I used the Mydeco 3d planner to create a neutral room, then two blue-green colour schemes. I love them both!  My tip for designing monochromatic rooms is to vary the colour’s saturation and value – more intense/less intense, lighter/darker.

Use my colour grids to give you hints

Blue-green saturation and value grid

This adds so much interest to a single colour room.  Read the full post here.

Some websites will tell you that grey can have undertones of green, blue or purple.  Others say there are warm and cool greys -

But I believe that grey could come from ANY colour on the colour wheel, because the various versions of grey are just very unsaturated versions of colours on the colour wheel (review “saturation” here).

I created my own colour wheel to show this. (I think I can do better than this but here it is so far. Click on it to see the colours better.)

Here you can see the warm greys (with red, orange and yellow undertones) and cool greys (with blue, green and violet) undertones.

Here are yellow and violet made more and more grey. Amazing, eh?

I found a bunch of Mydeco grey products and tried to work out what KIND of grey they were. This was HARD.  I must admit I used technology to help me out here (when I simpify the method I will share it with you).

First the cool greys -

Now the warm greys -

Well, what more could there be to say about grey?

The second post is just some basic colour theory. But don’t skip this step – everything builds on this.

by Kevin McCloud which I devoured while on Fitzroy Island (off Cairns, Queensland, Australia)……

Turquoise

Yellow

Neutral

My red-yellow-blue colour wheel

I had such fun doing these.  The saturation increases as you go to the right (dull, muted and saturated), and the value increases as you go down (light, medium and dark).  Aren’t those unsaturated squares gorgeous, but quiet, compared to those show-off saturated squares?

Red saturation and value grid

Red-orange saturation and value grid

Orange saturation and value grid

Yellow-orange saturation and value grid

Yellow saturation and value grid

Yellow-green saturation and value grid

Green saturation and value grid

Blue-green saturation and value grid

Blue saturation and value grid

Blue-violet saturation and value grid

Violet saturation and value grid

Red-violet saturation and value grid

Let me know if you like these or find them useful.

or imagining what a saturated dark yellow or a dull light red-orange would look like (answers at the end of this post).

I have trawled the interweb for a colour wheel which shows variations in saturation and value for a standard colour wheel.  Despite finding this stunning beauty…

Munsell Chart from WeMakeThemClick.com

…I could not find one that helped me identify colours easily by breaking them down by colour, saturation and value.  I guess representing the three dimensions (colour, saturation and value) on a 2D screen can’t be done.  So I decided I would have to create my own!  I use the words dull, muted and saturated for saturation, and light, medium and dark for value.

Here’s what red-orange looks like -

Red Orange

Here’s one for yellow -

Yellow

So….saturated dark yellow looks like this -

and dull light red-orange looks like this -

and those colours in the beginning -

…are muted medium yellow-green, dull dark yellow and dull medium red-orange.

Wow!  Can’t wait to do the grids for the remaining twelve colours of my colour wheel.

I just can’t emphasize enough that you should be exercising your “colour muscles” frequently, whatever your artistic endeavour (quilting, interior design, fashion, art).  And here’s a nice way to do it -

1. Choose a colour you love – I chose blue-green.

2. Find photos, web images, fabrics, paint chips, ANYTHING in those colours – making sure you consider variations in saturation and value to get the widest range possible for that colour.  You might need to clip/trim items to keep them purely one colour plus neutrals (but don’t get too hung up about it).

The first pic (of mountains) was taken from my front door.  Pretty lucky, eh?  In fact all the photos are from Brisbane or Cairns, where I have lived for most of my life.  No wonder I love blue-green.

3.  Assemble a gallery of your selections to keep as reference, and add to it periodically.

Stick physical samples into a notebook or on a board.

If using digital resources, an easy way to do this is using Pinterest. You can create an on-line board and “pin” all your pics to it, and even share with other people.  Here’s some of mine. I really must stop spending all my time doing these – I keep coming up with new categories – art, travel, fashion.  Choose something you love.

4. Now – Challenge yourself with a colour you’re not used to or don’t really like.  Choose a new category so that your eyes open to the many sources of inspiration.

I’d love to see what you come up with – post your links below.

I’ll be using MyDeco to illustrate colour concepts in interior design, and having a lot of fun.

For example, the second post illustrates the concepts of colour, saturation and value using colour wheels and a MyDeco room design.  You can then try to do one of your very own!

See you over there -

DO YOU HAVE ANY COLOUR PROBLEMS OR QUESTIONS?  Please leave a comment below.