More About The Color Command In Python Turtle

Pencolor and fillcolor

In this article we explore the color command in more detail.

To review what we have learned about the color command so far.

To draw a red line we can:

import turtle as T
T.color ("red")
T.forward (100)

Or:

import turtle as T
T.colormode (255)
T.color (255,0,0)
T.forward (100)

Normally you do not have to specify the colormode for named colors however In the following module it is necessary.

import turtle as T
T.colormode (255)
T.color (0,255,0)
T.forward (100)
T.colormode (1.0)
T.color ("firebrick3")
T.forward (100)

So far when we specified a color with the color command we have been taking a short cut. Instead of:

import turtle as T
T.color ("red")

We could have written:

import turtle as T
T.pencolor ("red")

Or:

import turtle as T
T.color ("red","green")

The color command changes the pen color that is the the color of any lines we draw. A dot also uses the pencolor.

The color command also changes the fill color that is the color that we fill shapes with. The color of the turtle changes to that of the fill color.

Here are the options:

import turtle as T
T.color ("red") #changes both pen color and fill color
T.color ("red","green") # changes pen color to red and fill color to                  
                          green
T.pencolor ("red") #only pen color changes
T.fillcolor ("green") # only fill color changes
T.pencolor() #  will return the pen color
T.fillcolor() # will return the fill color
T.color()   # will return a tuple containing pen color and fill       
              color           

To use the fill color requires 2 commands. When you start drawing a shape you enter begin_fill () and when you finish a shape enter end_fill ().

import turtle as T
T.width (10)
T.color ("red","green")
T.begin_fill()
T.circle (100)
T.end_fill ()

Will give you:

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