The complement of any primary color can be made by combining the two other primary colors. In this traditional scheme, a complementary color pair contains one primary color (yellow, blue or red) and a secondary color (green, purple or orange). This model designates red, yellow and blue as primary colors with the primary–secondary complementary pairs of red–green, blue-orange, and yellow–purple. The traditional color wheel model dates to the 18th century and is still used by many artists today. In different color models Traditional color model For example, blue can be the complement of both yellow and orange because a wide range of hues, from cyan to blue-violet, are called blue in English. These contradictions stem in part from the fact that traditional color theory has been superseded by empirically-derived modern color theory, and in part from the imprecision of language.

The black- white color pair is common to all the above theories.

Opponent process theory suggests that the most contrasting color pairs are red–green and blue–yellow.

In the traditional RYB color model, the complementary color pairs are red– green, yellow– purple, and blue– orange.

Modern color theory uses either the RGB additive color model or the CMY subtractive color model, and in these, the complementary pairs are red– cyan, green– magenta, and blue– yellow.Which pairs of colors are considered complementary depends on the color theory one uses: Complementary colors may also be called 'opposite colors'.

When placed next to each other, they create the strongest contrast for those two colors. Complementary colors in the opponent process theory.Ĭomplementary colors are pairs of colors which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out (lose hue) by producing a grayscale color like white or black. Complementary colors in the traditional RYB color model. Complementary colors in the RGB color model.

Emotion color wheel printable