Welcome to Lesson 1, Color and Color Theory.
The goal of Lesson 1 is to learn “color” is 
one of the elements of art and to have 
it significantly help retain the other elements and 
principles. If teachers suspect the reason 
students cannot retain the declarative information 
is it is boring, from whence is it boring? Perhaps, 
today, in the 21st century, a student can be 
cognitively oblivious to something from 1666 A.D.. 
This lesson is based on the theory determining 
the present use of color information and having it 
articulated for use in today's world could make 
all the difference. It will put color learning 
tenacity back on track. This is what I hope will 
happen for learners in learning from this video 
series lessons on color and color theory. Warm 
colors range from red to yellow, essentially the 
half of the color wheel corresponding to the 
longer wavelengths. Warm colors are active, 
attention-grabbing and aggressive. They 
stimulate the emotions, motivate and seem to 
come forward off the screen or page. Cool colors 
range from blue to violet, the half of the color 
wheel with shorter wavelengths. Cool colors 
have a calming effect. They are frequently used 
for backgrounds to set off smaller areas of warm 
colors. You may be responsible for art 
terminology on the test. 
Color Characteristics
Complementary colors are directly facing each 
other on the color wheel. Value is the lightness or 
darkness of a color. Saturation is the purity of a 
color.  Achromatic is no color or use of black, 
white, and shades of gray to represent colors. 
Split-complementary colors lie on either side of 
 
a complementary color. Monochromatic color is 
unique in the same hue. Analogous colors are 
side by side colors of similar shades. Triadic 
colors are cyan, magenta, yellow and also other 
color schemes at triangular points on the color 
wheel can be triadic. 
Elements and Principles 
The elements of art are the components of a 
composition organized in an artwork. The 
principles of visual art are the guidelines to 
organize the elements of an artwork. Visual art 
procedural and declarative knowledge is taught 
to teach the elements of art are the basic 
properties of an artwork. The basic properties are 
organized into a composition. Elements of art are 
organized in an artwork and the organization is 
referred to as the principles of art. In reverse, the 
principles of visual art are the guidelines artists 
use to organize the elements of art in an artwork. 
When combined successfully, they create an 
aesthetically enjoyable work of art. 
Color History's Beginning
Isaac Newton bent the spectrum into a circle. He 
discovered there are seven main colors. Each 
color is monochromatic, meaning each color is 
composed of a single wavelength that cannot be 
further separated into other colors. Newton 
discovered this in 1666 A.D. by passing a beam 
of light through a prism. Newton’s main colors 
were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and 
violet. Now, however, the classical color theory 
lesson is from 1666 A.D. and learning it might 
have seemed old and redundant. Yet, it is 
displayed by the World Wide Web made of 
its own markup language every day. If 
momentarily it should be seen as never before 
was there its evolving quite like this, it is because 
of technology. Perhaps now it really can be seen 
as the rebirth of color theory. Although the 
technology lesson will explain web color theory 
devolved down from Sir Isaac Newton’s 1666 
A.D. prism theory, it will help students retain a 
declarative knowledge of art information on the 
elements of art and principles of design. The 
technology of our 21st century art lesson 
showing how useful the relevant meanings of 
color in relation to technology of this century will 
start the update it richly deserves. Until 64 years 
ago, there was not a personal media screen 
technology, or until television came out in 1950. 
Now, thanks to this short, colorful lesson on the 
element, color, which was awakened anew by 
television and then monitor technology, the 
declarative knowledge on color will feel fresh 
from space and color information will have made 
a 348 year sojourn. As well, it evolved into a right 
to rebirth--the right to be called WEB COLOR 
THEORY. There will be more on color history later 
in the series. The following color update 
assignment helps learn because it is teaching 
where learners should be. Explaining color by 
21st century technology and web display use 
helps learners understand why to accomplish 
the task. The course objectives are to strengthen 
entry-level skill-sets, meaning both grade-level 
and career entry-level, and to learn the elements 
and principles of art. The task, ultimately, is to 
retain the elements and principles of art. Colors 
have three main attributes: hue, saturation, and 
brightness. Hue refers to the color’s family or 
“color name”, red, green, purple, blue, etc., and is 
directly related to the wavelength. Saturation, or 
"chroma," is the amount of purity a color has, 
referring to how crisp or dull it appears. 
Brightness, or "luminance" or "value", is the 
shade (darkness) or tint (lightness) of a color.  
