Welcome to a new blog series all about color! You may have heard terms like monochromatic, analogous and complementary, but what do they really mean and how do they apply to your wedding colors and flower colors? Well, in the following blog posts, I will break it down, one color harmony at a time, but first, let’s go over some color basics!
Color Wheel
The color wheel is broken down into three different color groups.
1. Primary Colors – Red, Yellow, Blue – The three colors from which all other colors are made and which cannot be made from any other colors.
2. Secondary Colors – Orange, Green, Violet – These colors are obtained when two primary colors are mixed together. For example, when you mix red and yellow, you get orange and when you mix blue and yellow, you get green.
3. Intermediate or Tertiary Colors – Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Violet, Red-Violet – These colors occur when an adjoining primary and secondary color are mixed. For example, when you mix the primary color red with the secondary color orange, you get red-orange, or when you mix the primary blue with the secondary green, you get blue-green.
The color wheel is also split in half with cool and warm colors. If you move clockwise around the color wheel, the cool colors start at the tertiary color of yellow-green, move through the green, blue and purple shades, and end at red-violet. The warm colors start at the tertiary color red-violet, move through the red, orange and yellow shades, and end at yellow-green. This also means that both red-violet and yellow-green are neutral colors and are neither cool nor warm, but we’ll get into this more later!
Keep in mind, the world won’t fit in a color wheel! There are so many variations of colors that it would be impossible to match exact colors on the wheel, so use this as a guide, but don’t make yourself crazy!
In the following blog posts I will go over the five classic color harmonies as well as some different color interactions. Soon, you will be a color expert, so get ready to impress your friends! But, in the meantime, shop for flowers by color, and dream about all the possibilities!
