GardenGap.com » Flowers » Flowers in Color Design Tips from the Pros - Part 1

Flowers in Color Design Tips from the Pros - Part 1

Flowers always seem to elicit emotions. Whenever flowers are delivered, purchased, given or received, there are emotions involved. Color too, involves mood and emotion. Colors that stimulate include yellow, orange and red are stimulating colors. Purple, blue and green will sooth rather than stimulate. The choice of colors can easily change the 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.

The choice of colors in an arrangement or bouquet is usually up to the flower designer. Exceptions to the rule occur in seasonal or holiday arrangements. Combinations of colors, especially, can be confusing. Many types of artists, including florists, begin with a color wheel. This tool helps understand how colors relate to each other and how people perceive color.

A color wheel contains every color in the rainbow in triangular segments. The number of segments may vary from 6 to dozens, but the standard color wheel has 12 segments. Warm colors, like red, yellow and orange, are located on one side of the wheel and cool colors, blue, green and purple are located on the other side.

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 are created by mixing one primary color with an unequal amount of another primary color. Intermediate colors include red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, yellow-green and yellow-orange. Adding up the number of primary, secondary and intermediate colors gives us 12 color families, called hues. Hues are pure colors, without any black or white added. A traditional color wheel has 12 segments.

Notice that each color lightens as it approaches the outer edge of the color wheel. That happens because white is added to the color. When white is added to a color it's called a tint. Likewise the colors darken as they approach the center of the color wheel because black is added to the color. When black is added to a color, it's called a shade. Part 1 of this article explored the basic structure of the color wheel. Part 2 of this article will talk about the many different ways colors can be combined combinations and how this relates to flowers.