What kinds of things can be described as 丰富多彩 (richly colorful), and how do I describe them?

Question

A while back, my teacher asked me to use 丰富多彩 ("richly colorful") in a sentence, but it wasn't received particularly well. The relevant part in my writing was

...丰富多彩地环境

and she said 各种颜色 was more appropriate here. (And it should be 的 instead of 地.) I'm still quite uncomfortable with this term, particularly since it's an idiom. I'm confused about both when it's suitable to use, and the surrounding grammar patterns.

Question: What kinds of things can be described as 丰富多彩, and how do I describe them?

My impression from examples online is this it's not to be used to literally mean colorful:

世界文明丰富多彩，...
... 让我的生活丰富多彩。
... 我会设计丰富多彩，形式多样的活动 ...

Answer 1

丰富多彩 is a combination of "丰富" (rich) and "多姿多彩" (colorful)

丰富 is mainly used for describing something with rich substance or contents; 多姿多彩 is mainly used for describing something "colorful: entertaining; enjoyable"

Things that you can describe as 丰富多彩 (rich and colorful) including:

文笔，画功，剧情，生活，节目，故事 (Writing, drawing, plot, life, show, story) -- All these terms involve substance and enjoyment

文笔丰富多彩 (rich and colorful writing) - your writings is rich in substance and have a lot of flair

画功丰富多彩 (rich and colorful drawing) - your drawings have a lot of contents and vibrant

剧情丰富多彩 (rich and colorful movies plot)- the plot of the movies is full of substance and entertaining

To be honest, I rather say 剧情丰富,多姿多彩 to make the whole sentence idiomatic

丰富 (rich) can be used literally (abundant) or figuratively (rich)

多姿多彩 (colorful) is mostly used figuratively

Answer 2

丰富多彩 is never used in its literal sense. Always figurative. It describes richness, diversity, colourfulness and etc. E.g 我们的生活丰富多彩。春节联欢晚会的节目丰富多彩。