Twelve

Here are all twelve tones lined up next to each other. (If you look closely you can see there are 12 different WOWs.)

One of the interesting things about color is the relative value and intensity. The brightest Yellow  (upper right corner) is the lightest (the long rectangle). The darkest value is the Blue-Violet (bottom row, second from left) is the large square in the middle. For the Blue, the truest blue is the small square, here it's the middle value. It's the same with the Green(far right column, third one down) (small square), and the Violet (lower left hand corner).

I wanted to keep the large dark block in the middle as close to the same value as I could across all twelve tones, but you just can't do it with Yellow. To get it that dark, you lose its "yellowness". It's the same with Orange. Dark orange is really a warm brown. But it isn't orange.

In the example above, my Red (first column, second from the top) is all wrong, and I plan to re-do it. The true red will be the small square. Right now it's closer to a red-orange. Why am I going to change it? Because it bugs me. Sure I could (could!) get away with it, but nope. Not me.

Here are the same twelve blocks with four other blocks in the middle. I just wanted as much contrast as I could.

I really, really, like this.