Colours!

Colours in Interior Design

Welcome to my first blog. Today we are going to focus on the basic knowledge of colours and how to use the colour wheel

1. Basic Colours

Everything starts with the Primary Colours (Red, Blue & Yellow). Those colours cannot be mixed from any other colour and are the foundation of the colour wheel. 
The Secondary Colours are Orange, Purple and Green. Those can be made by mixing any two of the Primary Colours together. 
Finally there are the six shades of Tertiary Colours, which can be mixed by one Primary and one Secondary Colour.
Picking one of the 12 colours from the wheel is a great starting point for your renovation project.

Primary Colours

Primary and Secondary Colours

Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colours

The 12 colour wheel

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2. Adding Neutrals to colours

Once you picked a basic colour from the wheel,  you can create create new versions of it by adding neutral colours. The newly created colour will still be in the same family as the original.
You can Tint a colour, by lighting it and adding white, or Shade a colour by simply making it darker and adding black to the original colour. The third option is to Tone a colour, which can be achieved by adding grey. All options can change the original colour very drastically. If you have access to art supplies, I would suggest you try some of those options to see what you can achieve by simply mixing colours. You can also pick up some sample palettes in your local hardware or paint store. 

Tinted Primary and Secondary colours

Primary and Secondary colours Toned with grey

Shaded Primary and Secondary colours

The colour wheel and its modification is only the starting point for your new home. You can simply pick a colour you like and start from there. Below are 3 colour schemes that show how to use the colours to create a beautiful and modern home.

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Complementary Colour Scheme

This mood board shows the Complementary Colour Scheme, which uses two colours, which are located at opposite sides of the colour wheel. As this is a very extreme contrast, it should be used with lots of neutral colours so it does not get too intense.

Analogous Colour Scheme

For the analogous colour scheme you can simply pick one colour from the colour wheel and then choose shades or tones from the two neighbouring colours. This will complement your main colour beautifully.

Triadic Colour Scheme

For the triadic colour scheme you simply pick one colour and then two others, so there is an even space between all colours. In this case I picked the secondary colours Purple, Green and Orange. Different tones and shades as well as neutral colours will create a living space that works great for you.