For educators and students
Color for education
Color theory sticks when students can push it around. The wheel shows every harmony live, the glossary demonstrates each term in actual color instead of describing it, the mixing pages show subtractive results, and the games turn recognition into practice. All free, no accounts, projector-friendly.
Starting points
Three starter palettes, generated live
Each set is produced by the palette engine, not picked from a mood board. Open one in the generator to lock what fits and reroll the rest.
Primary and secondary
Because the classic wheel relationships, generated live rather than printed.
Pastel study set
Because high-lightness versions for tint and tone lessons.
Complementary pairs
Because opposite hues for simultaneous-contrast demonstrations.
The shelf
Working colors of the field
The named colors educators and students reach for, each resolved against the 31,912-name registry. Tap a swatch to copy the hex; open the name for the full page with codes, palettes, and contrast data.
- Red #FF0000 primary in paint theory; one third of light's additive trio
- Yellow #FFFF00 paint primary; in light it is what red plus green makes
- Blue #0000FF the third paint primary and the B in RGB
- Green #00FF00 secondary in paint, primary in light: the demonstration that breaks the 'one true primary set' myth
- Orange #FFA500 red plus yellow; the warmest point of the wheel
- Violet #9A0EEA the shortest visible wavelength; often conflated with purple
- Cyan #00FFFF print primary; the 'missing' color between blue and green
- Magenta #FF00FF print primary with no single wavelength of its own: the brain invents it
- Black #000000 in pigment, the sum of absorption; in light, the absence of it
- White #FFFFFF all light together; in paint, the tube that makes tints
- Pink #FFC0CB the everyday proof that a tint earns its own name
- Brown #653700 low-value orange in disguise: the best-kept secret in class
Speak the language
Terms this field runs on
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Primary colors Three different answers (RYB, RGB, CMY) because paint, light, and print mix differently. All three are correct in their system. Full definition →
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Primary colors
The base colors a system mixes from. Light uses red, green, and blue; print uses cyan, magenta, and yellow; traditional paint theory uses red, yellow, and blue.Full glossary entry → -
Additive color Light adds: red plus green light makes yellow. Screens run this rule sixty times a second. Full definition →
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Additive color
Color made by adding light, as screens do with red, green, and blue. Add all three fully and you get white.Full glossary entry → -
Subtractive color Pigment subtracts: each paint absorbs more of the spectrum, so heavy mixing drifts to brown. Full definition →
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Subtractive color
Color made by removing light, as pigments and inks do. Mix many paints and you approach black, because each absorbs more of the spectrum.Full glossary entry → -
Tint Color plus white. Pink is red's tint; naming it makes the concept stick. Full definition →
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Tint
A color mixed with white, which raises its lightness. Pink is a tint of red. Tints feel softer and more open than the base color.Full glossary entry → -
Shade Color plus black. Maroon is red's shade; students mix both in one exercise. Full definition →
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Shade
A color mixed with black, which lowers its lightness. Maroon is a shade of red. Shades feel deeper and more grounded.Full glossary entry → -
Color wheel The map every harmony is read from. Ours is spaced in OKLCH so distances match appearance. Full definition →
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Color wheel
A circular arrangement of hues used to find relationships like complements and triads. Our wheel is spaced in OKLCH so the distances match how the colors actually look.Full glossary entry →
The workflow
How educators and students use this site
- 1 Demonstrate on the wheel Drag the hue and watch complementary, analogous, triadic, and tetradic sets follow in real time. Color wheel →
- 2 Define terms in color All 61 glossary entries carry a computed demonstration band: the saturation card desaturates, the tint card tints. Visual glossary →
- 3 Show real mixing The mixer previews pigment-style results next to light-style results, the difference that trips every class. Color mixer →
- 4 Practice with games Colordle and Name That Color turn hue recognition and the 31,912-name registry into daily practice. Color games →
Field notes
What goes wrong, and the fix
- Teaching one set of primaries Students meet RYB in art class, RGB on every screen, and CMY at the printer, and conclude someone lied. Teach all three as systems; the mixer shows additive and subtractive side by side. Both mixings, live →
- Describing instead of showing 'Saturation is intensity' lands on nobody. The glossary's demonstration bands desaturate, tint, and shade in front of the class; project them. Visual glossary →
- Skipping value for hue Beginners chase hue while every strong composition is carried by value. The grayscale check strips hue and shows what is really there; make it a habit early. Value, defined →
FAQ
Common questions
- Is this suitable for classrooms?
- Yes: free, no accounts, no ads mid-lesson, and everything runs in the browser. Images students upload never leave their device, which keeps it inside most school privacy policies.
- What is the difference between mixing light and mixing paint?
- Light adds (red plus green makes yellow); paint subtracts (most pigments mixed together drift toward brown). The mixer shows both results side by side for any two colors.
- Where do the color names come from?
- A community-maintained registry of 31,912 named colors, matched by the CIEDE2000 difference formula. The methodology page documents the exact pipeline.
- Why are there three different sets of primary colors?
- Because there are three mixing systems: pigments subtract light (red, yellow, blue tradition; cyan, magenta, yellow in print) and screens add it (red, green, blue). Each set is primary within its system, and the mixer demonstrates both behaviors.
- What order should color theory be taught in?
- A sequence that works: hue and the wheel first, then value and the grayscale check, then saturation, then mixing (additive versus subtractive), then harmonies. The wheel, glossary, and mixer here map to that sequence one to one.
- Are there free color games for practice?
- Colordle gives one color-guessing puzzle a day, Name That Color drills the registry, and the color-of-the-day page gives a daily discussion starter. All free, no logins, playable on a projector or a phone.
Other work