Monochromatic colors

Monochromatic colors are colors of the same hue but different lightness and/or darkness. In other words, monochromatic color scheme is basing on color combinations of tints and/or shades of the same hue . On the color wheel monochromatic color scheme is represented by one hue only. In combination of whitening ( tints) and darkening (shades) of this hue it is possible to create multiple colors. This ancient Chinese painting is built predominantly on a monochromatic color scheme.



This ancient Chinese painting below is built predominantly on a monochromatic color scheme.

Analogous colors

Analogous colors are combination of hues which are “next door neighbors” on the color wheel. Any set of hues which represents consecutive sequence of hues from color wheel constitutes analogous color scheme .

Split Complementary colors

Split Complementary colors are colors which are combination of one color on one side of color wheel and pair of colors on opposite side of color wheel. Not any pair of colors will be good for split complimentary color scheme. How to find this pair of colors? Select the first color, then find the color on opposite side of the wheel like it would be in complementary color scheme. Then select the color on the right side and on the left side from this color. This is your pair.
Split complementary color scheme consists from 3 colors but unlike secondary or primary color scheme it is not a triad , meaning, the space between colors in split complementary color scheme is not equal.

Complementary colors

Complementary colors are colors which are opposite to each other in the color wheel.
All these colors are complementary colors. Any color on the color wheel has its complement. There is one complement to each color therefore complementary color scheme is a scheme of two colors only.

Paintings below by Irina V. Ivanova are examples of implementation of complimentary color scheme

Secondary colors

Secondary colors are concrete colors orange, green and purple which are created as mixture of two primary colors. This graphic design image is created as a combination of secondary colors.

Primary colors

Primary colors are concrete colors red blue and yellow. Colors which cannot be created by mixing other colors and can be used as foundation for other colors ( secondary colors).


In history of art there’re are excellent examples of artwork entirely bult on primary colors
Piet Mondrian is intentionally limited himself by primary colors only c during his neoplasticism period . You can see examples of his artwork here
, here and here.
All of them created based on hues from primary color scheme only.
This image below is example of primary colors