Colour
Colourful wall art that isn't just loud.
The difference between a room that looks joyful and one that looks cluttered is almost never the number of colours in the art. It is whether anything around it is allowed to be quiet.
The shades on this page, with their hex values — useful if you are matching paint or searching elsewhere.
Three colours, not six
Almost every print that reads as confidently colourful is built on three hues plus a neutral. More than that and the eye cannot find a hierarchy, so the picture flattens into noise rather than reading as bold. If you want a print with six colours in it, it needs one of them to occupy most of the area.
Pick the loudest thing in the room first
A room can hold one shouting element. If the sofa is emerald or the rug is a kilim, the art should not compete — it should pick up one colour from that element and be otherwise calm. If the room is entirely neutral, the art can be the shouting element, and then it should be the largest single piece on the wall rather than one of several.
Where bold colour works best
Hallways, studies, laundries and kids' rooms — spaces you pass through or use with purpose, rather than sit in for three hours. Bold art is exhausting directly opposite where you sit in the evening, and excellent where you see it for ten seconds at a time.
If you want colour that keeps working in a living room, go one step down in saturation. Terracotta and forest green read as colourful without being demanding.
Prints in this colour
From the Artsby collection, ranked by how close each palette sits to the shades above. Printed in Australia, delivery included.
Or match it to your actual room
Photograph the wall and the matcher reads the real colours out of it — then shows you prints in those, and lets you hang one on your own wall before you buy.