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British designer Abigail Ahern’s booth at Maison et Objet
I only had one day to tackle the Maison et Objet show that sprawled across half a dozen buildings out near Charles De Gaulle Airport – and each was about the size of a terminal!! So, cutting to the chase…
The trends I noticed were Global Nomad, Grunge Luxury, and Back to Primordial Basics.
Here is my take on Global Nomad:
We evolved as nomads living in nature (the East African Savanna to be precise), and this trend takes us back - way back - to these roots. Back to running with the wolves (or lions?). Everything was animal. Lots of faux fur, real skins and pelts, animal patterns and motifs, and animals! Taxidermy (like petrified pets) makes the ultimate accessory for the living room, dining room, or bookless bookshelf.
Polar bears, birds, bats and tarantulas, you can have an entire menagerie. A faux giraffe head arched over one booth and many others had fun takeoffs on wall mounted animal heads (like Abigail Ahearn’s sequined zebra head pictured at the top).
Frederique Morrel created spectacular animals covered with tapestry and embroidery.
Less tribal were the witty British bulldog or French poodle porcelain lamps, also by Ahern.
There were also light fixtures and furniture made of horns and pelts.
Nomads need refuge, and there were an abundance of yurts, huts, and tents.
The weathered wood yurts by Bleu Nature were used as café seating areas…
…along with matching forest furniture that looked like it was made by gnomes.
The booth by Labyrinthe Interiors was like a Bedouin tent of burlap, about 14 feet high and hung with gorgeous crystal chandeliers in shapes that echoed Moroccan lanterns more than those from a French chateau. The tent was furnished with weathered, wood armoires as well as sofas that were simple, monumental and humbly clad in linen.
Accessories were all manner of lanterns from bronze to punched tin - Lawrence of Arabia style. Upcycled patchwork area rugs softened the de rigueur matte grey rough-hewn floorboards.
Elsewhere, most carpets were shorthaired shags that looked fur-like and gave texture, texture, texture. Copenhagen company private0204 featured flat rugs of recycled hemp – “individually and originally collected throughout the Anatolian plateau; washed in the sea and dried on the beach to ensure a unique and amazing hemp touch.” Basically, they looked like they’d been put through the wringer, but flaws and wear and tear are a big part of the nomad aesthetic. That the same company also had new cashmere shawls that were actually ripped, frayed, and patched to become what they called “one-of-a-kind-ish.”
Another booth had cashmere wraps rolled into bundles and held with coordinated belts straps - ready to throw onto the back of a camel or toss into a nomad’s grocery cart...
Next, I will tell you about Maison and colour!
Janice Lindsay, CMG, colour and design consultant who is committed helping others make their place suit their personality. Her projects have been as big as a concert hall and as small as a child’s playhouse. She speaks about colour and design, has written the book All About Colour, and is a casaGURU GURU.
Me and Some Doors
I just got back from a great trip to Europe. While there, I couldn’t stop noticing how many buildings had truly handsome door colours and, unless oxidized by sun and time, gloss -high gloss - was often the finish.
Warm Welcome
This Belgian red (PPG Candy Corn 130-6) door leads into the black and terra cotta floor tiles - so much more interesting than black and white – to funky green walls and dark interior trim. Gotta love the absence of white!
Berry Red
This berry red (PPG Apple-a-Day 334-7 – in very high gloss!!) door in London’s Islington area is delicious! Is it just coincidence that it is the perfect complement to the chartreuse moss covering the step (after two months of non-stop rain)?
Green Evolution
I wonder what the story is? Did someone think the new green matched the old? Did they care? Whatever the cause, the effect is a kind of pleasing street art.
All of a Piece
I suppose one solution to colour confusion is to pick one colour (PPG Rattan 313-5) and use it everywhere. This seventeenth century shop-front uses this strategy, which was not uncommon in the Georgian period – inside too. I like it.
Classic Black
Black was another common door colour (PPG Black Magic 518-7). It is nice with the black wrought iron rails and the wish-I-had-them boot scrapers on either side.
Wood is Good
When you have a handsome wooden door, no colour needed.
Wood’s Understudy
When you don’t, then a range of dark sepia brown and aubergines (PPG Purple Basil 539-7) can retain the elegance and feel of a wood tone. This one looks gorgeous against the limestone, a material with which most of Bath, England is built.
