Artists use tertiary colors for a variety of reasons. Tertiary colors are made by mixing a primary color with a secondary color adjacent to it on the color wheel. For example, red-orange is a tertiary color made from the primary color red and the secondary color orange. Tertiary colors help artists create more nuanced and complex color palettes by filling in the gaps between the primaries and secondaries. Using tertiaries allows artists to convey subtle shifts in value and temperature within a work. In this article, we’ll explore some of the key reasons why artists rely on tertiary colors.
Create subtle gradients and transitions
One of the main reasons artists use tertiaries is to create subtle gradients between colors. The human eye can perceive very slight differences between adjacent colors on the spectrum. Tertiary mixes allow artists to build smooth, gradual transitions from one hue to another. For instance, an artist painting a sunset sky could mix the primaries red and blue with the secondaries orange and violet to depict the shifting colors of dusk. The resulting tertiary purples, reddish purples, oranges, and red-oranges would capture the subtle changes in value and temperature. Tertiaries bridge the gaps between other colors on the wheel for seamless blending.
Convey nuance and complexity
Artists also rely on tertiaries to add nuance and complexity to their work. While the primaries and secondaries are bold and striking, tertiaries have a more muted, intricate effect. Their ambiguous nature, falling between the clarity of primaries and secondaries, can be used to suggest subtlety. For example, in a portrait, an artist may paint the skin tones with tertiary mixes like yellow-orange, red-orange, and orange-pink to capture delicate shifts in light and shadow. The tertiaries add life and dimension that would be lost with pure primaries. Their inherent softness creates intriguing areas of uncertainty on the canvas.
Manipulate temperature and mood
In addition to blending and nuance, tertiaries allow artists to finely manipulate temperature and mood. The tertiary mixes closest to the primary colors take on their warmer or cooler qualities. Yellow-oranges, red-oranges, and red-violets are warm like the primaries red and yellow. Green-blues, blue-greens, and blue-violets skew cooler like the primaries green and blue. An artist can utilize these temperature variations to evoke different sensations. A warm, fiery red-orange may communicate intensity or even anger. A cool green-blue may conjure up calmness or melancholy. Tertiaries thus expand an artist’s ability to explore emotion through color.
Harmonize and contrast
Artists also capitalize on the harmonizing and contrasting effects of tertiaries. Tertiary colors next to each other on the color wheel, like yellow-orange and yellow-green, have a harmonious relationship. Their analogous nature creates a sense of visual unity when paired. However, tertiaries on opposite sides of the wheel, like red-violet and yellow-green, have high contrast that can be used to accentuate drama or tension. Skillful artists carefully choose how to combine tertiaries to strike the right balance between harmony and contrast for their specific creative vision.
Deepen shadows
When mixing colors to depict shadows and highlights, tertiaries come in handy. Adding a primary color’s complementary secondary, such as mixing purple (red + blue) into yellow, will create a tertiary that retains the primary’s identity while darkening the tone. For example, yellow-orange darkened with purple becomes a burnt umber-like tertiary that reads as a shadow version of yellow. This allows artists to deepen shadows while harmonizing with the local color. Using tertiary mixes prevents shadows from looking muddy or unrelated to the lit areas.
| Primary Color | Complementary Secondary | Resulting Tertiary Mix for Shadows |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Purple | Yellow-orange + purple = burnt umber |
| Red | Green | Red-orange + green = dark brown |
| Blue | Orange | Blue-violet + orange = dark blue-gray |
Mute colors
Tertiaries can also mute colors by dulling their saturation. For instance, mixing the bright secondary color orange with the subdued primary blue creates a more muted tertiary orange-blue. This is useful when an artist wants to tone down a color without eliminating its essential character. Muting primaries with tertiaries is preferable to just adding white or black, which would create a tint or shade rather than a nuanced tertiary. Muting allows artists to retain luminosity while subtly softening colors.
Layer colors
In layered and mixed media techniques, tertiaries assist artists in blending colors for depth and texture. Glazing layers of related tertiary mixes, like orange-red over red-orange, builds up rich, luminous effects. Artists can also create interesting tertiary colors by allowing previously layered hues to interact and mix optically. For instance, applying glazes of blue over yellow results in green where the layers overlap. This adds spontaneity and synergy to the color interactions unique to the chosen media.
Make colors pop
Tertiaries help colors stand out and pop by providing useful transitions between them. Surrounding or framing a bright primary or secondary color with softened tertiary mixes makes that color appear more vibrant by comparison. The tertiaries absorb some of the viewer’s eye energy like a cushion, while the focal color area leaps forward. For example, a bright cadmium red flower will radiate against a meadow painted with red-violet, red-orange, and orange tertiary mixes. The tertiaries temper the context so the primary can shine.
Increase range and versatility
For practical purposes, tertiaries greatly increase the number of mixes available from just the handful of primaries and secondaries. With only six main hues to start with, the tertiaries fill in the gaps of the wheel with twelve intermediate colors. This versatility allows artists to mix a broad spectrum with fewer pigments. A compact travel palette with just a warm and cool red, yellow, blue and the tertiaries between them provides a surprising range of workable mixes. Tertiaries maximize color options from a minimalist mixing system.
