Colour theory is a wide ranging and much written about subject which you could easily spend months if not years researching (and you should if you are so inclined, it is a fascinating subject!) But if you are just looking for some basics to help you decide on a colour scheme for your home here are a few hints and tips to get you started.
First thing lets deal with the terminology around colours themselves, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary; you probably all learnt about these at some point in school so let’s dig out that knowledge and start putting it to practical use!
Primary Colours: Red, Yellow, Blue
Primary colours are the 3 pigment colours that cannot be mixed or formed by any combination of other colours. All other colours are derived from these 3 hues.
Secondary Colours: Orange, Green, Purple
These are the colours formed by mixing two of the Primary colours together (Red + Yellow = Orange, Yellow + Blue = Green, Blue + Red = Purple)
Tertiary Colours: Everything else!
These colours are formed by mixing a Primary colour with a Secondary colour
The colour wheel
Using the above categories of colours we can start to create some order out of them using a colour wheel or colour circle to help you form colour schemes. Sir Isaac Newton is credited with creating the first circular diagram of colours in 1666 – so it’s been around a while!
Begin a colour wheel by positioning primary hues equidistant from one another, then create a bridge between primaries using secondary and tertiary colours:
Primary Colours Secondary Colours Tertiary Colours
Using the colour wheel:
Analogous Colours: These are simply groups of colours that are side by side on a wheel. One colour will usually dominate and the others will sit harmoniously with it.
Complimentary Colours: These are colours that sit directly opposite each other on a colour wheel. These are usually used as accent colours generally in small quantities.
Triads - Triads form a triangle on the wheel, like the starting point of the wheel using the primary colours of yellow, blue and red; or any other combination such as orange, green and violet. These colours can also be used as accent colours, but they must be balanced. If not, they can overwhelm a room.
Monochromatic Colours - Keeping it simple, this is the use of only one colour, but in shades from dark to light, like navy to powder blue.
Cool and Warm Colours - Cool and warm colours can be used to create a mood in a room. Cool colours span the section of the wheel from purples through blues and greens. Warm colours span the section of the wheel from reds through to pinks oranges and yellows.
Non-Colours - Non-colours aren’t found on the colour wheel, however, they still play a very important role in interior design. Non-colours are black, white and brown and derivatives thereof (greys/beiges etc.) These colours can either be used as background ‘scene setting’ colours for mood or to promote/reduce certain areas or can be used dramatically in monochrome. For example, if you want to disguise a problematic area allow it to fade into the background with a palette of non-colours as the backdrop to accent colours elsewhere.
Don’t forget to use the rules creatively, we don’t need to stick to them rigidly. For example, I have recently created a beautiful space using a combination of the above theories, using pink as the main colour with copper and green as the accents. Pink is a derivative of red which is opposite green on the wheel, therefore, these are complementary colours. As copper is a distant variant of orange it sits alongside pink on the wheel (moving from red through to yellow), therefore, is an analogous colour to the main backdrop of the space.
Now you know the rules you can go ahead and break them as you see fit!
For further reading on the subject of colour I highly recommend reading The Little Book of Colour by Karen Haller (her Insta is also worth a follow)
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