GETTING STARTED WITH COLOUR

In our last blog, we talked about how you can identify your interior design style.

It’s not about making pretty rooms. It’s about creating a home that makes you feel emotionally connected, gives you a sense of well being and reflects your uniqueness. Achieving this takes a bit of thought and starting to think about colour is part of that process.

Colour seems to be a pretty daunting subject for a lot of homemakers, and the temptation is to stick to what’s safe. None of us are boring or bland. We all have our weird little quirks, histories and obsessions, so let’s celebrate that by using expressive colour. Colour doesn’t have to mean a madcap combination of primary school vividness. When we say “expressive” colour, we mean that the colours you use should express your lifestyle and interests.

 Here’s an exercise you might find useful to get started with colour. Choose one of the starting points below to create a colour palette.

• A collection – art, pottery, old ads, rugs, travel memorabilia

• The view from your house – landscapes, water, potted plants

• The history of your house – architectural period colours

• Lifestyle – for example, if you want to create a sense of wellbeing, you may want to select colours that feel restful and calming.

Collate 6-10 colours from paint charts to represent your starting point and make a few notes to describe that collection of colours.

A basic understanding of colour theory can come in handy to give your palette more complexity and interest. Don’t worry we won’t get too bogged down in the detail. 

First, we have a colour wheel which shows primary colours (colours that can’t be created from others ie red, yellow and blue) alongside the secondary colours that are formed by mixing two primaries (green, orange and purple).

We find it useful to describe colours by their proximity to adjoining colours on the wheel. So you can have a yellow, green or a blue green or a blue red etc… This is handy when you start looking at complimentary (or opposite) colours. Blue green is opposite to orange red and green yellow is opposite red purple etc…

If you feel that a room is lacking a bit of life, then try adding the opposite colour. As seen in these examples of blue paired with orange from Paint & Paper Library.

Harmonious colours are groups of colours next to each other on the colour wheel. They tend to be easy to live with as these pink/purple and blue/green examples show.

Tints and shades of one colour can also be very effective, by either adding white or black to any colour on the Colour Wheel. 

Tertiary colours are a mix of all 3 primary colours. The most obvious are greys and browns. The more complex, subtle colours of a Paint and Paper library colour chart are generally tertiary colours. They’re the fine wines of the colour world. They are colours that are slightly muddied, easy on the eye and have lost the garish clarity of a paint colour straight from an artist’s paint tube.

To get started with colour, take a look at interiors images or works of art and try to describe them in colour theory terms. You’ll soon get the hang of analysing the colour choices and then you’ll understand why they work so well.

Photos courtesy of Paint & Paper Library & Little Greene