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When it comes to painting or choosing furnishings for your home, you might make your choice based upon whether it matches your current décor. There are a few things to consider if you're looking to blend into your existing color scheme or if you want an item to stand out without wrecking the visual experience you are looking for.
A helpful tool is the color wheel. It can be useful in selecting a piece of art that matches your room's colors, or it can help you determine what colors to paint your walls once you've selected a furniture upholstery pattern you like.
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| The Color Wheel: 1=primary, 2= secondary, 3=tertiary |
The first color wheel was devised by Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th Century. A simple color wheel includes the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue), the secondary colors (green, violet, and orange), and tertiary colors (yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, red violet, red-orange, and yellow-orange).
In selecting colors, one possibility is to use complementary colors. Begin by choosing a color (in this case, yellow) then draw a straight line across the color wheel (it will cross purple on the wheel). These colors are basically opposites and are considered complementary.
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| Example of Complementary and Split Complementary Colors |
If the difference in the two colors is more dramatic than you would like, but you still want contrast, you can try using a color directly to the right of the left of the complementary color. These colors would be the split complementary colors.
Another approach would be to use analogous colors. To find analogous colors on the wheel, simply choose a color and move two colors to the right or left of your chosen color. In the example below, I chose green with blue as the analogous color. Alternatively, yellow is also analogous to green.
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| Example of Analogous Colors |
Another method is to use the triad of colors. Choose a color on the color wheel and draw an equilateral triangle. In the example below, I chose yellow and the triad is completed with red and blue.
You don't need to use all the colors chosen by these methods, but understanding their relationships can enhance your room. When choosing colors, be sure to pick from colors that achieve the atmosphere you want in the room. Blues and greens may create a more relaxing aesthetic for you, yellows and reds might be used for a room that you'd like to appear more energetic. For more ideas on color, check out our
blogpost on
light and color.
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