Suggestions on Painting Shapes on a Wall

Choose colors that suit the rest of the room.

Choose colors that suit the rest of the room.

To the interior designer's eye, a wall is a blank canvas waiting to be incorporated into the room's overall style. Instead of installing wallpaper, painting the wall a single color or hanging artwork, you can paint shapes directly onto the wall if you're feeling bold. Use the general designers' guidelines for color schemes and patterns to create a plan for the wall that will work with the rest of the room.


When choosing colors for the shapes on the wall, either pull from the colors already present in the room or construct a color scheme using a color wheel. If you're using colors that are already present, pick the ones you'd most like to draw attention to -- this could be colors that are already prominent or just trim. If you're starting from scratch, use colors that are next to each other on the color wheel, opposite each other or different shades of the same color. Each of these systems creates a unified, harmonious color scheme.


Consider your current use of patterns in the room as you select shapes for your wall, because adding the shapes automatically adds patterns to the room. If you already have three or more different kinds of patterns in the room, such as stripes, geometric shapes and floral prints, use the shapes to expand the most prominent pattern you already have; if you have fewer than three patterns, you can add a new one on the wall. The new pattern will probably become the dominant pattern in the room, so you might want to incorporate it elsewhere as well.

Color Blocking

If you choose geometric shapes or stripes for the wall, try color blocking, or painting discrete shapes in solid colors. Although squares, rectangles and stripes are the most traditional color blocks, circles, diamonds and triangles also work. Paint several matching shapes side by side in different colors, or overlap a series of them. Consider a row of small squares in an accent color extending straight across the wall at eye level, or cover the wall in circles of various sizes and colors for a polka-dot effect.


If you want more complexity or less geometry than color blocking allows, look into wall stencils. They are available in styles that suit a range of tastes and can match almost any decor. With a stencil, you can cover the entire wall in a damask pattern, paint a copse of trees in a corner, dot the wall with fleur-de-lis or create an intricate garden of vines, flowers and birds as a ceiling border. Wall stencils allow you to paint anything from a few small shapes to a personalized mural, even if you don't have much art experience or skill.

Photo Credits

  • Images
Suggest a Correction