The Color Wheel - Project 2

I mean, yeah, the wheel looks three-dimensional and all, but where the heck is the light coming from?!

What is it?This project introduced our class to the world of color - specifically those specified on Itten's color wheel. The project involved us creating our own color wheel that is based off of an isometric grid, and must contain the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, along with a tint, shade, and gray-scale version of each of these colors. The goal was to create a color wheel composition that is both visually appealing, and can also be legitimately used as a color wheel.

What makes it interesting?

One of the obvious reasons that this particular color wheel composition is visually appealing has to do with the balance of the composition - specifically, the composition uses radial symmetry to achieve this sense of balance. Along with balance, unity is also present in this composition, as the color wheel seems to be made out of twelve pieces that perfectly arrange next to one-another. Finally, perhaps one of the most interesting aspects to come from this composition deals with the sense of mystification that it presents the viewer. This sense is established thanks to the way that the tints and shades have been aligned to each of their respective colors on the wheel. They have been placed in a way that implies three-dimensional form in the composition, and although these implications are successful, they go against what is logical in the real world. In the real world, the tints of each color would be facing roughly in the same direction - the direction at which the light source is coming from. However, in this composition, no such singular light source is suggested, as the tints simply follow the same radial pattern as the wheel. While this may not follow real-world principles, the fact that the composition is able to depict three-dimensional form without following these appeals to logic adds yet another layer of interest to the composition.