10 Free Online Color Theory Classes for Beginners

Journey through the spectrum of color and discover how to use it across different art forms, from photography to illustration, with these free lessons

Color is a fundamental aspect of creative work, that appeals to our senses of emotion and beauty. To give your work the maximum impact, it’s useful to understand the set of essential rules that apply to color.

These rules lay out how colors are created and how they complement each other (or not). When you understand color, you can communicate ideas and mood more clearly, create palettes within your work, and streamline decision-making in your process.

Here, we’ve opened ten classes from top Domestika teachers for a limited time, to show you how.

Read on to discover top tips curated from a range of courses, covering interior design, photography, illustration, and more. You’ll follow a winding path around the color wheel, through the key terms you need to know, and into specializations. Whether you want to breathe new life into your home or workspace, discover inspiration in the world around you through your camera lens, or master the blank canvas with emotive and inspiring hues, there will be something for you on this list.

These classes will be free until March 6, 2022. If you want to access the classes after this date, you can sign up for each teacher’s full course and dive into their topics in detail.

1. Free Class: Colors and Mood

You may have noticed that sad scenes in movies often have dark backgrounds, blue lighting, or similar. Karmen Loh, also known as Bearbrickjia (@bearbrickjia), is here to explain why and give you a primer on mood! Karmen has been illustrating digitally for almost ten years. Her work captures a sense of calm with a dream-like feeling that has grown an impressive following on her Instagram.

In this lesson on colors and mood, she addresses how different hues and lighting result in different moods and atmospheres, by sharing examples from well-known movie screenshots, photographs, and artworks.

2. Free Class: Color Theory Crash Course

Now you understand a bit about how color can tell a story and appeal to our emotion, it’s time to analyze it in more detail. Do you know the difference between hue, saturation, and value?

Camille Labarre (@camillelabarre) uses her understanding of color to create unique embroidered portraits using the punch needle technique. She’s a freelance fabricator based in New York, specializing in props, puppets, and sets for animation, film, and theater.

In this crash course on color theory, she outlines the keywords you need to know when it comes to deeply understanding color and how certain hues mix together to create others.

3. Free Class: The Basic Terminology of Color

James Eccleston (@james80) uses the science of color for communication: he has eighteen years of experience working for major brand communication agencies in London, digital start-ups in Latin America, and running his agency, Bridge, in Madrid. Graphic design for branding and campaigns is reliant on color to catch people’s attention and create an impression of the brand.

In this lesson, you’ll learn color terminology that will help you to improve your communication. Take your understanding to the next level by learning terms like RGB and CMYK, and breaking down descriptive words for different hues.

4. Free Class: Choosing the Right Color Palettes

You might not realize it, but even gray hues can be full of emotion and interest. Explore the complexity of choosing a thoughtful color palette, even with grayer, muted tones, understanding the differences between cold and warm.

Sara Luna (@saralunart) is a visual artist and illustrator who specializes in textile art. She grew up surrounded by weavers and craft makers in her family, but when she moved to the US, she rediscovered the punch needle and honed her skill. Her work has been exhibited in New York and Salt Lake City, and she’s been featured in Create! Magazine and Carper Contemporary.

5. Free Class: Designing a Digital Color Palette

Coming back to more saturated hues, it’s time to think about digital art. It’s important to note that computer monitors use the color setting RGB (Red, Green, Blue), while print media uses CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black).

Owen Davey (@owendaveydraws) is an award-winning illustrator from the UK who is known for geometric shapes and curated color palettes. He has worked with Google, Facebook, Flying Eye Books, and more, and is the lead illustrator for the multi-award-winning app Two Dots.

In this class, he demonstrates how he explored digital color palettes in certain projects, noting how context and placement can make a color look completely different.

6. Free Class: Complementary Colors

By now you should have an understanding of what complementary colors are. It’s time to learn how to use them to create highlighted areas and strong compositions.

James Chapman (@jameschapman) is an illustrator and children's author based in the UK. His professional work is mostly in animation and digital art, but his thousands of Instagram followers know him for colorful sketchbooks filled with film and pop culture references, created with Posca pens.

In this class on complementary colors, he demonstrates how to work with bright Posca pens, quickly testing color combinations before committing to a final project.

7. Free Class: Understanding Color for Interior Design

If you’re looking to bring more color into your surroundings, this is the lesson for you. Shari Francis (@sfrancis) walks you through color for interior design by dissecting the color wheel in a specialized context. Understand how color creates mood and evokes certain emotions in interior spaces. Then, add an extra layer to your understanding by combining color with texture.

Shari Francis is the owner and head interior designer at Dädapt, a Brooklyn-based interior design studio, and is a part-time interior design professor and member of the Black Artist and Designers Guild. Shari’s portfolio includes interior narratives for development, residential, commercial, and hospitality projects, with work featured in The Wall Street Journal, Architectural Digest, and many more.

8. Free Class: Working with Composition and Color Together

With a basic knowledge in place, it’s time to bring your artwork to life by using color and composition together.

Marcos Chin (@marcoschinart) is an award-winning illustrator whose work has appeared on surface and wall designs, books, CD covers, magazines, and more. He has worked with companies such as Rolling Stone Magazine and The New Yorker.

In this class, Marcos demonstrates in full his process for using color and composition to add dynamism and symbolic meaning to a drawing of birds flying around a cage. He details each step of organizing and coloring the image to ensure it has maximum impact on the viewer.

9. Free Class: Psychology of Color

Dive deeper into the emotional responses provoked by color, and consider how they especially affect photography, in this class on the psychology of color.

A native of Malaysia and a surgeon by trade, Yaopey Yong (@yaopey) has combined these facets of his life with a love for photography inherited from his father. Yaopey has received awards including the Award of Excellence from The Spirit of Resilience Awards. His work has featured in publications like National Geographic, Photography Week, and Asia Overland.

Yaopey shares that color is more than it appears. It appeals to our subconscious—to memories, past emotions, and experiences. This can stir our feelings up when looking at certain images, and can encourage us to form a meaningful attachment.

10. Free Class: Cinematography and Cinematic Color

As we learned earlier, color in cinematography performs many functions, including setting the scene and developing a character’s story. How can you use cinematography as an inspiration for photography?

Fine art photographer Teresa Freitas (@teresacfreitas) is from Lisbon, Portugal and developed a successful career by creating colorful images. Teresa started a visual diary on Instagram and was approached by several global brands because of her work which allowed her to photograph professionally. She has worked with Netflix, Dior, Polaroid, Chloé, and American Express.

In this class on cinematic color, Teresa shares insights and examples on the use of color for setting the tone of an image and how you can work with a cinematic subject to bring a distinct look to your photos.

Color can unlock emotion, communicate ideas, and add an extra layer of meaning to any creative project, whatever your medium. If you’re keen to learn even more about color, check out each teacher’s course in full or explore our other color theory courses.

Remember to watch the classes by March 6, 2022 for limited-time free access.

You may also like:

- Free eBook: Color Theory by Domestika
- What is Color Blocking in Interior Design?
- What is Color Harmony, and What Types Are There?