Teaching Art on Contrasting Colors

Opposite colors on a color wheel are referred to as contrasting colors.

Art isn't just about painting or drawing a beautiful picture. It's also about how color can alter, enhance and even intensify the picture being painted or drawn. Contrasting colors, also referred to complementary colors, is one such way to enhance and intensify a picture. Contrasting colors make the object or the focus of the picture "pop" and catch your eye.

The Artists

When introducing your students to contrasting--often also called complementary -- colors, first introduce them to famous artists who utilize contrasting colors in their work. Andy Warhol, Vincent van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pablo Picasso and Johannes Vermeer are a few artists who all have used contrasting colors in their works. Bring in a few examples of these recognizable artists and their artwork that use contrasting colors to show your students. Not only will most of your students recognize the prints, but they'll be able to see that using contrasting colors isn't coincidental--and that they have a purpose in art.

What Contrasting Colors Do

Contrasting colors are colors that are situated opposite from one another when featured on a color wheel. When used together, the colors help to intensify one another or draw more attention to one color. For example, if you have oranges placed in a yellow or tan basket, the oranges will not be intensified. But if you take the same oranges and put them in a blue or purple basket, you'll notice how intense the orange color looks. This is because yellow tones are an analogous color to orange, or a blending, harmonious color. But purple and blue tones are contrasting colors, which intensify each other.

The Color Wheel

This concept may be a little confusing for some students. In that case, show them a color wheel. A color wheel features 12 colors--the three primary colors (red, yellow and blue), the three secondary colors (green, orange and purple), and the six tertiary colors (red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-purple and red-purple). The colors are arranged on the wheel according to the electromagnetic spectrum of light--or red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue, blue-purple (indigo), purple and red-purple meeting back with red. Once arranged on the wheel, you can point out each color's opposite color that lies across from it on the color wheel.

Contrasting Colors Project

One of the best way to teach about contrasting colors is to experiment with the colors themselves. Give each student a copy of a color wheel. Then, give them two copies each of the same blank picture or coloring page. You can give each student a different picture or they can all be the same. Tell them to color the object and the background in harmonious, or analogous, colors. Then with the next same blank picture, they will color the object the same color as the first picture. But this time, color the background in a contrasting color. For example, if the blank picture is a simple apple, the first picture will have a red apple with a red-orange or red-purple background. The second blank picture will also have a red apple but with a green background. Have each student examine the two pictures and how the second contrasting picture really look different.

References

• Color Matters: Color Theory
• Microsoft: Wheel of Colors
• Color Vision and Art: Using Color Contrasts throughout the Ages
• Color Vision and Art: Simultaneous Contrast