I am always excited to show my students the marvels of the color wheel; how secondary and tertiary colors can move on to quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, and denary… The subtlety is beautiful. When two primary colors- red, blue or yellow- are mixed together we get the secondary colors- purple, green, and orange. When two secondary colors are mixed together we get a tertiary color: blue-green, red-orange, violet.
It is possible to paint a color detailed painting with just the three primary colors, mixing together when needed to get an infinite number of gradations. Even brown and black can be achieved by mixing all three colors in various quantities. (See my painting at the end of this post.)
We simultaneously worked on a color wheel while we painted layers to a watercolor still life.
After the color wheel is finished, I show the students the brilliant blacks and browns that can be made using three colors.
Using just three colors I achieved this painting in watercolor. White in this case, is the absence of color while the darker colors were made by mixing all three colors together.
This shows the primary, secondary and tertiary colors