What is Colour Theory?
Colour theory brings together art and science to help choose what colours look good together.
What is the Colour Wheel?
The Colour wheel was invented in 1666 by Isaac Newton. The colour wheel organizes colours by their chromatic relationship to one another, placing primary colours an equal distance from each other and tertiary colours are placed between. Artists started using this wheel to determine complementary and analogous colours to create colour schemes, and now, so do painters.
Primary Colours: Red, Blue and Yellow
Secondary Colours: Green, Orange and Violet
Tertiary Colours: Made by mixing one primary with one secondary
Analogous Colours
Analogous colours are colours that are next to or near to each other on the colour wheel. When used together they create a calming effect since they are aesthetically pleasing. Normally, when creating a colour scheme using analogous colours you choose a dominant colour, a supporting colour and an accent colour.
Complimentary Colours
Complimentary colours are positioned opposite of each other on the colour wheel and enhance each other’s intensity when used together. These colours are normally used to create bold, high contast images.
Monochromatic Colours
Monochromatic colours are three shades, tones and tints of one base colour. They created a subtle colour scheme that create a harmonious look.
Triadic Colours
Triadic colours are three colours that are evenly spaced from one another on the colour wheel. While it doesn’t create the same high contrast scheme as complimentary colours, it still creates bold and vibrant colour schemes.
Tetradic Colours
Tetradic Colours are four colours evenly spaced from one another on the colour wheel to create bold colour schemes. These colour schemes work best with one dominant colour and the other three act as accents.
Shades, Tints and Tones
A shade is made by adding black to a base colour, which creates a darker, deeper, more rich colour.
A tint is made by adding white to a base colour, which lightens the colour to make it appear less intense. This process creates more pastel like colours.
A tone is made by combining black and white (or grey) with a base colour.
Hue, Saturation and Luminance
A Hue is any colour on the colour wheel, the intensity/purity of a colour is the saturation and luminance is the brightness of a colour.
All of these components go into choosing a colour scheme for your home. If you find it difficult or have questions, contact us today!