Tasteful Neutral
I love this blue grey. The blue undertone complements the limestone’s yellow undertone. It has a balanced mid-tone depth and a sophisticated clarity. It is what I call an architectural colour…colour that verges on being colourless or neutral. (And a hard one to match – in between PPG Chalky Blue 552-5 and Feldspar 554-5). I must remember to use this one.
Vintage Green
There are so many attractive, vintage greens that are authentic to old homes, but also look good on new. Some of the best verge on black. Mid-tone greens can look old-fashioned. But this green, with a tough of moss (PPG Globe Articoke 309-7), sits in some sweet spot between muted and bold, old and new, guess it is timeless!
Pink? Why Not?
There will always be those of us who really think that on the door (and flower boxes?) we can do whatever we want. This pink (PPG Tutti Fruity 138-7) is not remotely authentic, but a personal signature…and fun to come home to.
When is White Right?
White is a perfectly fine door colour (PPG White Rock 511-2), especially in a setting like this, the Royal Circus, Bath; John Wood, architect. (Nicolas Cage had a house in the Circus until he ran into tax woes at home.) When the exterior style is unified it only makes sense that the trim stays the same. And what colour is going to be the most readily acceptable? No colour at all, white.
Royal Crescent, Bath. Can You See a Door That is Not White?
In the1970’s, in Royal Crescent, a Miss Wellesley-Colley painted the door of number 22 a bold yellow. Today it is wimpy yellow.
Matt Stephen’s Wedding
(You can see it at the edge of the shot I took at a wedding party at the Royal Crescent Hotel that began with Champaign on the front lawn!)
…Oh, and here’s the groom, Matt, Stephens, who plays rugby for England.
Anyway, back to the yellow door. The City Council complained and gave the lady notice to change it to white. She refused. It went to the highest level of court and there it was decided that if she wanted yellow she could have yellow. The façades were all the work of Sir John Wood Junior, but the houses behind the façade were all done by individually hired architects and builders.
View of the Back of Royal Crescent
So you'd like to think there would be plenty of room for personalization without painting the door. But who am I to judge???
Blue Door
Back to the blue door I began with (PPG Bright Cerulean 247-7). It is a very special door for any of you who are, like me, fans of Jane Austen. This is the blue door of her house. Bath is such a wonderful walking city and so much of it remains as it was in her day, so being there was like getting a peak into her world. One day, when this home is no longer a dental surgeon’s place of work, maybe we will get inside the house too!
Rainbow colours over Castro Street.
There are times when I think I have the best job. Like last week when, poor me, I had to go to San Francisco to do a colour consultation and managed to squeeze in a day walking the town with Susy, one of my clients
Our reflections in a store window on Haight-Ashbury.
Here are some observations:
One should start the day with a hearty breakfast at Orphan Andy’s to get into the Cisco groove.
Does bold colour always look silly or juvenile? Not when it is done with the skill of an artist. You may not want to try this at home, but, I must admit that this bright blue is one of the most novel applications of exterior paint colour I have seen in a long time. It seems to flaunt any possible rules about colour and placement and yet it really works! It is both bold and sophisticated.
The famous Painted Ladies were looking rather bland compared to some of the boldly coloured houses nearby.
Lately, some of the most elegant houses are painted in very dark colour palettes.
By and large, all-white buildings looked clinical or as if they had a deathly pallor and were unwell. The exception was this stunning Art Deco building. Here the white looked appropriate for the early modernist style and period. The proportions were good, the shapes created balanced rhythm, and there were enough decorative details to add texture and interest. Phew. It could handle the riggers of white.
There is a big difference between pasty and pastel exterior colours. Buildings with faded grey and beige tones unrelieved by colour look sad and neglected – as if they weren’t invited to the colour party. However, there were pastels that were playful and fun, like this sherbet green with pink, blue and mauve accents highlighted by sky blue lions.
Some people still like to push the envelope. It puts a smile on my face when I wonder what the inside is like. By the way, have you ever noticed that when people like purple they really like purple? It becomes an obsession.
Even when people seemed sartorially achromatic, there’s usually a colour surprise somewhere about their being – a red bike basket, or neon pink toenails to coordinate with a hot pink cast.
Even if you're not about to paint your exterior the blue of a San Francisco sky, or add a mural encouraging others to "Brighter Faster", after a few days in San Francisco you will likely want to be less chromatically conservative.
