17 Beautiful Blue and Green Color Palettes, Inspired by the Mountains
Rocky Mountain Summer Color Schemes
If you’re looking for green and blue color palettes with muted tones, the outdoors is the perfect place for inspiration.
Plants naturally come in all kinds of green tones. And with the sky you have a pretty predictable blue tone added, no matter where you are in the world.
It’s kind of obvious when you think about it 😉
While creating color palettes, I don’t only like to get inspired by the world around me. But I’m actually capturing it on a photo and turning it into a color palette with the click of a button, literally!
It’s incredibly easy.
If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend giving it a try!
Here’s my process to create color palettes from photos, step by step:
What I love so much about this process is that you will get much more nuanced colors from photos than if you would stare at color swatches.
When selecting colors, we tend to default to bright tones.
The typical unnaturally bright “grass green”.
The intense mid-blue.
A bright yolky yellow.
The signature red signal color.
A pure white.
The colors that most kids’ toys come in…
While these colors are awesome and safe choices for some things (they catch your eyes immediately, you recognize the green, the blue, and the white without a doubt), they can be boring and blunt if it comes to other uses:
Projects like your brand colors on social media or your website, a birthday invitation card, or a room concept need a more nuanced color choice.
You want to choose colors that work well together, colors that create a certain mood.
And in my experience, there’s no better and quicker way to get a nuanced color palette than over (your own favorite) photos.
If you want it even quicker, here it is:
Skip the search in your archive and get inspired by those blue and green color palette examples in this article that were created just exactly as I’ve described.
The hex code is written on every color swatch (that’s the #, followed by a 6-digit number/letter code). Type that into your favorite design program and you have copied that exact color.
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Beige & Green Color Palettes
Blue & Green Color Palettes
Blue Color Palettes
Bright Green & Blue Color Palettes
Beige and Green Color Palettes
The first few palettes are especially well rounded, through the beige color.
If you’re into nude tones, a trip to the desert might be worth it 😉
Because…
…In nature, you will find beige in rocks and sand most easily. Even in the rocky mountains, which have more of a blue-grey tone overall, there are beiges hidden in places you would not even see if you don’t pay really close attention.
Mountain Forest
The tones in the foreground give all green shades; the mountains in the background freshen it up with some light tones.
Mountain Lake Morning
Moraine Lake
This color scheme perfectly represents that grounded feeling of sitting on a mountain lake, watching the water move.
Two grey tones, two muted dark blues plus a light, friendly beige to lighten the palette.
Glacier River Sandbanks
Sand and dirt make for some pretty nice nude tones! Maybe you look at the ground differently next time you’re out in nature 😉
Maligne Valley
That morning mood on a beautiful hike made for such a nuanced, light color palette with muted light blues and beiges, and one bright green tone.
Mountain Forest Morning Sunlight
This moment when beautiful warm light fills a remote valley up in the mountains!
Blue and Green Color Palettes
The safest formula for a blue and green color palette is:
SKY + GRASS
or:
SKY + Forest
Cloudy Mountain Meadow
Mt Robson
Such a beautiful variety in soft blue hues!
Clear Glaicer Lake Forest Island
A bright sunny day makes contrasty color palettes – the shadows are really dark and the color pop.
Canyon River
This valley right around twilight gave the most beautiful balanced palette of muted greens and blues.
Forested Mountain Valley
Sundance Valley from Sulphur Mountain
A good source for a dark marine blue tone is always the shadows that clouds cast on far-away mountains and forests on sunny days.
Faraway landscapes appear blue in general and the darker shade of the shadow makes it nice and dark.
Rocky Mountain Valley Road
Maligne Lake Road, Jasper National Park
Even on bright days, the greens you get from forests go into olive- and fern-green tones. As bright as they might seem to the eye, they are never quite bright, clean greens, which makes for diverse color schemes.
Blue Color Palettes
Landscapes are dipped in blue hues every day, right before sunrise and after sunset.
During twilight, the sun stands really deep and almost only the blue part of the color spectrum in the light gets through the atmosphere; all other colors get “filtered out” on the way.
It’s officially called the “blue hour” for a reason.
…If you haven’t heard that term before: blue hour is a very popular time for landscape and architectural photography.
Moon Over Mountain Lake
Moraine Lake near Lake Louise
This photograph was taken exactly during blue hour; the hour before sunrise, in this specific case.
Blue Sky Day on a Rocky Mountain Lake
Medicine Lake, Jasper National Park
Another safe bet for blue tones is a blue-sky day. Add the sea or a lake to it and you’ve doubled the sources of blue!
Colorful Summer Color Palettes, Inspired by the Mountains
In the end a few more color palettes with a bit more diverse colors: They are still mainly green and/or blue. But they have a bit more of a bright look or a contrasting color added.
Rocky Mountain Meadow
A colorful flower in a green meadow is the best way to get a contrasty color palette out in nature. The flower’s orange and coral tones pop from the muted greens, a perfectly refreshing summer palette.
Deep Canyon
Johnston Canyon near Banff
It might be surprising but lichens make for much brighter yellowish light greens than any other plants out in the rocky mountains!
Mountain Adventure Road
Rocky Mountains Trans Canada Highway
Another blue and green color palette, this time with an added mustard tone.
View Over Banff National Park
Even on bright days, you can get very nice and dark color palettes!
Forest River
Photograph in harsh light and you can get different grey tones
I hope you got inspired by all these green and blue color palettes in this article, collected on a rocky mountains trip.
If you want to create your own color palette from a photo or want some more inspiration: There are all color palette related articles linked below.
17 Beautiful Blue and Green Color Palettes, Inspired by the Mountains
by Corinne
How to make your own color palettes
More color palette inspiration
