel.

In the hands of experienced artist paints of only these colors, as well as white and black, will create all the others.

Composite colors

The colors of the second rank include: green, purple, orange. They are obtained by pairwise mixing of the main ones: yellow, red and blue. Mixing yellow and blue colors, get green. Red and yellow form orange. Red and blue form purple. So, we get the following composite colors: purple, green, orange.

Complex colors

Complex ones are obtained by combining three component colors with nearby primary colors. For example, let's take Orange color. It was obtained by mixing yellow and red colors. So, to obtain complex colors, for example, orange, we mix it with its parents - yellow and red. The result will be yellow and red-orange colors. Thus, the rest are mixed as well. After this we get six new complex colors: red-orange, yellow-green, blue-violet; blue-green, yellow-orange, red-violet. It is noteworthy that on the color wheel they will be at the same distance from each other, while occupying an intermediate place between the components.

We will get the entire existing gamut of colors by darkening or lightening these colors to one degree or another.

Contrasting colors

A pair of colors is considered contrasting when there are three intermediate colors between them on the circle. There are six such pairs on the color wheel. To achieve bright, eye-catching combinations, we use contrasting colors to add a subtle accent. For example, let's take the blue color on yellow paper. A different impression arises when using whitened contrasting combinations (adding achromatic colors), using gray-blue and creamy yellow. The more contrasting colors are washed out, the less restrictions there will be in applying them to one space. Achromatic colors can save a different selection of colors, even contrasting ones if necessary.

Additional colors

Colors that are directly opposite are considered complementary on the color wheel.

In fact, additional colors practically “destroy” each other.

Obtained as a result of mixing, a person perceives this eye color as one of the gray shades.

Monochromatic colors

Monochromatic colors are usually called a combination of brightness and saturation in the same color. Such combinations are also called nuanced. The work uses shades of the same color.

Related colors

Three consecutive colors or their shades on a circle are called related. Select any color on the color wheel and add both adjacent ones on the side segments to it. This color selection is also called harmonious. There are 12 triplets of this kind.

Neutral colors

For getting neutral color it is necessary to take a pair of adjacent colors on the color wheel within two lines and smooth out one of them by adding a related shade or “dilute” using achromatic (white or black).

Related-contrasting colors

These colors are located on the circle directly from the left and from right sides from its complementary color.

The purpose of the lesson: introduce students to primary and secondary colors.

Lesson plan:

1. Basic three colors.

2. Additional colors.

The student must:

know: primary and secondary colors.

Answers to lesson plan questions:

1 . The practice of artists clearly showed that many colors and shades can be obtained by mixing a small amount of paints. The desire of natural philosophers to find the “primary principles” of everything in the world, analyzing natural phenomena, to decompose everything “into elements”, led to the identification "primary colors", which were not immediately chosen as red, green and blue. In England, the primary colors were long considered red, yellow and blue, but only in 1860 Maxwell introduced the additive system RGB (red, green, blue). This system currently dominates color reproduction systems for cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors and televisions. The color wheel can be divided into three broad sectors: red, green and blue. These colors are called primary colors, mixing them into different proportions get any other color. Between the primary colors there are three more sectors formed by additional colors: purple (blue-red), yellow and cyan (green-blue). On the color wheel, the primary and secondary colors are opposite each other. For example, purple is opposite green and is its complementary color. Each complementary color is a mixture of two primary colors, and when two complementary colors are combined, they form a common primary color. For example, cyan (blue and green) and magenta (blue and red) produce blue. This relationship between primary and secondary colors is called “subtractive” and forms the basis for processing and printing color photographic materials.

2. Concept "complementary color" was introduced by analogy with the “primary color”. It was found that the optical mixing of certain pairs of colors can give the sensation white. So, to the triad of primary colors Red-Green-Blue, additional colors are Cyan-Magenta-Yellow. On the color wheel, these colors are placed in opposition, so that the colors of both triads alternate. In printing practice, different sets are used as primary colors. We call two colors complementary if their pigments, when mixed, produce a neutral gray-black color. In physics, two chromatic lights that when mixed produce white light are also considered complementary. The two complementary colors make an odd pairing. They are opposite to each other, but they need each other. Placed side by side, they excite each other to maximum brightness and destroy each other when mixed, forming a gray-black tone, like fire and water. Each color has only one single color, which is complementary to it. In the color wheel, complementary colors are located diametrically to one another. They form the following pairs of complementary colors:

yellow – violet; yellow-orange - blue-violet; orange – blue; red-orange - blue-green; Red Green; red-violet - yellow-green.

