image texture on plane leaves average color of image in 3d-view When I place an image on to a plane ( lets say it's a striped black and white pattern ) all I see in the rendered viewport is a GREY! color.  As if the colors of the image are mixed.
When I place an image texture of a blue sky and green field I see a blue-ish / green-ish color in mij Cycles rendered viewport.

I don't understand how to add a screenshot of my Blender scene to this message, but I have one if you need more information.  Just mail me:  eluttger@gmail.com

Thanks for the help, Emil
When using an Image Texture you need to UV unwrap your mesh.

To do this, go into edit mode, select all vertices, and press U > Unwrap.



What is happening, is Blender has no coordinates to map the texture to, so it takes the average image color and uses that as the texture. When you UV unwrap the mesh, you are telling Blender what vertices go where in relation to the texture, and Blender can then project the texture onto the mesh.

If you now go to the UV/Image Editor you can see and edit how your mesh has been unwrapped: