Color Harmony Palette: Complementary, Triadic and RYB Wheel

How to use it

Choose the Base colour with the picker, or type a hex code in Hex code.
Choose the Harmony you want. Both wheels and both lists change at once.
Read the HSL colour wheel for screen colours, then the Artist's RYB wheel for painting.
Click the copy button beside a colour to copy its hex code.

The seven harmonies

A complementary pair is two colours opposite each other on the wheel. An analogous scheme is a root colour with the colours on either side of it. A triadic scheme is three colours at equal distances, an equilateral triangle on the wheel. Split complementary takes the two colours beside the complement of the base. A tetrad forms a rectangle of two complementary pairs, as described in the Wikipedia article on colour harmony).

The square has four colours 90 degrees apart, and monochromatic keeps one hue and changes its lightness. Those two are the usual conventions; this tool uses the angles listed below.

Complementary: base and base + 180°
Analogous: base − 30°, base and base + 30°
Triadic: base, + 120° and + 240°
Split complementary: base, + 150° and + 210°
Tetradic: base, + 60°, + 180° and + 240°
Square: base, + 90°, + 180° and + 270°
Monochromatic: the base hue at lightness 20, 35, 50, 65 and 80 percent around the base

The artist's RYB wheel and its approximation

The painter's wheel is built on red, yellow and blue, the three primaries that mix to make the others: red and yellow make orange, red and blue make purple, and blue and yellow make green, as the Wikipedia article on the RYB colour model explains. So the complement of red on this wheel is green, while on a screen wheel it is cyan.

Screen colours cannot be mixed like paint, so the tool uses the approximation of Gossett and Chen (2004), "Paint Inspired Color Mixing and Compositing for Visualization". The eight corners of the RYB cube are given RGB colours in that paper, and the colours in between are interpolated with its smoothstep rule. The base colour is placed at the nearest point of that mapping. The approximation is good for planning, not a measurement of pigments: real paints differ by brand and by how they are mixed.

Colours with under 10 % saturation have no hue on the RYB wheel, so the page shows them alone.

Worked example: harmonies of pure red

On the HSL wheel the complement of #FF0000 is cyan. On the painter's wheel the complement of red is green, and the triad of red is red, yellow and the blue of the paper's cube, #2A5F99, rather than the screen blue.

Both wheels use the same angles, so the difference is in the wheel, not the choice of harmony.

Harmony of #FF0000	HSL wheel	RYB wheel
Complementary	#00FFFF (cyan)	#00A833 (green)
Triadic	#00FF00, #0000FF	#FFFF00, #2A5F99

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between the HSL wheel and the RYB wheel?

The HSL wheel is the colour wheel of screens, with red, green and blue as primaries. The RYB wheel uses red, yellow and blue, the primaries of paint, so its harmonies can differ from the screen wheel's.

Why is the complement of red green on a painter's wheel?

Green is made by mixing blue and yellow, so it sits opposite red on the red-yellow-blue wheel. On a screen, the opposite of red is cyan, because screens mix light rather than pigment.

Are the RYB colours exact?

No. They are an approximation of how paints mix, based on the cube mapping of Gossett and Chen. Use them to plan a palette, then check the paint itself on the surface you will use.

Why does the page show only one colour for a grey?

A grey has no hue, so there is no angle on the wheel to harmonise. The page shows the colour alone instead of inventing a hue for it.

Which harmony should I choose for a painting?

Complementary pairs give strong contrast and draw the eye; analogous schemes feel calm and close; triadic and tetradic schemes give more colours to balance. Try a few on the wheel before you mix any paint.

Sources

Figures and text last checked on Tuesday, November 10, 2026.