Flowers – in Color! Design Tips from the Pros – Part 1
Flowers evoke emotions. Whether the flowers are given, received, purchased, or just enjoyed, emotions are always involved. Color also involves emotion. Color can change your mood. In general, reds, oranges and yellows are stimulating and greens, blues and purples are soothing. Surrounding yourself with stimulating or soothing colors can help change your mood.
Along with form and texture, color is an essential consideration when a florist is creating an arrangement. Choice of flower type and choice of color go hand-in-hand. It’s important to remember that even though while there are many types of flowers available, not all flowers come in all possible colors.
Other than seasonal or holiday arrangements, flower designers typically can decide on the colors they want to use for bouquets and arrangements. Choices of colors however, can be confusing especially when it comes to combinations of colors. A color wheel can help understand how people relate to colors and how colors relate to each other.
A color wheel is essentially a circle divided into triangular segments. The segments reflect the colors of the rainbow. Simple color wheels have only six segments but traditional color wheels have twelve, and complex color wheels can have many more. Warm colors, the yellows, oranges and reds are on one half of the color wheel while cool colors, the greens, blues and purples, are on the other half. See realcolorwheel.com for examples.
The colors that make up a color wheel include primary colors, secondary colors and intermediate colors. Red, yellow and blue are the primary colors. Unlike other colors, primary colors cannot be created by mixing other colors together.
Secondary colors can be created by mixing equal amounts of two primary colors together. Orange is created by mixing equal parts of red and orange. Violet is created by mixing equal parts of red and blue.
Intermediate colors include red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, yellow-green and yellow-orange. These colors are created by mixing unequal amounts of primary colors. There are a total of 12 color families including the primary, secondary and intermediate colors. These color families are the basis of the 12 segments of the traditional color wheel. These colors are called hues because they are without additional black or white.
When black or white is added to the hue, the original color lightens or darkens accordingly. Adding white to a color produces a tint, while adding black to a color produces a shade. Tints are represented towards the outer edge of the color wheel. Shades are represented towards the center of the color wheel. This article explored the structure of a color wheel. Part 2 will explore different ways colors can be combined into a flower arrangement.