The Color Wheel

Here is the color wheel. There are several ways in which you can group and organize colors, but this wheel is one of the most encompassing and cohesive kind. Not limited by the few colors shown above, but able to contain countless shades of them in between and in and out of them. For the sake of simplicity, though, let's just look at a few colors.

Within what we can call chromatic colors, you will find what are called primary colors and secondary colors (tertiary colors, too). The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. While secondary colors are green, orange, and purple. The names aren't about rank, but about blending. You can get secondary colors by blending primary colors, but not vice-versa. E.g. Red and yellow, primary colors, make orange, a secondary color. And you can see how they appear between them on the wheel.

Furthermore, on this wheel, you are able to see which colors are adjacent to one another and which ones are complementary to each other. E.g. Adjacent to blue is turquoise and indigo, and complementing blue is orange.

Being familiar with the color wheel comes in handy for understanding, choosing, combining, and also blending colors.