2. In this unit we’re going
to…
 Learn about light as a physical phenomenon.
 Learn about primary, secondary and tertiary
colours.
 Know the importance of colours in Art
Creation.
 Discover some artists who have used colours
in different ways.
 Practise using only primary colours.

3. Colour is important
because...
 Everything in our world is
coloured.
 Colours give us
information about what
we are looking at.
 Colour is one of the most
important
characteristichs of
things.
 Colour is one of the most
important elements of
visual language.

4. Colours as physical
phenomena
 Have you ever seen the rainbow? In the
rainbow we can find all the colours of the
world.
 Light is made of all the colours mixted
together.
 When light crosses a water drop, light
discomposes (breaks down) in all the colours.

5. PRIMARY COLOURS
 Primary colours are magenta, yellow and
cyan blue.
 They are the “original” colours: they can’t be
obtained by the mixture of any other colours.

6. SECONDARY COLOURS
 The combination of any two primary colours
create a secondary colour.
 Secondary colours are: red, violet and green.
 Magenta + yellow = red
 Magenta + cyan blue= violet
 Yellow + cyan blue = green

7. TERTIARY COLOURS
 All the other colours except white and black
(orange, light blue, dark blue, light green,
dark green, brown, pink,...) can be obtained
by mixing primary and secondary colours.
We call them tertiary colours.

8. WHITE AND BLACK
 White, black and grey are defined as neutral
or achromatic colours.
 All colours mixed together form white light.
So, white colour contens all the colours.
 Black is the absence of light. If there is no
light, we can’t see any colour.

9. THE COLOUR TRIANGLE
 The colour triangle shows the primary
colours, the secondary colours and the
tertiary colours.
 We find the primary colours in the vertex, the
secondary between them, and the tertiary
colours inside.

10. COLOUR IN ART CREATION
 Impressionism (19th century)
 Impressionists used contrast colours in their
creations. They were the first artists doing this.
Vincent Van Gogh – Wheat field with crows

11. Impressionism
Claude Monet - Water Lilies 1
Auguste Renoir – A girl with a watering can

12. Fauvism (the wild beasts)
 In early 20th century (1905), some French artists painted
using wide brushstrokes and complementary colours.
 They believed in
colour as an
emotional force.
André Derain –
Mountains at Colliure

13. Fauvism
Henri Matisse – Green Stripe Woman
Franz Marc – Red and blue

14. Sonia and Robert Delaunay
 Sonia and Robert Delaunay
were a couple of French
artists.
 They lived at the end of
19th century and beginning
of 20th century, and were
inspired by some different
art styles like cubism,
pointillism and
impressionism.
 They used pure colours as
the most important
elements of their creations.
Robert Delaunay – Joie de Vivre

15. Activities
1. Mixing primary colours.
 In an A4 cardboard, use
your compass to draw 9
circles in 3 lines. Paint 2
circles in every line with 2
primary colours (for
example, blue and
magenta), and the third
circle with their mixture.
2. Building a Colour
Triangle.

16. Activities
3. In Sonia and Robert
Delaunay’s way
 Using only primary
colours and their
mixtures, black and
white (without
mixing),get inspired by
Robert and Sonia
Delaunay art creations
to paint your own
artwork.