Colour wheels

The colour wheel is divided into the three colour areas below:

Primary colours  Primary colours are red, blue and yellow and are an equal distance away from each other on the colour wheel. These colours can be used to make all the other colours.

Secondary colours  Secondary colours are a mixture of two primary colours. They are on the colour wheel between each of the primary colours and are an equal distance away from each other.

Tertiary colours  Tertiary colours are a mixture of a primary colour and a secondary colour.

Warm and cool colours

Cool colours make a room feel cool and more roomy. They are often used in rooms that get a lot of sunlight so that they don’t feel as hot. Many blues and greens are cool colours.

The Resene Colour wheel is a useful tool for understanding how colours relate to each other.

You can use this knowledge to help change what a room looks like and camouflage its bad points.

Warm colours, such as yellow and red, tend to advance and make the walls seem closer. They are good for large, uninviting rooms you want to make cosier and welcoming. Cool colours, such as green and blue, tend to recede and make the walls seem further away. This makes them a good choice for small, narrow rooms that you want to seem more spacious. For example:

1. Make a room look wider by painting the floor and ceiling in a similar colour and the walls in a lighter colour.

2. Make a room seem more spacious by painting the walls in pale cool colours to match the carpet.

3. Make a long room appear shorter by painting the short end wall of the room in a warm, deep colour and paint the other walls light.

Using the colour wheel you can make up different types of colour schemes

Monochromatic  Monochromatic colour schemes use one colour only but use different strengths of the colour and different textures to make it more interesting.

Complementary  Complementary colour schemes use colours that are opposite each other on the wheel. For example, blue green and red orange. This normally works best when one colour is used the most and the other colour is used for accents.

Experiment and see which ones you like best.

Split complementary  Split complementary colour schemes use any colour from the colour wheel with the two colours that are directly on either side of the colour opposite the one chosen. For example blue and violet with yellow orange.

Related/analogous  Related/analogous colour schemes use three to five colours and includes one of the three primary colours. The related/analogous colours are the colours on either side of the primary colour.

Triadic  Triadic colour schemes use three colours that are an equal distance away from each other on the colour wheel. For example red orange, yellow green and blue violet. One colour should be used as the main colour and the other two as accent colours.

Achromatic  Achromatic colour schemes use white to black only. These colour schemes are normally very sophisticated.

Each colour has four levels of intensity:

1. Full intensity
2. Two thirds intensity
3. Two thirds neutral
4. Neutral

People use colours to suit the feeling they want to create. For example, a hospital is normally painted in light clean colours on the inside. This is to make sure it feels clean and hygienic.

A children’s playground is normally brightly coloured. This is so that it looks like it is fun. Most balloons are brightly coloured too. This is so that they will catch your attention and look cheerful.

If you wanted to create a happy room you would select happy colours. You wouldn’t select black because it wouldn’t make the room look happy. Instead the room would look dark and serious. If you wanted to paint the inside of a library you wouldn’t normally paint it bright red and yellow because they would be too distracting and would make it hard to read any books.

Each colour works in the right place.

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