About The Gardener’s Color Wheel By Sydney Eddison Getting Started
About The Gardener’s Color Wheel By Sydney Eddison www.thegardenerscolorwheel.com BLUE-VIOLET LET VIO PURE COLOR VIO LET COO LC OL OR S WA R RM ED CO -V LO IO RS L E LU ET OL VI BL UE B E BLU Tr ia Spl it Com Developed by SYDNEY EDDISON Complementary Hue: Another name for color. Tint: Any color + white. Tone: Any color + gray. Shade: Any color + black. ORANG plem ent ary Warm colors: Reds, Oranges and Yellows. Cool colors: Greens, Blues and Violets. TIN TS TS RE N EE GR TIN E-RE D N GREE THE GARDENER’S COLOR WHEEL TETRAD d Definitions TS TIN RED BLUE-G R EE N GR E EN - D -RE ET Color Theory for Gardeners TIN TS It’s easy! There are only two ways to use color in the garden, contrast and harmony. Contrast is based on difference. Complementary colors, such as red and green, have nothing in common. They are direct opposites on the color wheel and produce lively, attention-getting contrast. Harmony is based on likeness. Adjacent colors on the color wheel, such as red, orange-red, red-orange, and orange are harmonious. There is red in all four colors. The likeness results in a pleasing harmony. W OW LL YE D-O RA NG E O N RA LO CO RE OL E CO NLO YE RS L GE L YE GE RA N W-O LO W WA RM CO L Y EL OR S G LO ORANGE-YELLOW Getting Started If you invest a minute or two in reading the paragraph of color theory on the front of the wheel and the description of color schemes on the back, you can begin playing with the wheel and getting ideas for garden combinations now. But you will get more out of your Gardener’s Color Wheel if you read the booklet first. It won’t take long, and everything need to know is right there. If you haven’t acquired The Gardener’s Color Wheel yet, you will be ahead of the game if you familiarize yourself with a few color terms. Color Terms For a start, the word color has only one synonym, hue. From now on, the two will be used interchangeably. The rest of the color terms you will meet here are familiar words used, in what may be to you, unfamiliar ways to describe the nature of hues and their variations. Page Once Over Lightly: Understanding Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Colors You have probably met primary and secondary colors in grade school. But here they are again. Red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors. Each is unique unto itself. Red contains no other color than red; yellow is yellow alone; and blue, entirely blue. From these three hues, all other colors can be made. RED Colors made with Blue and Red Colors made with Red and Yellow LL UE BL YE OW Colors made with Blue and Yellow The secondary colors are orange, green, and violet. Each is made from two of the primaries. Orange is a combination of red and yellow; green, a mixture of yellow and blue; violet, of blue and red. Primary RED D -RE LET VIO O VI RE DOR AN G GE AN VIO LE T OR BLUE-VI O YELL OW E ET-BLU VIOL ORANGE- L UE BL YE LO W Primary G OW LL YE NEE GR EE NBL UE N REE W-G LLO YE GREEN Secondary R B LU E-G R EE N Primary Secondary ORANGE LOWYEL LET Secondary ED E-R ED T LE E R ORA NG Page The less familiar tertiary colors are made from one primary and one secondary. Orange-red, which is adjacent to red, is a combination of primary red and secondary orange. The mixture produces an orangey-red. The next color in the sequence is red-orange, which is also made from red and orange, but in different proportions. This mixture results in a reddish orange. RE D ORA NG D -RE LET VIO O VI RE DOR AN G VIO LE T ED E R E-R ED T LE BLUE-VI O ORANGE LOW- LET YEL B E LU YELL OW E ET-BLU VIOL ORANGE- G R OW LL YE NEE GR EE NBL UE N REE W-G LLO YE GREEN BLU E-G RE EN Tertiary Colors Pure Colors Colors at their strongest are described as “pure”, “intense”, or saturated”. Saturated, in this case, is simply another word for “pure” or “intense”. The pure colors appear around the outside edge of the color wheel on both sides. Pure red is red at its reddest; pure orange, is orange at its most orange; pure yellow, yellow at its sunniest; pure green, green at its greenest, and so forth. Color Modifications: Tints, Tones, and Shades Less pure or less intense versions of each color are called tints, tones, and shades. Artists achieve these color variations by mixing paints. Nature achieves similar effects but in her own way. A tint is any color with white added. Pastels are tints. A tone is any color with gray added; a shade, any color with black added. Page Finding Your Way Around The Gardener’s Color Wheel With the front of the color wheel toward you, look