Maybe upping the chromatic voltage of your front door or adding a colourful tile welcome mat to your front porch will add the shakeup you might come to crave.
The next time you are going to paint, consider this. Do you simply want to freshen up the walls or do you want to go further…way further? Wouldn’t you rather decorate, renovate, bring out the beauty in everything you have and make yourself feel good every day? If you do want to get more out of your paint investment then perhaps you need to invest in a pro. Here is why: everyone – yes, everyone – should hire a colour expert before they hire a painter or invest their own time and money in doing the job.
Some of my colour research at PPG headquarters in Pittsburgh.
We are all colour experts with an intuitive colour sensibility. You know if you like yellow but hate orange or like neutrals but want a red dining room; but this does not mean you know which yellow, red or set of neutrals. You may be confident with hue (red, blue, green, the spectrum), but not so clear about value (the degree of light to dark) or chroma (the clean to muted dimension of colour).
My personalized colour kit made with 4 x 8 PPG chips.
A colour expert brings a kit with about 2000 colour samples that are usually ones large enough to actually see the colour of the colours! The size makes it easier to refine your choices quickly. Add their expertise and you should be able to get just the right variation of “your colour”.
Colour designed by Janice. How much calm or drama you want in your colours will depend on your personal colour sensibility.
Because colour is not pigment but energy - light reflected off a pigment - knowing how to look at paint chips and calibrate them to achieve the right look on walls is a specialize skill. Taking away the guess-work requires training and lots of experience.
Colour experts know a lot more than most people about colour history, colour psychology, light and lighting, oh yes, and design.
Even artists and designers - colour experts in their various fields - know that wall colour is a different medium and skill set. They value help of a wall-colour expert. People who are confident enough to go solo can get amazing results but it is hit and miss.
Chances are your best colour ideas are the ones you second-guess yourself on. Friends, partners and painters can also rattle your confidence. The result is usually way too much beige and not enough personality. A colour consultant builds on good ideas, catches what won’t work and explains why.
Colour design by Janice. With help you can take your ideas further, rather than playing it safe.
The result is a more unique mix tailored to the client and to the context and is so satisfying. Would you ever feel good in clothing that did not fit you well or suit who you are? Well, rooms dressed in the wrong colours can also drag you down, while colours customized to you and your space bring a feel-good energy every single day.
With a little help you might find all sorts or places to enjoy colour.
It’s really more about how much does it save?
The cost of a colour consultation is the cost of one paint mistake.
If you get one colour wrong, you have wasted time and money by not hiring an expert. If you do not make a mistake, are you still sure you got the most value out of your investment or did you play it safe? Is the result ok but not fantastic? Do all the undertones in the colours work together or is something off? Does your furniture, carpets and art look their best or do they just sit there unenhanced?
Colour by Janice. A colour expert does not force strong colour on you, but they do pay attention to nuances of undertone.
Do all the existing finishes – tile, marble, wood, and cabinetry - look as if they are pulled into a cohesive whole? If not, you have not maximized your investment.
Colour consultants charge anything from $50.00 per hour to $250.00 per hour. Some charge a flat fee like $750.00 per house. Eve Ashcraft in NYC starts at $2500.00.
For me, there is no such thing as too many colours. They are not confusing, but rather opportunities waiting to happen!
Colour by Janice.
Why just paint when, with a little help, you can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and experience how good your colours feel every single day?!
Happy client.
Why dither when you could start enjoying your self right now? Call an expert!
Collage workshop: Aida Gonzalez Fry’s work in progress.
There is not a soul on earth who does not have a creative streak running through them and a child-like joy that gets released when allowed to mess with paint and paper, exploring the world of colour and shape...or so I thought. That is why my friend Lorraine and I decided to bring New York artist David Hornung to Toronto for a colour and collage workshop. And this wasn’t the first time. David is a professor of colour courses whose book, Colour: A Workshop for Artists and Designers, was so inspirational that last year Lorraine and I got him to come here and teach us colour mixing.
David Hornung showing us colour mixing.
Like the time before, we rounded up nine others who were willing to book off an entire week and we settled in to Lorraine’s wonderful studio.
Lorraine’s normally tidy studio by day two. Just being there makes you feel like an artist.
And then it happened. I realized I was dreadful at collage! It was not just that I was positioned at a table between two brilliant collage artists – my friend Aida Gonzalez Fry, a painter and colour designer from Florida and my daughter Caroline – always an inspiration.
