Watercolor Terms and Definitions

The colors usually accepted as standard are the primaries, yellow, red and blue, and the secondary colors, orange, green and violet. Complementary colors are various proportions of the primary colors, such as olive, russet, etc.

Tone indicates any change of color. There are warm tones and cold tones.

Warm tones are those in which yellow and red prevail.

Cold tones are those in which blue and black are added sufficiently to produce a sense of coolness or dullness, such as russet, olive and grey.

Shades are the darker tones. Tints are the lighter tones of a color. The less color in proportion to the water used the lighter the tint becomes.

Hues are the intermediate tones between two intermingling tints or tones. Thus a green tone running into a yellow tone becomes a yellow-green hue.

Value is lightness or darkness of tone irrespective of color produced by its contrast with another.

Scale of color is the orderly series of tones; thus, yellow running from full strength to white, or from yellow to black.

Some Nevers

Never “scrub” with the brush or manipulate it any way so that
the hairs of the brush become unevenly separated.

Never retouch a wet wash.

Never put one wash over another until the first one is dry. Never work with a partly dry brush except to put in minor details
to complete a water color.

Never put your brush aside without rinsing and drying it. Never put the color box away without cleaning it.

Color on Color – In working with water color, a better result is usually obtained by placing one color over, the other when wishing to make a tint, rather than mixing the tint beforehand.

Thus, for instance, if one wishes to produce a green, place an area of yellow on the paper, and after that is dry wash a tone of blue over it with a brush. The result thus obtained is a green of better value than could have been secured by first mixing the blue and the yellow. By the former method, while slower, a higher degree of transparency will be obtained. In painting landscapes, for instance, where one or the other of the first washes happens to show through, little accidental effects are secured which would otherwise be obtained with much difficulty.