Continuing to Use the Color Wheel for Color Schemes
In my previous two blog posts I talked about achromatic color schemes, and monotone and monochromatic color schemes. Achromatic schemes (achromatic meaning “without color”) do not, of course, require reference to the standard color wheel. With monotone and monochromatic schemes only one basic color comes into play with any one scheme.
Analogous Color Schemes
In this post we’ll look at analogous color schemes. In these schemes more than one color will be involved in any color scheme, so we do need to refer to the color wheel. Here’s my depiction again:
Analogous color schemes are typically described as using colors that are adjacent on the color wheel. In the broader definition, the colors can share a discernible hue, consistent with a dictionary definition of “analogous”: “similar in certain respect” or corresponding in some particular.” The colors in the scheme need not be strictly “adjacent”, but they need to be very near on the color wheel. Frequently designers, as you’ll see in some examples below, combine colors that are near, but not directly adjacent.
An analogous scheme can include both warm and cool colors. However, there seems to be a more frequent the use of analogous schemes that fall into either a warm color scheme or a cool scheme.
Analogous Color Schemes – Warm Colors
Below are examples of rooms designed with analogous colors schemes that use only warm colors. They fall within the range shown in the highlighted colors on this color wheel:
The colors in the room below are yellow-orange, orange, and red-orange.
Designer: Vandeventer + Carlander Architects. Phtographer: John Granen. As shown in Metropolitan Magazine
The two basic colors in this room are a slightly orangish-yellow and a tint of red-orange in the drapes and chair cushions. Even though orange is skipped, this falls into the broader definition of “analogous”, where the colors in the group contain a common hue.
Designer: Jamie Drake, Drake Design Associates, N.Y. Photographer: Christophe Von Hohenbert.
The wall in this room appears to be a tint of orange. The chairs are red-orange. Further analogous warm colors are picked up in the table-top accessories.
Designer: Kenneth Brown.
Analogous Color Schemes – Cool Colors
Examples of rooms designed with analogous colors schemes that use only cool colors are shown here. They fall within the range shown in the highlighted colors on this color wheel:
In this spacious room the colors run the gamut of the cool colors highlighted in the color wheel above.
Designer: Frank Roop
This bedroom below uses variations on blue-greens, blues, with a bit of blue-violet accent:
Designer: Amy Lau
This unusual dining area uses an analogous scheme comprised of tints of a yelloish-green and blue-violet. The colors are analogous, but not adjacent. The pinkish colors in the fun “chandelier”, if not just an accent color, would put this into a triad complementary color scheme. I’ll be going into complementary color schemes in my next post on color schemes.
Designer: Amy Lau
Analogous Color Schemes -Mixing Warm and Cool Colors
We’ll end with a couple of examples using colors that fall within the range of colors highlighted in this color wheel:
The colors in this living room are yellow through blue-green
Designer: Amy Lau
In the room below we see tones that include pale yellow, yellow-green, and blue-green:
Designer: Barry Dixon. Photographer: Colleen Duffley. As shown in Metropolitan Home Magazine.
Accent Colors in Analogous Color Schemes
As with other color schemes, the colors of accents in a room can fall outside of the basic color scheme. Accents can include art, vases, plants, floral arrangements, and the wood of furniture and flooring. It’s not unusual in analogous color schemes for accent colors to fall within the range of a complementary color.
Complementary Colors
Complementary colors, of course, are the colors opposite other colors on the color wheel. So, as we’ll see in my next post on color schemes, complementary schemes will have both warm and cool colors. We’ll look at the several types of complementary color schemes.
See you then.
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