There is no element more important than colour, when it comes to creating a mood for your room. Canvas prints are often a beautifully vivid way to help build a colour scheme in your home, making it all the more critical that the colours within your artwork are carefully chosen. Today we look at ways of ensuring that the colour scheme of your canvas art prints or landscapes on canvas matches well with the rest of your decor. We’ll use basic color theory to help you identify schemes from conservative to unusual, that each look beautiful in your home.
Before you start identifying your preferred schemes, you need to identify the primary colours in your canvas art print, as well as in your room. To identify the dominant colours in your room, take a photo of the room in its entirety (use two to three photos, joined roughly if you need to). Print these out, then let you eyes unfocus and look at the pictures together. What color takes up the greatest volume of space in the room? Also, what colour stands out the most from the rest? For example, if you have a room with hardwood floors and wood furniture, but a single red lampshade and bright red couch cushions, brown is the primary dominant colour and red is most likely the secondary dominant colour.
Monochromoatic colour schemes

If the dominant colour of your canvas art print matches the dominant colour of your room, you will be creating a monochromatic scheme. This is the ’safest’ way to use colour in your canvas prints, especially if you already have a mixture of other colours in the room.

Analogous colour schemes

If the dominant colour of your room and the dominant colour of your print are adjacent on the colour wheel, together they create an analogous colour scheme. Make sure other room elements fall within the same scheme, or that they fall within a split complementary or tetradic color scheme (see below)

Complementary colour schemes

Where the dominant colour of your room and the dominant colour of your canvas art print fall completely opposite each other on the color wheel, it creates a striking combination known as a complementary color scheme. Note that if the colours are just ’sort of’ opposite each other, it isn’t really a colour scheme. The room will end up looking somewhat haphazard in this case. Keep other room colors either the same as the first two, or consider creating a double complementary scheme.

Split complementary colour schemes

In a split complementary colour scheme, you use one dominant colour, and select an analogous range of colours from the opposite side of the colour wheel, rather than a single hue. Given that it isn’t possible to match item colours exactly, this is the scheme preferred in many interior design scenarios. Your canvas print may represent that ‘range’ within itself.

Tetradic or double complementary colour schemes

In a double complementary colour scheme, two sets of complementary schemes sit alongside each other. However, the points aren’t just randomly chosen – the start of each complementary set should be carefully selected to match the other side. Keeping the pairs fairly close on the wheel is a good idea.

There will always be a variation in tints, shades and tones of the colours within your room. If you have selected a beautiful landscape canvas print, there certainly will be … nature doesn’t conform to a colour wheel! When you are beginning out with colour theory, keep the tint and shade of your colours fairly consistent throughout the elements in the room. This helps create a unified theme.