Illustration Tutorial: The Color Wheel

Learn how to make your own color wheel, and how to use it to choose strong color combinations in your illustrations

Color is an essential part of any artist’s work, but to use it effectively, you need to understand it first—a color wheel is a useful tool that will help you do just that. Usually taking the form of a circle, around the circumference, you can identify the primary colors and see how they mix together to make the secondary and tertiary colors.

Here, cartoonist, illustrator, and Domestika teacher Andonella shares some of her tips on how to create a color wheel from scratch. You will be able to use it to choose striking color palettes for your illustrations. Watch the tutorial below and read on for more details!

How to create a color wheel

1. Get a blank sheet of paper or card and draw a circle (or create your own circular shape)

The color wheel doesn’t have to be an exact circle, however it’s better that it maintains a circular shape. This will help you to see how the colors mix together and identify complementary and analogous colors. In fact, Andonella encourages you to design your own unique color wheel like this one, which takes the shape of a flower and has 12 petals (three for the primary colors, three for the secondary colors, and three for the tertiary colors).