EXERCISE - Look at the color wheel above - or better yet you can pick one up at a craft or art supply store for $3.00 or so, get one, you can use it for a lot of things.  Pick out an Analogous scheme that appeals to you.  It can be ANY 3 colors that are adjacent to each other.  Now search through magazines & find things that are those colors and make a collage or a room on a paper or poster board.   Try to keep the shades together in one part, mixed in another and using accents.   How do these colors make you feel?  Do some combinations grate on your senses?   Do others make you feel warm and cozy?  Would you consider decorating in these colors?  How about doing a bath room or entry hall in the scheme you enjoyed and try on this 'scheme'!

Complementary - (contrasting) are those colors (hues) directly across from each other on the color wheel (red/green, blue/orange, yellow/purple).  If you ever noticed (I did every show!) when "The Jeffersons" moved to the East Side they decorated & dressed in Orange & Blue.  Remember when the only time you saw Red & Green together was at Christmas, that's all changed now!

EXERCISE:   Start watching TV and movies and see if you can identify the "theme" of the rooms in the set & watch how they use wardrobe that blends in with set.  Now take a look in your closet - does it match the colors you used in your home?  If not, why?  Do you dress in colors you feel comfortable in?  Do you decorate in colors you feel comfortable in?  Is one of your "living" spaces dictated by 'fashion' and not by your true self?

Split complementary - take one color - (Purple), find it's opposite and them use the colors to each side of the opposite (YellowGreen and YellowOrange) and there is your "split complementary theme.  This theme is never subtle and it can be very dramatic.

EXERCISE:   Open up your image editor or your paints (you can pick up some cheap water colors that will work very well) and try out several of these split complementary schemes.   Try them dark of light.  Get some paint chips and try some schemes there.   Remember to try to keep the tints and tones consistent, it helps with the flow.   Do you have room you want to make a 'Statement' in?  Draw a picture of it or scan on in & delete the color in the areas you want to try the scheme and try it out.   What does it look like?  Mix the colors around on different spots of the room.   Change the tints and the tones.  Is it a jarring effect or one you feel you can live with?

Triads -  We like to use triads in the children's rooms in pure intensity - Red, Yellow, Blue (crayon colors) - that's a triad.  Purple, Orange & Green (my personal favorite) and so on.  These are colors of equal distance on the color wheel.   Once again, this is one where less can be enough.

EXERCISE - This is one theme where I think we will head out to the fabric store.  Don't be shy about asking for samples.  Pursue through the fabrics and see how may are triads.   Get samples of all those that appeal to you and go home, sit down and study them with your decorating notebook.  How do the various themes make you feel?  Do some make you sick at the thought, do others grab you right in the heart and hold you?   Right down your reactions and paste samples of those "feelings" next to your thoughts. 

Tetrads - Any two pairs of complementary colors.  i.e., PurpleOrange, PurpleRed, BlueGreen, BlueYellow, etc.

While you are hanging at the fabric store you may notice that most of the fabrics use this theme.  Pick out your favorite Tetrad scheme fabric - go to the paint store and find paint chips in those four colors and take them home.  Pull out your magazines (I get mine at yard sales for a dime or less and I don't feel SO bad cutting them up.  Make you a tetrad room using those colors without using the fabric as an accent.  Is it easy to use those colors apart and try to make them blend? Now "cover" a piece of furniture, or use accent "pillows" cut from your fabric.  Did it draw your room together?

Discordant - colors that can make that Pow you are looking for.  If you think asymmetrically then you may be attracted to discordant themes.  We see it a lot in younger children's designs and teenagers trying to be different.  Once we become 'adults' we tend to go with the flow - discordant don't!  You want to use this color to grab attention - the think is,  you have to decide what you want to be the attention getter and when.   An example of a discordant color scheme is violet, limey green and periwinkle blue.   Woah!  It can be done, it's an eye grabber and it could make you sick after a while.  It has to be done with a great feel for what works!

EXERCISE - Grab some Architectural Digests or other up-scale decorating magazines that showcase designers' work, especially European or foreign homes and find a couple examples of discordant rooms.  Record your thoughts of each theme.  Now think about your home (dream or real), do you have a place where discordant colors will make a statement or impact.   

There are several great books on color theory, one I like & I used as a reference for this lesson is Interior Color By Design by Jonathan Poore, which I picked up at Barnes & Noble.  It says it is a design tool for architects, interior designers, and homeowners.  If you are going to make color decisions throughout a lifetime it is a book worth purchasing.   The plates of rooms have true colors.  I was not happy with the plates of color shots, they are all washed out, but you are still able to see what the theme is.   Half of the book consists of the explanation of color theory in design and the 2d half of the book is color swatches of the schemes along with room examples.  It is an excellent book.

Now - I want to know what you think.  Either e-mail me or take a moment to complete my form.  If you have pictures either e-mail them to me or else turn me on to your URL so that I can link to you.