Short answer
To access the colors used in the ggplot style, you can do as follows
In [37]: import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
In [38]: plt.style.use('ggplot')
In [39]: colors = plt.rcParams['axes.prop_cycle'].by_key()['color']
In [40]: print('\n'.join(color for color in colors))
#E24A33
#348ABD
#988ED5
#777777
#FBC15E
#8EBA42
#FFB5B8
In the above example the colors, as RGB strings, are contained in the list colors.
Remember to call plt.style.use(...) before accessing the color list, otherwise you'll find the standard colors.
More detailed explanation
The answer above is tailored for modern releases of Matplotlib, where the plot colors and possibly other plot properties, like line widths and dashes (see this answer of mine) are stored in the rcParams dictionary with the key 'axes.prop_cycle' and are contained in a new kind of object, a cycler (another explanation of a cycler is contained in my answer referenced above).
To get the list of colors, we have to get the cycler from rcParams and then use its .by_key() method
Signature: c.by_key()
Docstring: Values by key
This returns the transposed values of the cycler. Iterating
over a `Cycler` yields dicts with a single value for each key,
this method returns a `dict` of `list` which are the values
for the given key.
The returned value can be used to create an equivalent `Cycler`
using only `+`.
Returns
-------
transpose : dict
dict of lists of the values for each key.
to have a dictionary of values that, at last, we index using the key 'color'.
Addendum
It is not strictly necessary to use('a_style') to access its colors, the colors are (possibly) defined in a matplotlib.RcParams object that is stored in the dictionary matplotlib.style.library. E.g., let's print all the color sequences defined in the different styles
In [23]: for style in plt.style.library:
...: the_rc = plt.style.library[style]
...: if 'axes.prop_cycle' in the_rc:
...: colors = the_rc['axes.prop_cycle'].by_key()['color']
...: print('%25s: %s'%(style, ', '.join(color for color in colors)))
...: else:
...: print('%25s: this style does not modify colors'%style)
dark_background: #8dd3c7, #feffb3, #bfbbd9, #fa8174, #81b1d2, #fdb462, #b3de69, #bc82bd, #ccebc4, #ffed6f
ggplot: #E24A33, #348ABD, #988ED5, #777777, #FBC15E, #8EBA42, #FFB5B8
seaborn-poster: this style does not modify colors
seaborn-talk: this style does not modify colors
seaborn-bright: #003FFF, #03ED3A, #E8000B, #8A2BE2, #FFC400, #00D7FF
seaborn-notebook: this style does not modify colors
seaborn-darkgrid: this style does not modify colors
bmh: #348ABD, #A60628, #7A68A6, #467821, #D55E00, #CC79A7, #56B4E9, #009E73, #F0E442, #0072B2
fast: this style does not modify colors
seaborn: #4C72B0, #55A868, #C44E52, #8172B2, #CCB974, #64B5CD
seaborn-white: this style does not modify colors
_classic_test: b, g, r, c, m, y, k
seaborn-deep: #4C72B0, #55A868, #C44E52, #8172B2, #CCB974, #64B5CD
seaborn-paper: this style does not modify colors
grayscale: 0.00, 0.40, 0.60, 0.70
seaborn-dark-palette: #001C7F, #017517, #8C0900, #7600A1, #B8860B, #006374
seaborn-colorblind: #0072B2, #009E73, #D55E00, #CC79A7, #F0E442, #56B4E9
tableau-colorblind10: #006BA4, #FF800E, #ABABAB, #595959, #5F9ED1, #C85200, #898989, #A2C8EC, #FFBC79, #CFCFCF
seaborn-dark: this style does not modify colors
classic: b, g, r, c, m, y, k
seaborn-pastel: #92C6FF, #97F0AA, #FF9F9A, #D0BBFF, #FFFEA3, #B0E0E6
seaborn-ticks: this style does not modify colors
Solarize_Light2: #268BD2, #2AA198, #859900, #B58900, #CB4B16, #DC322F, #D33682, #6C71C4
seaborn-whitegrid: this style does not modify colors
seaborn-muted: #4878CF, #6ACC65, #D65F5F, #B47CC7, #C4AD66, #77BEDB
fivethirtyeight: #008fd5, #fc4f30, #e5ae38, #6d904f, #8b8b8b, #810f7c
PS — in my understanding
- the
seaborn-xxx styles that do not modify colors are to be used as the last step in a sequence of styles, e.g., plt.style.use(['seaborn', 'seaborn-poster']) or plt.style.use(['seaborn', 'seaborn-muted', 'seaborn-poster'])
- the only other style,
fast, that does not modify the colors is all about tweaking the rendering parameters to have a faster rendering.
