Artists create their artwork using a variety of different principles. One such principle is called the color scheme. There are several different types of color schemes, but this article will focus on the Triadic Color Scheme.
A color scheme is an organized and intentional deviation from normal color to convey a specific type of mood or idea in an artwork. The Triadic Color Scheme involves three colors that are equally spaced in a triangle on the color wheel, which groups like colors in a circle and places opposing colors opposite to each other. There are four possibilities of color combinations on the color wheel using a triadic color scheme. They are: red, blue, and yellow, green, orange, and violet, red-orange, and blue-violet or blue-green, red-violet, and yellow-orange.
The Garden of Love, painted by Peter Paul Reubens from 1630 to 1632, shows the three primary colors, reds and pinks, yellows and light golds, and dark navy blues arranged in a natural way as to not deliberately indicate the intention of using a Triadic Color Scheme. Notice the dark navy blues in the dresses, offset by the bright red tunic worn by the man in the wide-brimmed hat. Notice the subtle yellows in the background of the building, offset by the pinks in the cherubs floating around the top of the painting and the bright yellow dress in the center foreground.
Compare the allegorical scene to the modern collage of dragons by Nightlyre called Triadic Dragons, created in 2000. As you can see, Nightlyre used the secondary colors on the color wheel, green dragons with orange wings over a violet background, to create her artwork. The secondary colors include two cool colors, green and violet, with a warm color, orange. Nightlyre layered the colors beautifully, placing the violet in the background, while keeping the dragons green and emphasizing their wings with orange.
Using a Triadic Color Scheme requires having some knowledge of the definition of value. Value is the degree of dark or light contained in a color. Those colors that have a dark value include brown, black, and violet. Those colors with light values are yellow, orange, yellow-orange and yellow-green. When an artist limits themselves to a specific color scheme, they need to use substitute colors within that scheme to take the place of the normal values. In a triadic color scheme using primary colors, yellows take the place of light values, red takes the place of medium values and blue takes the place of dark values. In a secondary color scheme, orange takes the place of light values, green takes the place of middle values, and violet takes the place of dark values.
Artists can choose, however, to break these rules and add white or black to their paint, creating a lighter or darker value, but true adherence to the color scheme rule bars this practice, as it can change how each color appears in the work. If the color scheme is intended to be a major part of the work, diluting the color with white or black takes away the intensity of the limited pallet.
I hope you have enjoyed this article about Triadic Color Schemes. Enjoy your day.
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