Peter Donahue is an artist and educator who is using his social media, as he explains, to "make color theory fun and accessible." On his YouTube channel he describes some of what he does:
"Let's explore color theory in all its weirdness. Join me as I mix paint, bust myths about primary colors, analyze color schemes, and tickle your brain with color science."
He calls himself the "Color Nerd" on TikTok, where he shares videos all about color theory—he has videos about EnChroma glasses, optical mixing, prisms, color wheels, additive mixing, chromatic aberration, and much more. Recently, he posted an "Open Letter to Crayola," where he presents the case that Crayola's current line-up of colors in their 24-pack should be adjusted because the current hues aren't spaced evenly. He plots the current 24 colors to a perceptual color space and highlights the irregularities in spacing around the hue circle. He points out that 18 of the current colors are full chroma hues, and wonders why they aren't more evenly distributed. He then presents his own 24 more evenly stepped colors, and argues that using the new colors would help art teachers more clearly describe what hue is as a quality of color perception. His proposed pack contains hues that are evenly spaced in terms of their perceptual differences; the hues also line up to form nine sets of nearly perfect visually complementary pairs, which is helpful for teaching about complementary colors. Sadly, that tool is lost in the current configuration.
As a follow up to his letter to Crayola, he also posted a longer video explaining more about his proposed 24 pack.
For more fascinating and educational color theory content, follow Peter Donahue's Instagram or TikTok—I've already learned so much from his videos! He also teaches online color mixing courses, which you can find out more about here.
