Color is an essential ingredient in our lives, so it makes sense it would be an important element in decorating your home. You've probably already been experimenting with color and have some personal favorite colors. Working with color is fun and creative, so by all means, have fun with it. However, when it comes to decorating your home and painting your walls, it can really help minimize color "mistakes" if you understand how colors work together. The best way to do this is to purchase a basic color wheel and spend some time learning how to use it. A color wheel is a relatively inexpensive, simple tool that will teach you the relationships between colors and can be found at art supply stores, craft stores and often paint stores.
The color wheel is a circle divided into 12 equal pie-shaped parts, each representing a single color ~ red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue, blue-violet, violet and red-violet. These colors are further divided into 3 primary, 3 secondary, and 6 tertiary colors:
The PRIMARY colors ~ red, blue and yellow ~ are the only pure colors, which means they cannot be derived from mixing other colors.
Three SECONDARY colors ~ purple (red & blue mixed), orange (red & yellow mixed) and green (blue & yellow mixed.
Six TERTIARY colors ~ red orange, yellow orange, yellow green, blue green, blue violet, and red violet. These tertiary colors are derived from mixing a primary color, ie.blue, with a secondary color, ie. green, to get blue green.
The relationship between the colors is what creates a COLOR SCHEME. A color scheme is a combination of colors that look good together (have a good relationship with each other). The most common color schemes are:
MONOCHROMATIC ~ uses one color in various tints, tones and shades. This color scheme often needs a variety of textures to keep it interesting.
COMPLIMENTARY~ uses 2 colors that are directly across from one another on the color wheel. For example: blue & orange, red & green and yellow & violet.
ANALOGOUS ~ uses 3 colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel, such as blue, blue green and green.
TRIADIC ~ uses 3 colors that are an equal distance apart on the color wheel, such as violet, orange and green or red, yellow and blue.
NEUTRALS ~ the neutrals are all the shades of white, off-white, cream, beige, tan, etc. A color scheme using mostly neutrals can be very soothing, but usually needs the addition of an accent color to give it interest.
Color VALUE refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. To lighten a color, add white ~ this is called a TINT. To darken a color, add black ~ this is called a SHADE. For medium intensity, add grey ~ this is called a TONE.
INTENSITY refers to the amount of color saturation or the purity and strength of a color.
Another way to create more colors is to mix together varying amounts of colors on the color wheel. We've all been to the paint store to see the hundreds of colors available in the paint chips. Have you ever watched the person who mixes the color? They use a formula for each color and add specific amounts of certain colors to a particular base color to get the final color. Mixing colors in a paint store is definitely a science. Artists who use oil paints have a color palette they use to mix colors until they get the color they want. All color mixing is based upon the color wheel.
Now that you have all this scientific information about color, please remember that these are guidelines and you are the artist. Don't let the guidelines dampen your creativity, because in the final analysis you have to like it or it will never feel comfortable to you. |
| Author: Larraine Brannan |
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Author Bio:
Larraine is the owner of a tropical home d??cor website and writes articles relevant to home decorating, travel and the tropics. |
| This article can be searched using: home interior design, interior design ideas, interior design software, residential interior design |
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