We can only see colour when light is there.
Each colour has a different electromagnetic wavelength.
We have receptors in the eye:
Rods - allow us to see black, white and grey.
Cones - allow us to see colour.
Type 1 - red/orange light
Type 2 - green light
Type 3 - blue/violet light
Stimulated green cones makes us see green.
Stimulated red cones makes us see red.
Stimulated red and green cones makes us see yellow.
Colour is not a physical thing.
How do we perceive colour? What to we believe to be there?
Colour is affected by the light it is viewed in.
Names to remember: Josef Albers, Johannes Itten
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| Itten's Colour Wheel |
Complimentary colours:
- Chromatic colours
- Colour wheel opposites
- Cancel each other out
- Mixing them creates neutrals.
- Grey and brown are pure neutrals, they are an absence of colour.
Spectral colour - we cannot differentiate spectral yellow and a combination of red and green.
Colour Modes
On screen - RGB (the light in digital screens)
Print media - CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black)
Primaries of one colour mode are secondaries of another.
Subtractive colour
- Physical
- Print/pigment
- Subtracting colour values - eventually get black.
- Adding colour values - eventually get white.
Chromatic Value = Hue, tone + saturation.
Hue - name of the pigment.
Tone/luminance - shade (pushing towards black), tint (pushing towards white), tone (pushing towards grey).
Saturation/desaturation - pureness of colour and the overall amount of it.
Pantone coding system - defining colours.