at the pure, intense, industrial-strength colors around the outer rim. These full-bodied hues pack the most punch in color schemes. The inner concentric rings show progressively paler tints of all the hues. While pastels have less intensity than pure colors, their lightness makes them highly visible in the garden. RED D -RE LET VIO ED O VI ORA NG E-R ED RE DOR AN G T LE E R PURE COLOR d Tr ia ry plem enta Spli t Com Developed by SYDNEY EDDISON TIN TS L R WA YE R UE OLO BL M C S COO YELL OW TS TIN L CO ORANGE- Hue: Another name for color. Tint: Any color + white. Tone: Any color + gray. Shade: Any color + black. Complementary LET Warm colors: Reds, Oranges and Yellows. Cool colors: Greens, Blues and Violets. LO THE GARDENER’S COLOR WHEEL TETRAD ORANGE LOW- RS M CO WAR YEL BLUE-VI O TS TIN Definitions E ET-BLU VIOLLORS GE LORS AN CO VIO LE T L OR COO Color Theory for Gardeners TIN TS It’s easy! There are only two ways to use color in the garden, contrast and harmony. Contrast is based on difference. Complementary colors, such as red and green, have nothing in common. They are direct opposites on the color wheel and produce lively, attention-getting contrast. Harmony is based on likeness. Adjacent colors on the color wheel, such as red, orange-red, red-orange, and orange are harmonious. There is red in all four colors. The likeness results in a pleasing harmony. LO W G R OW LL YE NEE GR EE NBL UE N REE W-G LLO YE B LU E-G R GREEN EE N Now, flip the color wheel over. Again, you will find the strong, pure colors around the outside. The inner rings show you deeper and deeper tones and increasingly dark shades of the colors. Tones and shades in the garden stand out less at a distance than tints. Tones are great blenders and take the edge off bright, intense colors. RED D -RE LET VIO PURE COLOR ORA NG E-R ED RE T LE W AR C DOR AN G CO LO RS M TO GE AN OL OR VIO L C O ET IO - V RS ED OLO E R ES NE S N TO Color Schemes for the Garden SH Copyright © 2006 The Color Wheel Company d Tr ia ry plem enta Spli t Com DES SHA 04/2006 THE GARDENER’S COLOR WHEEL Developed by SYDNEY EDDISON with The Color Wheel Company www.thegardenerscolorwheel.com SHA DES YELL OW TO NE ES TON ORANGE- Analogous-Complementary (Harmony and Contrast): Three adjacent colors on the color wheel plus the complement of one of them. Style No. 3388 TETRAD Complementary Monochromatic (Harmony): A single color combined with its tints, tones, and shades. For example - an all green garden. Analogous (Harmony): From three to five adjacent hues on the color wheel, sharing a common color, such as blue-violet, violet, red-violet with the possible addition of violet-blue and violet-red. S UE BL YE LL WA OW RM CO LO RS G CO O L C OW LL YE N- ORS EE OL GR E R W-G LL O YE EEN GREEN B LU E-G RE EN EN -B LU E E ET-BLU VIOL Philomath, Oregon Phone: (541) 929-7526 ES AD ES R BLUE-VI OLET SH AD Triad (Contrast): Three colors equally spaced from each other on the wheel. For example the three primaries - red, yellow and blue. ORANGE LOWYEL Complementary (Contrast): Two colors directly opposite each other on the wheel. For example - red and green. Split Complementary (Contrast): One key color, plus the colors on either side of its complement. For example - yellow, blue-violet and red-violet. Page Tints, Tones and Shades in Garden Flowers and Foliage In the plant world, we have an enormous array of pastel flowers and pale gray-green or “silver” foliage. There is a more limited range of extremely dark-hued leaves and blossoms. In between, lie many low-intensity foliage tones: the orange-toned leaves that appear bronze, such as the new cultivars of coral bells with names like ‘Marmalade’; the rich but muted red tones of red Japanese maples; and the smoky violet tones of plants, such as the purple smokebush. Pure red Pink Red tone Red shade The Difference between the Artist’s Color Wheel and The Gardener’s Color Wheel Most color wheels for artists settle for twelve pure hues, with three variations of each, and show how to mix them. Gardener’s don’t have to mix colors but they need a greater range with which to work. The Gardener’s Color Wheel expands the number of hues to 18 pure colors and 216 variations. Even so, it is impossible to do more than approximate natures infinite variety. The expanded range of hues found in The Gardener’s Color Wheel is not unprecedented. The original color wheel (below), designed in the 18th century by British engraver, Moses Harris, offered the same number of pure colors and variations. Page
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