Artist's Colour Wheel 13cm Diameter

Artist's colour wheel, the perfect tool for every artist and interior designer.

The principles of colour theory date back to before Leonardo Da Vinci mentioned it in his journals in the late 1400s and Sir Isaac Newton presented the colour wheel in the 17th century, when he discovered the visible spectrum of light. Colour theory in regard to use in Interior Design is basically the science behind how we interpret the colours we see, and how we respond to different colour combinations and proportions. When you walk into any space, the way your eye translates colour and colour combinations can affect how you interpret the style, mood, overall comfort level and how it makes you feel.

Scientifically, colour is an expression of light. Certain materials absorb and reflect specific wavelengths of visible light, which results in objects taking on a certain colour to the human eye. When nearly all light is reflected, you see white. When no light is reflected, you see black. Black and white are sometimes considered to be ‘non-colours’ by designers, although this is a whole subject on its own.

The colour wheel displays primary, secondary and tertiary colours:
PRIMARY are red, yellow and blue and cannot be made from mixing other colours.
SECONDARY are mixtures of two primary colours, namely green, orange and violet.
TERTIARY are the results of mixing one primary with an adjacent secondary colour.

Colour can be described by three characteristics: hue, value and intensity:
HUE: The name of a particular colour. For example; blue, orange, green, yellow etc.
VALUE: The relative lightness or darkness of a colour (grey scale).
INTENSITY (Chroma, Saturation): The purity of a colour which determines its relative brightness or dullness.

TINT: Colour plus white.

TONE: Colour plus grey.

SHADE: Colour plus black.

NEUTRAL GREY: A balanced combination of white and black.

WARM (Advancing) COLOURS: are reds, oranges and yellows.

COOL (Receding) COLOURS: are greens, blues and violets.