Where the previous exercise looked at individual colours, this exercise help you to think abou how you like to combine colour. It can be hard to define the relationship between colours that you tend to prefer. Being able to describe what you are looking at help to distinguish what is that attracts you to a particular set of colours. The principal attribute of a colour, for example red`s ‘redness’, is known as its ‘hue’. Primary hues are red, bule and yellow. Secondary hues are purple, green and orange. There are, of course, many intermediate hues as well, such as a bluish-green.

A tint is a hue, such as red, with white added. A shade is a hue with black added. A tone is a hue with grey added. ‘Light value’ is the amount of light of colour can reflect. All hues can be seen as white at the top of the light value scale and black at the bottom. ‘Chroma’ is the strength or intensity of colour. Strong colours have full chroma, weak colours are nearly grey.
Colour, like language, has a sort grammar. Just as words are combined in sentences to produce different meanings, so colours can be combined to produce particular effect – harmony, contrast, accent.
If you decorate only with hue, you get boldness without subtlety; if only with light value you get a monochromatic effect; fine variations of tint and shade but no contrast and vitality. Decorate only with chroma and you get a variety of colours but no light and shade.
Colours have been organized as a spectrum (Newton), wheel (Munsell0, circle (Steiner), chords (Itten), triangle (Goethe), sphere (Runges) and planes (Eastern theologies) in attempts to explain their relationship with one another.

A Monochromatic colour combination uses shades of one hue and an Apposite colour combination uses shades of two adjacent hues to produce contrast and variety. The hues can be wholly cool (see the green example) or wholly warm (see the pink combination). Use almost any colour like this and the effect is quiet and subtle, simply because there are no jarring contrasts. Is this soothing, or does it lack excitement?
A triadic colour combination covers the three extremes of the spectrum. It will always produce two warm and one cool, or two cool and one warm colour. Triadic combinations produce a bold and cheerful effect. Think of the Bauhaus palette of blue, yellow and red, or a kindergarten combinations of green, purple and orange. Do you find this cheerful or daring, didactic or unsubtle?
The complementary colour combination takes two hues on diametrically opposite sides of the spectrum. This way, one will always be warm, and the other cool. It satisfies the eye by supplying the missing colour it expect to see. It balance the book visually. Does this combination satisfy you, or does it seem too straightforward?
Using Accented colour – adding a touch of contrasting colour to two colours that are next to each other on the spectrum – adds bite. This is colour with a pay-off. Could you resist adding an accent colour to an otherwise harmonious room?
Which of these four colour combinations appeals to you the most? Write down the one you prefer.

Look at your own home, and recall rooms you have decorated over the years. What colour combinations have you tended to use? Perhaps you grew up in a sea of toning monochromes and now find you need as much colour and contrast as possible.
It can often be easier to see the colour patterns in th rooms of people you know. For instance, someone may have decorated in shades of lilac and turquoise (Apposite colours) as long as you have known them. How muddy or clear the colours are may very over time, but they always return to the same basic combinations. It is not just they like the cool colours, but this particular combinations of colours has some resonance for them. Or sensation seeker may relish the heat and the clash of red with pink, or purple with red, unrelieved by any third party.