are engulfed by millions of microscopic cells that are
Just like every human has a favorite color, our eyes have a
Hue The physical pigment of a color.
“light-sensitive,” and known as photoreceptors. These little cells take on two forms: rods and cones. Rods are photoreceptor cells that work best in less-intense light, because only one type of rod detects light or low light. Do you ever wonder why children are so afraid of their room in the dark? In a dark room we use the rods in our eyes to see our sur- roundings. Rods are unable to detect color making you “color- blind” to your surroundings and leaving you submerged in a sea of grey shapes. This absence of color gives a child’s imagination the ability to see a monster in the yel- low sweater draped over the back of their desk chair. Cones are primarily used when there is light present. They give us the ability to see in color and are most sensitive to red, green, and blue. The majority of cone cells are located in the center part of the retina, known as the fovea. Cones are primarily situated in this area of the retina because it is best for detecting the strongest amount of light. In a matter of seconds, when a particular wavelength hits the cones in your retina, it sends messages to the ganglion cells in your eye. That message is then passed on to your optic nerve where the message is finally sent to your brain to be decoded. Animals are particularly interesting in the way they see color, as they can see different rang- es of color on the spectrum. Unlike humans, dogs don’t have red cones in their retina and only have blue and yellow. This leaves them col- orblind to the distinction between their bright green tennis ball and a baby’s red toy ball. To dogs, a ball is just a ball. Other animals have multiple cones that allow them to see beyond the colors that humans can. The blue- bottle butterfly, for example, has 15 different photoreceptors. The cones in this butterfly’s eyes consist of ultraviolet, violet, three different shades of blue, one blue-green, four green, and five red, allowing it to see colors far beyond what the human eye can perceive.
Tint To make a color lighter by adding white.
favorite color as well. More than half of the cone cells react the strongest to red wavelengths. Why? Typically the human eye has the most “red” cone cells, which is why red is one of the most dominant colors that humans perceive and why warm tones cause a stronger reaction than cool tones.
Shade To make a color darker by adding black.
Tones The lightness or darkness of a color that can be changed by adding grey. Chroma Helps identify a particular saturation of a color or the intensity of the color and where it falls on the col- or spectrum. A higher chroma makes a more intense, rich color. Lower chro-
GLOSSARY
ma results in a more subtle, duller color.
Primary colors Three different colors that are the base of all colors. They are red, blue, and yellow. Secondary colors Colors made by the mixture of two primary colors. They are orange, violet, and green.
How to Read the Following Pages
Tertiary colors A mixture of one primary and one secondary color.
Complementary colors C olors that lie opposite to each other on the color wheel. Typically extremely pleasing to view because of high contrast. Triadic color scheme Three colors that are evenly spaced out on the color wheel to form a triangle of completely different colors. Most pop- ular is the triangle of primary colors. Split-complementary scheme Any base color on the wheel and the two colors adjacent to its complementary color. Analogous color scheme Colors that lay next to each other on the wheel. This color scheme is usually the most aesthetically pleasing because it is so commonly found in nature. Monochromatic colors This scheme originates with one base color and varies by adding different shades, tints, and tones.
Each participant in recent Creative Theory Class was given a slice of the 12 part color wheel and asked to explore the hue from warm to cool through Smartphone photography, with subject matter unimportant, The colored dots pictured next are a portion of the students’ massive col- laborative color wheel. So, how do you read the graphic? Each column, from top to bottom, represents a monochromatic color scheme.
Each row, from left to right, rep- resents an analogous color scheme.
Now, when the top or bottom pages are flipped, the color matches up with its complement.
Value The the amount of light a color embodies.
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VOLUME 6
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