We are going to show you the basics on the color wheel. Your primary colors for example are red, yellow and blue. Your secondary colors are purple, which are between red and blue, orange between red and yellow and green, between yellow and blue.
These paints if you mix them together we will get that color. We also talked about complementary colors and those are the colors that are opposite of the wheel. What this does is that you paint a painting and you put these two colors next to each other, one part of the color is going to pop and this is very important with your painting.
For example, you put a copper pot painting together, of course, your copper pots are in orange base, if you are put to a blue background in it or blue curtain in the background it makes the pots come forward and pop more, makes them brighter also. If you mix these two colors together purple and yellow or blue and orange you get what we call mud, so you don’t want to do that. To paint them next to each other they compliment each other, to mix them not good.
Another benefit too is to get a color wheel, this is mine as you notice it has been worked over. It tells you your tones, your whites all the way into your blacks and you are going to need that when you tone your color because you can brighten or dull your color also. It also helps you to look at your painting on the background if it shows you triangles.
When you are painting, you want to try to stay in a triangle color or complementary color and it makes your painting a little bit prettier.
Source : Expert Village