Assignment: Your assignment is to create a 
gradating color strip from one hue, gradating the 
color on approximately 15 to 20 uniform pieces of 
poster board by adding white to one main color. It 
is your choice whether the gradation goes from 
hue to white or black. More than one color is 
allowed, but no more than two, as long as the 
gradations flow logically. Keep the flow. Flow into 
and out of your colors. Your poster board pieces 
need not be larger than two inches square 
because your project will be easier to photograph 
or scan. See the screen for the materials  
needed.
Directions: Follow logical gradation. If you use 
black, logically flow into your hue’s shade to 
begin your hue into luminous bright or tint and 
white. You may do a grayscale, black to white, 
strip, if you wish.                                                   
Color Names
There are 141 color "names" identified in the 
HTML and CSS color specification comprised of 
the 17 standard plus 124 more. On the screen 
you see a slide of the standard ones. These can 
be used in HTML coding by a designer, in lieu of 
the hex value preceded by the number symbol. 
However, you are to use hex values. There are 
several very good color charts around on the 
web. Use your favorite or search for one. Thus, in 
order to switch over to modern day color theory, 
you will do a modern type of assignment. 
Change your color strip to RGB hex value 
gradation for the viewing on the web by finding 
the matching hex value for each one of the 
painted pieces of your color strip. Once you have 
found all 15 to 20 hex values corresponding 
to your pieces, you will put them into HTML page 
format. Use any style font you like. The text 
should create a short story on your favorite 
holiday. 15 to 20 sentences is not a long story. Be 
creative with font, but use no more than three. 
Professionally, you would not ever use more than 
three. It would be hard for web designers to 
compare the colors using color names to build 
gradating color. So, use the hex value code to find 
the flowing colors. See, on the screen, the 
difference between name color and hex color. 
The colors on the left are coded by name. The 
colors parallel are hex value coded. The numeric 
range for colors is much greater and any color 
can be produced to match or improve a color. 
See how, for the color 
turquoise, the code: 
turquoise looks 
different than the same hex value coded color 
written: turquoise.
Look at “green”. Name color would have left 
no choice but for designers who wanted the 
color green to select the shade made by the
name code "green". On the screen, you 
see a screen shot of gradated text that says, 
"You look like a meadow in summer." It appears 
almost seamless from one color to the next. 
Hue, saturation, and brightness are the 
attributes of color. Hue refers to the color family 
name. Although there are literally millions of 
colors, there are only a few color families. Every 
color is described in terms of its three attributes: 
hue, saturation, and brightness. Hue is the color 
family, or color name, such as "blue". Hue is 
related to the color's wavelength. All 
electromagnetic radiation is light and humans 
can see only a small portion of this radiation. 
That portion is called visible light. The colors 
separate because each color has a different 
wavelength. So when the visible spectrum 
travels through a prism, the colors separate into 
the colors of the rainbow. Violet has the shortest 
wavelength and red the longest. Wavelengths are 
measured in nanometers. Each color is 
refracting at a slightly different angle depending 
on wavelength. Our eyes' cone-shaped cells are 
receivers tuned to wavelengths in the narrow 
band of the spectrum. The spectrum's 
wavelengths are too large or small and 
energetic for the biological limitations of our 
perception. Saturation is the measure of purity of 
a color, meaning how sharp or dull the color 
appears. Saturation is also called chroma. 
Brightness is the darkness or lightness, shade 
or tint, of a color.  As we know, evenly colored 
areas of an object in direct light have higher 
brightness than areas in shadow. 
Brightness is also called luminance or value. 
Again, see the screen for the materials needed. 
Alternatively, a book on color codes can be found 
at the library. Exchange the painted poster board 
pieces for identical color hex values. Put them 
into HTML using the code given near the end of 
this lesson. Look up groovy fonts to use. Use 
them creatively as much as you like, but 
describe in your text your favorite family holiday. 
This assignment satisfies the multiple ways your 
artwork connects with the learning environment. 
The assignment facilitates connecting with and 
learning about your classmates and other 
cultures when we post the stories to a web page. 
Use the format on the video screen if you do not 
know HTML. Instead of your story's title between 
the  tags. Please put your name and 
put the title of your story in the body. If you know 
CSS, animation, or javascript, you know the 
 is where programmers and 
designers place the stylesheet and javascript. 
You are free to demonstrate anything you know to 
your page. Your story is the text between the font 
tags,   of each line, or per 
hue. Each hex value, or hue, has a beginning font 
and a font tag anchor. For an example on 
progressive color, look up artwork by artist Laura 
Arborealisis. Her artwork is painted using 
gradated colors, or progressive hues. On the 
screen, you see a basic HTML code and you see 
links. The links are to two suggested color chart 
sites and one free or donation font style site. Use 
these or your own favorites. Thank you. See you 
in lesson 2 on the Color Models.
