Standard color wheel I’m still playing with the paper from my Color-aid pack that was left over from college. All the pretty colors! Since I’m an organizer by nature, I really appreciate how this pack of colors is organized with the entire range of pure colors, tints, shades, and tones. I decided to make a few color wheels using this paper before I went to my stash to find comparable colors in fabric.
The first 12-step color wheel I made uses the standard theory of red, yellow, and blue as the primary colors; orange, green, and violet as the secondary colors. This is the color wheel that seems to be the most common and most frequently taught. Since yellow is the lightest color, I placed it at the top of the wheel. The colors get progressively darker as you move around the wheel.
Ives color wheel The second color wheel that many people encounter is based on the Ives theory. The quilter and author Joen Wolfrom uses this color wheel in her books. This color theory is also particularly useful to dyers. It uses cyan, magenta, and yellow as the primary colors. If you have an ink jet printer, these are typically the inks that are used. If this color wheel is new to you, it is well worth exploring further.
Color-aid color wheel Since I had this big box of Color-aid paper, I pulled out all of the pure colors, 24 in all, and decided to make a color wheel with them. It gives a more complete color wheel that is pretty similar to the Ives color wheel.
