In preparation for a related topic I wish to address, and because it is Tuesday and I expect the concept explained in this post to be of interest to readers of the TeenStyle Tuesday series, I am re-running this post from the early days of the blog.
Remember kindergarten? No doubt you learned that there were three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. And that any other color could be made by mixing these. Then when you got older you learned that black (or was it white?) was really not a color, but the absence of color. It seemed so simple.
A few years ago I took a painting class. I didn’t know the first thing about art, so I was pumped when I thought about making any color I wanted. But it really wasn’t that simple.
Now we are all aware that the color cartridge for your printer contains three primary colors: magenta, cyan, and yellow. Close to those kindergarten primary colors, but a little different. It was in exploring this concept, and trying to set up my watercolor palette, that I developed a working model of simple color theory.
I use a (mental) color wheel with twelve hues: a “cool” and a “warm” version of each primary and each secondary color. In other words, with each color I encounter (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple) I decide if it is closer to the color on one side of it, or the other. (Of course, there are all manner of tints and shades as well.) Consequently, a blue will be either a green-blue (cyan) or a purple-blue (periwinkle).
This works for me. And I realize now, in writing this post, that I have finally moved beyond the trauma of realizing that they taught me lies in kindergarten.
Thank you. As a beginner at the scientific dressing category, this will help. I am printing off picture from the link. I plan to laminate it and tuck it into my wallet.
But first, I’ll try to figure out where my hair, eye, and natural lip colors fit on the color wheel.
I’m glad that’s helpful.
You’ll probably find multiple colors in each of those.
Thanks for commenting!
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I always wondered why I couldn’t wear pink, but magenta made me ‘glow’. Thanks!
Wow, this is very enlightening. I am always unsure of mixing colors, and this will give more confidence! Thanks!
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