I’ve been taking an Illustration 101 course recently offered by Tara Larsen Chang at Cloud 9 Art School. It’s been fascinating and it’s been fun to geek out with the latest topic of color.

One of the recent exercises was to make a color wheel with primaries (Red, Yellow, and Blue), Secondaries (Orange, Green, and Purple) and Tertiaries (the colors between the Primaries and Secondaries). But part of making a strong picture is choosing the right values. As long as the values work, it doesn’t matter what the colors are.

Above, the right picture is just making a black and white version of my color chart on the left. What’s fascinating is seeing how similar in value some colors are (the yellow green and the yellow-orange as well as the blue, red (rose), and red purple). It is very hard to look at colored things and assess their comparative value. With enough practice it can be learned though and getting a start on that is part of my next six-month plan!