Me with my daughter, Caroline Macfarlane of The Good Bike fame.
As Aida and Caroline magically produced one wonderful piece after another, as if born collaging, I struggled and pushed and forced paper and paint into submission in the most unsatisfying way. And so it continued: day one…day two… I was resigning myself to the knowledge that we can’t all be good at everything. I might think I am brilliant at selecting the best colours for a client’s home but that doesn’t mean I don’t “suck” at collage.
The work starting to come together. The two top works are by Sharyn Adler Gitalis, a friend, colour and lighting designer, and artist in her own right.
Day three something started to click for me. I started getting into a groove. Things seemed to come together almost by themselves. It was great! Almost effortless and so satisfying. Suddenly I was making pieces that even looked wall-worthy. Collage was amazing!!! I had begun.
Sharyn, Helene Vinet, old friend and artist Barbara Todd at her computer, and quilt artist Joyce Seagram.
So this is what I learned: To accomplish something new, or something that does not come easily, we have to allow ourselves time. If you are successful from the get-go, challenge yourself to go to the next level, the place where you are tempted to give up and to say you can’t do it. We may not have the mythic 10,000 hours to truly become accomplished, but I am convinced that if we can be in a place without the phone beeping, the internet tempting, and life interrupting, we can all accomplish great things.
The group critique. Barbara, Marilyn, Patsy, Joyce (seated), Roz Kavander and Lorraine. Most sporting the aprons cut from a roll of plastic sheeting.
It is harder to do it alone. David Hornung was a fabulous guide and guru. But he wasn’t joking when he said we should all come back together for another week without him. There was such a power to the collective energy in the space. It is a total pleasure to be single-mindedly focused in a room full of people with a similar intent. I speculate it would be like running a marathon or just getting through an exercise class, we do better in a group. We don’t give up. We go just a little further, try just a little harder…and we have more fun.
Roz Kavander, my friend and my travel buddy when I go to CMG colour conferences.
And, in case I ever doubted it, I am convinced we are all creative. We just need to make the time and find the place where we can let it come out. If we can’t find that, then we have to invent it for ourselves.
Caroline’s works in progress.
The best things happen when, one way or another, you just do it!
If you are an artist, designer or latent creative type and want to be contacted in the spring of 2013 about the next workshop then let me know. Hornung’s book will be re-released this fall and is a must have for anyone who is serious about colour.
Brooklyn Bridge
Last week I had the “hardship” of helping a client with her Brooklyn Heights apartment. What an amazing neighbourhood! Let me share with you some of the colour spotted on a prematurely spring-like weekend.
Roses
I hate the term “pops of colour” but there certainly were lots of them! Bold colours do look great against dark backgrounds.
Blossoms
Blossoms were out everywhere.
Flower Store
Flower store on Atlantic Avenue.
Mini Garden
Everyone seemed eager to get colour into their mini-gardens.
Wearing Colour
People were transitioning their wardrobes from winter darks to spring bolds.
Street
How can you not be in love with entire neighbourhoods with a total absence of white – facades, clothes, cars...?
Brownstone
Black or dark brown is the perfect trim colour for Brownstones because the facades are balanced - well proportioned and adequately detailed. They don’t need distracting contrast colouring.
Street with Colour
Where the brick row houses were painted, toned whites were just a small part of a mixed palette.
Green House
Whoever chose the colours for this green house did a wonderful job. The rather frisky green is toned done by the brownstone-coloured trim. The coral coloured door is an off-centre red, a tertiary, that is the perfect coordinate to the off-center or tertiary green. The brown is carried across to the blue house and ties the two together.
Back to Basics, Back to Brown
Old-fashioned brown trim blends this home into the backyard in a way that is soft, simple and understated. It can be hard to pick unattractive colours which just settle in and do the job without any look-at-me pretention but they let the eye enjoy other things – like the play of light across the textures of the brick and the setting.
Façade: Darr on Atlantic
Brown is the colour of old oxfords, your granny’s crocodile handbag and the hue of humble materials - wood and mud. Brown is so out of fashion it is totally cool. Brown is the key colour for the upcycled grunge aesthetic that embraces old objects and worn and aged materials and continues as the hottest look for shops and bars in Brooklyn.
Darr Façade
Darr: one of my favourite stores to visit.
Decrepit Looking Bar on Atlantic
New bars are styled to play up old charm. No white, lots of texture and patina.
