When you are in an art class, these terms ‘tone’ tint’ ‘hue’ and ‘shade’ get used a great deal, but what are the differences?  Why is it important to understand the differences?

It is always nice to understand what terms mean but I have been in many art classes where terms are used and never explained. It is important to understand the differences between these terms when you are painting because it gives you language to explain your art.  It is also important to understand for colour mixing and colour theory.

Hue 

Hue means a colour (red, green, blue, yellow etc.) There are six hues and they are the colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.  In colour theory a hue means pure colour (colour without a tint or shade).

Value

A value means how dark or light something is.  Below we see a tonal scale from dark on one side to light, all these different shades of grey are tonal values.

Tints 

Tints are created when you add white to any hue.  Lightening a hue makes it less saturated or intense and you get what some refer to as ‘pastel colours’ they are lighter and feel calm and still in paintings.  A tint is always lighter than the original colour.

Shades 

Shades are darker versions of hues and you create shades when you add black.

Tones are created by mixing black and white with the pure colour (hue) tones are the values in between shades and tints and often the most difficult to achieve in painting.

Read my post Why You Can Have Too Many Paint Colours for more advice.