

This is the color wheel used by artists in print media, magazines, etc. The CMYK wheel is for the cyan, magenta, yellow color system. This is the color wheel most often used by artists working in digital media such as video, web, photography. The RGB wheel is for the red, green, blue color system. This is the color wheel most often used by painters. The RYB color wheel is for the red, yellow, blue color system. Let's look at some color wheels.Ībove are examples of the color wheels for three different color systems. Though, as we move around the color wheel we will see every color in the spectrum.

The change from one color to the next is gradual. More on this later.įor now, just note that the colors are grouped together with similar colors. The colors across from each other have a different relationship to each other and will behave differently as compared to the colors they are next to. The colors next to each other have a particular relationship with each other and will interact together in certain ways. The colors are arranged in a circle to show us how the colors interact with each other. You will notice that the colors are arranged along the edge of a circle. This means that the color wheel is just a chart in which we organize the different colors in the color spectrum. We use a color wheel to help us visually organize our colors to better understand how they relate to one another. To understand what a color wheel is, it helps to know what we use it for.
