So, for example, Yellow and Violet are a complementary pair, as are Red and Green, Blue and Orange. The students learned that the complement of a Primary colour is always a Secondary colour. They also discovered that all 3 primary colours (yellow, red, blue) are present in any 2 complementary colours. Let's take Yellow and Violet again, Yellow is a primary, Violet is made up of Red and Blue, thus all 3 primary colours are present. Using this idea the students were then able to deduce what a complement of a colour would be without looking at the colour wheel. If I asked them what the complement of Orange is they know that Red and Yellow make Orange, therefore Blue is its complement as it is the only remaining primary not named yet.
