Paint Primer II

In our last paint post we talked about sheen. Today we'll focus on some terms associated with color that are useful to know when selecting a new paint. We'll start easy with the color wheel and some terms from kindergarten class:

Primary Colors: red, blue, yellow - these colors can be combined to form all of the other colors.

Secondary Colors: orange, violet, green - a combination of any two primary colors.

Tertiary Colors: a combination of a secondary color and a primary color.

Complementary Colors: colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. All colors look more vibrant when they are used in combination with their complementary color.

Now we'll branch out into some other terms:

Hue: has the same meaning as color. Red, blue, magenta, etc. are all hues.

Color value: the lightness or darkness of a color

Shades: mixture of a pure color with black. They are darker than the pure color.

Tints: mixture of a pure color with white. They are lighter than the pure color.

Saturation: the purity of the color. For example red is more saturated than pink.

Next time we'll look at how some principles from the simple color wheel can help us choose a new color scheme for any room in your house.