If we analyze these pairs of complementary colors, we will find that they always contain all three primary colors: yellow, red and blue:

yellow - purple = yellow, red + blue;

blue - orange = blue, yellow + red;

red - green = red, yellow + blue.

Just as a mixture of yellow, red and blue produces gray, so a mixture of two complementary colors also turns into a variant gray. You can also recall the experiment from the section “Physics of Color”, when when one of the colors of the spectrum was excluded, all other colors, being mixed, gave its additional color. For each color of the spectrum, the sum of all the others forms its complementary color. It has been physiologically proven that both the afterimage phenomenon and simultaneous contrast illustrate an amazing and still inexplicable fact the appearance in our eyes when perceiving one or another color at the same time as another, balancing it, an additional color, which, in the event of its real absence, is spontaneously generated in our consciousness. This phenomenon is very important for everyone practically working with color. In the “color harmony” section, it was established that the law of complementary colors is the basis of the harmony of the composition, because when it is observed, a feeling of complete balance is created in the eyes.

Review questions:

1. What are the main colors?

2. Give the concept of “complementary” colors?

3. How are complementary colors formed?

Literature:

1. Yashchukhin A.P. Painting. M.: Enlightenment. 1979.

2. Winner A.V. How masters of painting work, M., 1965.

3. Grenberg Yu. I. Technology easel painting, M., 1982.

Primary colors are the tones that can be used to obtain all other shades.

This is RED YELLOW BLUE (for printing this is MAGENTA, YELLOW, CYAN, BLACK see below)

If you mix red, blue and yellow light waves together, you get white light. However, such a merger will not work with paints. For artists, there is a separate mixing table, which overlaps with the combination of waves, but follows its own rules.

Yellow, red, blue - different ones, in which they are at their peak. If you convert them to black and white format, you will clearly see.

It is difficult to imagine a bright dark yellow tone, as well as a bright light red one. Due to brightness in different lightness ranges, a huge range of intermediate saturated colors is created: orange, red-orange, light green, emerald, blue-green, lilac, red-violet, violet, etc. These three colors form almost the entire palette, with the exception of black, white, gray. Taking them as the primary basis of color construction, it is worth imagining that secondary colors are still less bright than their parents, and shades formed from the second circle using black, white or shades produced from the primary circle are even duller.

Constructing shades from primary colors

Pairs from the “team” of primary colors form the following colors of the second circle:

ORANGE_____________PURPLE_______________GREEN____

YELLOW + RED = ORANGE(cm. )
RED + BLUE = PURPLE
BLUE + YELLOW = GREEN(cm. ?)

If you mix secondary colors, that is, orange, purple and green, with the primary ones (which are already present in the color), then their order will not change, they will also remain in the second circle, since we are changing the quantity of content, not the quality:

YELLOW-ORANGE_____RED-ORANGE_____RED-VIOLET___

YELLOW + ORANGE = YELLOW-ORANGE
RED + ORANGE = RED ORANGE
RED + PURPLE = RED-PURPLE

VIOLET-BLUE___________BLUE-GREEN___________LIGHT LIGHT___

BLUE + VIOLET = BLUE-VIOLET
BLUE + GREEN = BLUE-GREEN
YELLOW + GREEN = LIGHT LIGHT

Adding primary tones to the secondary, but which are not already present in it, leads to a mixture of all three primary colors. The result is brown. Such pairs are called complementary.

YELLOW+ PURPLE ( RED + BLUE) = BROWN
RED+ GREEN ( YELLOW + BLUE) = BROWN
BLUE+ ORANGE ( RED + YELLOW) = BROWN

Mixing complementary shades such as purple + yellow, red + green, blue + orange gives a medium dark red-brown shade. If you mix not paint, but light rays, you should get the effect of gray light. But since the paint only reflects the wave, there will be no 100% replacement.

Primary ink colors for printing

It is very important to obtain the maximum tones from a minimum set of inks for color printing. Today there are 4 necessary paints to implement the entire spectrum:

MAGENTA, YELLOW, CYAN, BLACK

Where magenta is a fuchsia shade, cyan is a bright blue color, and white is the tone of the printed material.