COLOR WHEEL
What Is a Color Wheel?​
A color wheel is fantastic visual tool for artists. You don’t need an advanced knowledge of color theory to use it. If your paintings feel muddy, lack contrast, or if color mixing feels confusing, the color wheel helps you make clearer, more intentional color choices. By gradually building a palette using colors shown on the wheel, you can improve harmony, contrast, and confidence in your mixes.
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The modern color wheel is based on experiments by Isaac Newton, who arranged the visible color spectrum into a circular format. This circular layout made it easier to see how colors transition and interact. Over time, artists adapted this idea into a 12-color wheel, which clearly organizes primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, making it especially useful for teaching and practical painting applications.
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The 12 Colors:
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Primary Colors
The Foundation of All Color​Primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. These colors cannot be created by mixing other colors, they are the building blocks of the entire color wheel. On the wheel, they are evenly spaced, each separated by three color steps.
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Secondary Colors
Secondary colors are created by mixing two primary colors together. Red and yellow make orange, yellow and blue make green, and blue and red make violet. These three secondary colors sit midway between the primaries on the color wheel.
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Tertiary Colors
Tertiary colors are made by mixing a primary color with a neighboring secondary color. These include yellow-green, yellow-orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, and blue-green. Tertiary colors make up most of the subtle hues we see in real life. In oil painting, they are especially useful for achieving natural transitions and avoiding overly saturated or artificial-looking colors.
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​​​Complementary Colors
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Complementary colors sit directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Example Red and Green.
When placed side by side, they create strong contrast and visual tension, making paintings feel more dynamic and bold.
While they can be intense, they are incredibly powerful when used thoughtfully, whether to draw attention to a focal point or to neutralize colors when mixed together.
Analogous Colors
Analogous colors are groups of colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel.
These combinations feel calm, natural, and harmonious, which is why they are commonly found in landscapes and nature-inspired paintings.
Typically, one color acts as the dominant hue while the others support it. To prevent the painting from looking flat, contrast can be introduced through changes in value, saturation, and brushwork rather than hue alone.
How to Use the Color Wheel in Oil Painting
For oil painters, the color wheel is most useful when kept practical. Instead of trying to memorize theory, use it as a guide while mixing, check where your colors sit, what they relate to, and what happens when they are combined.
Over time, this habit builds intuition, helping you mix cleaner colors, create stronger contrast, and make confident decisions directly on the palette.
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Check out my Blog post on What oil paints to buy, it covers which paint tubes to get to achieve a wide range of colors.
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