What would the world be like without colour? Colour brings vitality to everything it touches, be it the clothes we wear or the homes we live in and as a painter and decorator, you need to understand colour, as it is a major part of your profession. As a painter and decorator, you need to have a knowledge of colour, understanding what it is and how and where it can be used. When you become a painter and decorator, you may decide to start your own business where you will be asked to offer advice to customers. If you have a knowledge of colour, the advice you give will allow your customers to arrange their own colour schemes, and enable you to offer a more rounded service than just doing the work. <ph_010 A vibrant rainbow his chapter will cover the following topics: Colour terminology he colour spectrum he colour wheel Organisation of colour. hese topics can be found in the following modules: CC101 CC202 CC220 CC222 CC224 221
ainting and Decorating NVQ and echnical Certificate Level 2, 2nd Edition White light entering a prism is a mixture of different frequencies, each of which gets curved slightly differently to create different colours Mnemonic a pattern of letters or words formulated as an aid to memorise something A rainbow is very similar to this. When sunlight shines through droplets of moisture in the earth s atmosphere, this causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky, proving that colour simply comes from light. Light travels from the sun to the earth in waves, which come in short wavelengths and long wavelengths. When light waves hit a surface, some are absorbed and eyes and registered by the brain as colours. You can think of light travelling like waves in the sea. hese waves have properties of wavelength and frequency. o measure a wavelength, you have to measure the distance between one wave hitting a location and the second wave hitting the same location. For example, if the sea is full of waves 15 metres apart, it could be said to have a wavelength of 15; if the waves were 25 metres apart, it would have a wavelength of 25, and so on. As for frequency, the frequency of a wave is determined by the number of complete waves, or wavelengths, that pass a given point each second. he same ideas apply to light, and help to explain what colour is. Colour is simply light of different wavelengths and frequencies, in a form of energy that we can actually see. Long wavelengths A popular way to remember all the colours of a rainbow is to recite the mnemonic Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain, which has the same starting letters as the colours of the rainbow: Red, Ornage, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. hort wavelengths Figure 11.2 hort and long wavelengths 224
Chapter 11 Colour earth during midday, it only travels a short distance hence the sky is seen as blue. At dawn and dusk, the light from the sun has to travel further as it hits the earth on a tangent. hese wavelengths are long wavelengths, and are seen as red. A colour wheel is a radial diagram of colours in which primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary colours are displayed. Colour is a powerful visual force, and the colour wheel is a tool for understanding how colours relate to each other. Colour wheels help many professionals such as artists and decorators with their work, by helping them to mix and think about colours. A system had to be created to help us make sense of colour, to understand it and put it into some kind of order. his system became known as the natural order of colour or, more commonly, as the colour wheel. orange yellow-orange yellow red-orange yellow-green red green Figure 11.3 he colour wheel red-violet blue-green violet blue-violet blue Where s there s light, there s colour and white light contains all visible colours (see page 223 for imformation of the spectrum). that appears in a sequence from red to violet, just like the rainbow. he colour wheel represents this basic hues (colours). hese twelve basic hues consist of three groups: primary, secondary and tertiary colours. High frequency colours are violet, indigo and blue; low frequency colours are yellow, orange and red. ir Isaac Newton was the first person to understand the rainbow, creating the first colour wheel after conducting a series of experiments in 1672 A rainbow does not actually exist at a particular location in the sky. It is an optical illusion, whose apparent position depends on the observer s location and the position of the sun 225
ainting and Decorating NVQ and echnical Certificate Level 2, 2nd Edition You can create your own rainbow by facing 180 from the sun and spraying mist from a garden hose in front of you in a circular motion. rimary, secondary and tertiary colours he three primary colours are red, blue and yellow. rimary colours cannot be made from other colours because they are pure colours, but by mixing these three colours, you can create all the colours of the rainbow. he three secondary colours are green, orange and purple. hese are created by mixing two primary colours together: each secondary colour is made from the two primary colours closest to it on the colour wheel. o create green, you would mix yellow and blue together; to create orange, you would mix red and yellow together; and to create purple, you would mix blue and orange together. Red redviolet redorange redorange Violet Orange blue-violet yellow-orange Blue Yellow Green yellowgreen bluegreen Figure 11.4 rimary and secondary colours Figure 11.5 ertiary colours o create a tertiary colour, you have to mix a primary colour with a secondary colour in a ratio of 2:1. Constructed in an orderly progression, the colour wheel represents the range of visible light the twelve basic hues formed into a circle. he twelve basic hues are red, red orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, green blue, blue, blue-violet, violet, red-violet. his circle allows the user to visualise the sequence of colour balance and harmony. On the main part of the colour wheel, each individual hue is at a level of full saturation or brightness. here is no black (shade) or white (tint) added to it, but when a black or white is added to a hue, the colour has lightness or darkness, called value. o show value, the colour wheel has more rings: two outer rings, which represent the dark shades, and two inner rings, which represent the light tints. 226
Chapter 11 Colour As you can see, no one colour stands alone on the colour wheel: a segment of colour is always seen in the context of other colours. he effect of a colour is perspective of the person looking at it. No one colour is good or bad it s just one part of an arrangement that as a whole is pleasing or not. hade Hue int Yeloworange Yelow Yelowgreen Complement tint Orange Green Redorange Red Blue Blueviolet Redviolet Violet Bluegreen Figure 11.6 Colour wheel with outer and inner rings Creating moods with colour By using different colours, you can create a mood within your colour scheme or make a room feel cosier or lighter. Knowing the colour wheel can help you if are asked by clients to design a colour scheme for their home or business. You will see that, on the left-hand side of the colour wheel the colours, which range from red through orange to yellow, are classed as warm or hot. When used in a colour scheme, these warm colours tend to come towards you, or feel closer to you. On the opposite side of the wheel you have the cool or cold colours of the spectrum, ranging from light blue through green to yellow. hese cool colours tend to recede from you, or feel distant to you when used in painting schemes. You can also mix in and use a small amount of a warm colour red, for example to warm up a cool colour, or a little of a cool colour such as blue to cool down a warm colour. 227