The Color Series: An introduction
As I teach in my eCourses, the foundation of any outfit is fit, fabric and color. You must know your body type (fit), you must know what types of fabrics best drape your frame, and you must know not only what colors look best on you, but which colors go together. This month, I will be focusing on color and giving you an introductory lesson the color wheel.
What is the color wheel you may ask? Well, it the 12 colors of the rainbow from which ALL colors emanate. Whether it's a pastel or a neon, it is a variation of a color on the color wheel. Today, we'll cover the basics; primary, secondary and tertiary colors.
- Primary colors-Red, Yellow, Blue. These colors cannot be formed by mixing colors together, but can be combined in 100+ ways to make every color imaginable
- Secondary colors-Orange, Green, Purple. These colors are formed after mixing each one of the primary colors. Red + yellow= orange, yellow + blue =green, blue + red = violet (purple)
- Tertiary colors- Yellow-Orange, Red-Orange, Red-Violet, Blue-Violet, Blue-Green, Yellow-Green. These colors are created by mixing secondary colors with secondary colors
As you may or may not have noticed, black and white are not on the color wheel. Why is that? Well, black is not a color. It is actually all colors combined. Also, white is not a color. It is the absence of color. You make use black to take away pigment, as you would use white to lighten a color. However, in and of themselves, they are not colors.
Okay...so here's your task. Most of all us have a favorite color; mine is green, pink being a second runner up. Take a look through your closet and see how many different variations of your favorite color you can find within your wardrobe. You may find that orange really isn't your favorite color, rather red-orange or yellow-orange is. You may even find that although you think one color is your favorite, you may wear a lot more of a another. Looks like you have some work to do, so let's hop to it before next week's post on complementary colors.
