Week Two: Colour Theory

First off, HELLO and WELCOME to my new visitors and followers. Thanks so much for stopping by :)

Adam and I picked up our new-to-us car on Saturday, and after going out for breakfast to celebrate, I got to work painting our bedroom! As of this morning, the walls and windows are painted, curtains are hung and my $10 DIY'ed night stands are in the room (pictures to come). I still have a lot of painting to do (trim, closet doors, dresser), along with a few other projects (DIY an upholstered headboard, sew dog bed and hang art), but I'm feeling really good about the weekend's progress. While I was working in our bedroom, Adam - with the help of a friend - got the basement walls and crawl space ready for the spray foam guys, so that project's moving along too. Yay!

In week two of my introductory interior design class we talked about how to use colour theory to achieve harmony in a room. We learned about your basic 12-part colour wheel and the ins and outs of tints, shades and tones.



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There are several basic ways to use the colour wheel to create a colour scheme, like:

• Analogous - uses colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel. Let one colour dominate and use the other two as accents.
• Complimentary - uses colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel.
• Triadic - Uses colours that are evenly spaced around the colour wheel. Just like an analogous colour scheme, let one colour dominate and use the other two as accents.
• Split-complimentary - Uses one base colour and two colours adjacent to its complement.

I think this is a great tool to use when you start to work with colour - I've already discovered colour combinations I wouldn't have thought of otherwise and it's so simple to use. Mixing colours on the other hand, is not so simple. We ended the class by painting our own 12-part colour wheels using just red, yellow and blue paint. Sure it sounds simple, but it turns out I couldn't mix colours to save my life. Thank goodness for paint chips.

Have you used the colour wheel to design a colour scheme?