Bar with Red Wall
Homey comfort is enhanced by the faded red wall, the gold ceiling, the random worn furnishings – not to mention the boulle court at the back of the long room.
Old Red Green Combo
Time and weather have attractively oxidized this red-green combo.
Williamsburg Nightclub
Uptown in Williamsburg, fun colours turns ugly into art. For those of us who love colours but can’t decide which one, this would be great at the back of a house or in a front hall if you dared.
Building on Bond at the Corner of Bond and Pacific
On Sunday I went for lunch at Building on Bond because I love the relaxed vibe of all the wood browns, the upcycled bric-a-brac turned into funky decor. The undesigned design aesthetic.
Brunch at Building on Bond
…and the food matches the décor in that is is all about back to basics comfort. (Don’t even think of try paying for it with something as slick as plastic.)
Aussie Restaurant
The first time I ever got to choose the colour for a room I chose black. I was seventeen. It was a large room in our basement and I painted the fake wood paneled walls black, high gloss black. That was when my love affair with black began.
Poodle Head. Designer, Abigail Ahern
Black’s beauty comes as a surprise to most people. When I suggest it to clients they think it will be depressing, that it will suck the life-blood right out of them, or that it is only suitable for their rebellious teenage kids. But those who take the plunge are invariably shocked to find out how fabulous it is and wonder why on earth they waited so long. Here are six reasons why black is a fantastic wall colour:
Abigail Ahern
Black is relaxing. We live in a world of visual over-drive – over 80% of information is received visually. We need black, the colour of quiet, to chill out. Darkness reduces visual input while enhancing our other senses; this why we close our eyes when we kiss and dim the lights at concerts. In a black room you can hear yourself think. In a busy, urban, largely white world, we need black for psychological balance.
Bedroom image from Sheri Martin Interiors
Black is neutral. If your chromatic comfort zone is neutrals, black adds drama, interest and rhythm into the palette while avoiding “colour”. It is important to use value – light to dark – effectively if you are working with a neutral palette, otherwise it will be flat. Extend beyond pale and midtone values into black or charcoal for depth and variety.
Living room image from Sheri Martin Interiors
Stairway. Abigail Ahern
Black makes small spaces bigger. Our eyes do not focus on black surfaces. They seem to look through them into a deep void. Add gloss to take it further and exaggerate the effect. Use black to double the width of a narrow powder room, the breadth of a small vestibule or the height of low basement ceilings.
Fireplace. Abigail Ahern
Black is slimming. The little-black-dress principle works for everything from furniture to cabinets. Black reduces bulk so use it for sofa upholstery and paint it on bookcases, fireplaces and cabinetry or any protuberance that seems too big for the room. Outside use black on large sheds or garages to reduce their size.
Black hides flaws and emphasizes features. Our eye is drawn to light things and floats over dark. At night we look at stars, not sky. So paint anything that is ugly, flawed or boring black to make it go away. Then notice how black walls, like the frame around a painting, are the background against which everything looks great! Black makes it easy to create focal points. Decorating a black room requires few but better pieces making you the curator of what it is you want to feature and enjoy.
Abigail Ahern and her London home.
Replace white with black for a beautiful exterior. Black, off-black, charcoal or dark brown trim and details can give even rather ordinary brick or stone homes a sophistication that white does not. Homes become more Japanese in style or contemporary. Garage doors are less in-your-face. But the real magic is the garden. Any fences or structures that are painted with dark colours take on a gentler presence and let the colours of nature be the star of the show. Against black all colour glows.
Shiny black. Abigail Ahern
Nineteenth century British artist J. M. W. Turner said you cannot paint light without dark colours. I think we need dark walls to really see and appreciate the light spaces; they seem so much brighter by comparison.
Light. Abigail Ahern
Room in the Hotel Chelsea
Fave blacks from my Coming Home Colour Collection for PPG Pittsburgh Paints:
As one of my black-loving clients once said to me: Black is the colour of confidence. You just have to have the confidence to use it.
Please send me your dark stories!
BY_Lissoni lounge designed by Piero Lissoni, IDS 2012's International Guest of Honour
I loved this year’s exciting Interior Design Show. It had a good buzz, lots of variety and good colour sightings.
