A Simple Guide to Colour Scheming

Colour choice can be challenging. Colour selection is often regarded as quite difficult, especially if you need a scheme for your home or if you are working with a client. It is not a linear process and you can go back and forth a number of times and it is subject to taste and emotion. You also have to consider the substrate, i.e. wall, door etc. and other materials in the space to gauge what colours will work.

The Colour Wheel

Understanding colour and the colour wheel fundamentally helps in being colour confident. For thousands of years before colours were measured scientifically, artists built their understanding on the coloured pigments that were available. They basically used minerals and colours in natural materials and experimented; the colours, called primary colours are red, yellow and blue and how these three could be mixed to form new hues (colours) – this is the artist’s colour wheel and putting the colours in a wheel/circle helps us think about the relationship between these hues.

To form the artist’s colour wheel you blend each primary with the next shade round, this creates the secondary colours: orange, green and violet. These are the six major hue families that make up our understanding of colour: red/orange/yellow/green/blue/violet.

However, you can continue, by blending neighbours once more, this creates tertiary shades, for example with green this would lead to limes (green + yellow) or turquoises (green + blue).
Within each of these hues are a myriad of variations, some which have a warmer or cooler feel to them and also grey, white and black can also be introduced to those hues to give them more subtlety or more impact.

Here are three classic routes to combining colours, which can be easily understood when you consider the colour wheel. This takes the doubt of choosing a scheme as this is science talking! Let’s look at these in more detail.

Tonal (or Monochromactic) Schemes

• This is effectively using lighter and darker shades of the same colour
• Choosing tones of one colour ensures the whole room will coordinate effortlessly in a simple, classic scheme.

The swatches on our Benjamin Moore colour displays all feature monochromic colours so you can just choose a swatch and be sure than any shade on that works with the others on that same swatch. Also browse our Colour Preview Collection. This is a balanced collection of stunning paint colours, providing gradations of colour mathematically arranged by hue and value. It contains all our colours numbered from 2000-10 to 2175-70 and for each colour -10 is the darkest version -70 is the lightest version.

Harmonising (or Analogous) Schemes

• A harmonious scheme involves two or more colours that sit next to each other on the artist’s colour wheel, such as blue and violet or green and turquoise
• These create interesting and versatile schemes that sit comfortably together

Contrasting Schemes

Contrasting

• A contrasting scheme uses colours that are opposite each other on the artist’s colour wheel
• These exciting combinations create a dramatic and exciting look that often has a contemporary feel

And a last word….

If you are still unsure, browse our Affinity colour collection and the Affinity Colour Brochure. Affinity is a collection of 144 colours especially chosen to ‘go’ together in any combination. Mix and match with confidence and show off your creative flair.

Good luck!