Unify a composition
Artists frequently rely on a specific tertiary as a unifying color throughout a painting. Working a single tertiary mix into various elements creates harmony. For example, a seascape painting may incorporate a blue-green tertiary in the water, shadows, foliage and boat hulls. This establishes a sense of wholeness in the diverse composition while still allowing variety. Color schemes based on a specific tertiary can also aid memory and recall by associating the work with that tertiary color impression.
Establish a focal point
While tertiaries generally subdue and harmonize, they can also draw attention to a focal point when used strategically. Surrounding an area of interest with muted tertiaries makes it stand out, as mentioned previously regarding making colors pop. Tertiaries also occupy the middle ground of the color spectrum, providing useful stepping stones between opposites on the wheel, like red to green or yellow to purple. This allows artists to create bridges that guide the viewer’s eye through tertiaries to the intended focal point. The tertiaries act as visual hallway before opening up into the main room.
Create atmospheric perspective
Artists take advantage of the natural muting effect of atmosphere on distant objects by using tertiaries to render atmospheric perspective. As the landscape recedes, shifts towards cooler, duller tertiary mixes indicate distance. Warm yellow-oranges come forward, while hazy blue-violets recede into the far hills. Overlapping transparent glazes of tertiaries are ideal for building such atmospheric depth. The more layers of tertiary glazes, the further away that area seems. This creates illusions of space and distance with color that would be difficult using only pure hues.
Invoke time of day
Relatedly, tertiaries help artists capture the vivid skies and diffuse light of dusk, dawn, and twilight hours. The sun’s angle during these times floods the sky with tertiary mixes ranging from red-violet to blue-green. Tertiaries mixed by the refracting low sunlight also suffuse the landscape with ambiguous illumination. Artists leverage this ephemeral tertiary light to transport the viewer to the contemplative moments between day and night. Evocative tertiary mixes allow artists to freeze time within a painting.
Portray reflected light
Artists must portray realistic effects of bounced and reflected light to convincingly render form. When light moves from one colored object to another, tertiary mixes result. Yellow light reflecting onto a blue wall results in subtle greenish and yellowish-green tertiaries. Red light bouncing onto a purple floor results in tertiary mixes tending toward red-violets. Such refined color iterations occur constantly in real life. Capturing them in art requires tertiaries to complete the color story and convince the eye.
Mix cleaner greens
One of the most useful functions of tertiaries is producing cleaner, more natural greens. Due to the complexity of human color vision, mixing blue and yellow pigments straight from the tube results in dull, muddy greens. But mixing yellow toward greenish-yellow and blue toward blue-green first creates much truer greens. The tertiary mixes allow more vibrant, nuanced greens that retain the luminosity of the parent hues. This technique is invaluable for landscape painters seeking to capture lush, verdant greens.
Increase chroma and intensity
Pigment characteristics limit the achievable chroma, or color intensity, of certain mixtures. Some secondaries mixed from primaries have a lower chroma than the parents, such as purple from red and blue. But the corresponding tertiary made from one primary and adjacent secondary often exhibits higher chroma. Red-violet made from red and blue-violet can achieve a more vibrant chroma than regular violet. Similarly, yellow-green created from yellow and green has a higher possible chroma than yellow and blue green. In this way, tertiaries provide alternate mixes that allow artists to maximize the intensity of colors.
Make transparent layers glow
Building up transparent layers of tertiary colors creates luminous effects as the light passes through the tinted film of paint and reflects back through it. These optical color interactions produce a perceived glow that seems to radiate from the deepest layers up through succeeding glazes. Master painters like Turner utilized tertiary glazing techniques to create brilliant, shimmering light effects. The transparent tertiaries refract the white canvas light into jeweled tones. Modern artists continue to employ tertiaries in glazing to capture this ethereal luminescence.
Create color harmony
When used skillfully, tertiaries promote color harmony in a composition through their inherent relationships. Tertiary colors adjacent on the wheel provide smooth transitions between hues. Complementary tertiaries like red-orange and blue-green offer lively contrast while keeping the harmony. Splashes of a single tertiary unify diverse elements. Overall, tertiaries forge links between all regions of the color wheel. Their connections integrate colors into a cohesive visual experience. This harmonic power makes tertiaries an essential tool for artists seeking to orchestrate truly symphonic color compositions.
Conclusion
In summary, artists rely extensively on tertiary colors for their immense versatility and harmonizing effects. Tertiaries grant the ability to render subtle shifts in value, temperature and mood. They allow artists to transition smoothly between other hues, mute colors, manipulate contrasts, and unify compositions. Their mixing potential vastly expands the color options available. Skillful tertiary use enables conveying distance, time of day, reflected light, and atmospheric glow. Tertiary colors connect the entire color wheel, facilitating harmonious color orchestration. This combination of capabilities explains why artists make extensive use of tertiary colors to achieve their creative visions. From delicate watercolor glazes to thick impasto oil layers, tertiaries empower artists to conquer color.
