Is color learned or intuitive?
A. Both. “Color personality,” reflected in your natural responses and preferences to particular colors, is largely intuitive. However, most artists learn color first by imitation, using the colors recommended by teachers or books. Eventually, if they pay attention to their own preferences, they introduce colors they like into this learned palette and quite often develop a consistent color style. Sometimes they get stuck there and keep repeating themselves, so it’s useful to learn a variety of color systems, such as limited palettes, split- primary color-mixing, compatible triads and color schemes, that provide flexibility and creativity to the color selection process. Once you’ve learned them, they can be used in so many ways that the intuitive responses to colors are given much more freedom than by trial-and-error.