For subtle colour, great texture and the sophisticated comfort of my fave “style” - Warm Modern - the award goes to the BY_Lissoni, a lounge by Italian designer-architect Piero Lissoni. At first glance the 1200 square foot space, with furnishings by his brand partners - Living Divani, Lema, Porro & Flos - looked all white: walls, shelves, gauze ceiling, even white-washed floors by Moncer, but it becomes clear Lissoni knows the key to working with white: good light and lots of texture.
The shelves were filled with tightly packed paper-backs, their white washed spines and aged ecru pages created a soft graphic pattern that added with warmth and texture (the comfort of books abstracted). Other shelves held African artifacts adding to the beauty and soul of hand-made one-of-a-kind objects. No “decorative” colour interrupted the strict palette of whites and naturals. Furniture juxtaposed cool white – the marble coffee table – with the toasty hues and varied textures of the burlap-like sofa fabric and objects in leather and wood. I badly wanted to take the booth, lock stock and barrel, and install in my living room.
"How Do I Look?", painted cherry wood art by Rob Day
From the all-Canadian True North part of the show, my object of desire was the tree-part turned sculpture by Rob Day. He painted nature’s cast-off in horizontal stripes (which always look happy to me) and poised it cheekily on an old banister knob. If it were not $6000 I would love to commission hundreds of them to lean in dull, grey, straight-edged work-places or anonymous hallways all over town. Psychologically, we always get a sense of home and belonging from bits of nature in our unnatural environments. Plants, flowers, a view of trees, even a landscape painting or floral carpet can help. This piece gives homey a new spin.
There were sightings of shiny clean light blue in surprising places - a glazed fireplace surround and the floor of this booth. The combination of light blue and shine can be discombobulating on a floor– as if you are walking on water or about to fall through ice – but that is why it was novel and fun to experience.
Relative Space featured FreeSCALE a collection of eco-friendly carpet tiles by Vorwerk. Goodbye 9 x 12 or 6 x 8. With these tiles your carpet does not have to be square. Now your carpet can be any size, shape or colour combination. Flip the shape around to create curves or bends, add or subtract to suit your space. Pull one or two out for glimpses of your floor. And if you change your wall colour why not change out a few tiles to match? Or, change the palette seasonally? The mind boggles at the possibilities.
What about making the carpet the art in a room? The Tokyo carpet from W Studio has a painterly colour combination and graffiti-like patterning.
Lighting fixtures ranged from simple to sassy; from the clean lines of fixtures made of wood veneer by Woodlight to L’Atelier Non-Useless’s UP lamp.
The PVC pole comes with stretchy fabric sleeves that can be moved up or down or scrunched to adjust the level and position of light. This prototype will be produced for a cost of about $70 a foot and sized to fit your room height if enough people want one. I signed up for two.
And just when I thought I had seen it all and was on my way to the escalators, I saw Bocci’s latest lights called 28. The hand blown glass balls come in any colour (or clear) and can be suspend to any length individually or in clusters ($750 each from Kiosk). Half a dozen of mixed colours would look pretty cool over my dining table.
So I would say that this year’s show was the best in years. It did what you want and fear a design show will do: send you home with fresh ideas, a lot of décor zeal, and a strong desire to make some big changes! Hmmmm…
Martin Cederblad's picture of blue room designed by Swedish stylist and designer, Sara Sjögren.
What is the most commonly stated “favourite colour”? Blue! Not aqua or baby blue but royal blue, indigo, or its more vivid family member that is the colour originally made from Lapis Lazuli. This last colour was, for centuries, the most prized, rare and expensive of hues, literally worth its weight in gold. Only the wealthy could afford this blue, and they used to make artists and artisans sign a contract for how much good blue they would get and where it would be used. Inspectors would make surprise visits to ensure no less expensive blues were being substituted. In my work as a colour designer, what is the colour my clients most rarely use? Yup, royal blue. The exception is accent walls in a sporty child’s bedroom.
The demise of blue began when blue no longer had to be shipped from exotic and hard to reach places in Afghanistan and laboured over for months to turn into usable pigment. In the mid nineteenth century the chemical industry was producing all sorts of bold new artificial colours. (This made Impressionism possible.) Blue became just one of the many. Van Gogh still thought blue was the divine colour. For Picasso, poor and lonely in turn-of-the-century Paris, it was the colour of sadness and longing – his blue period.
A Yves Klein painting done in his signature colour, IKB, found on postandgrant.co.
French artist Yves Klein invented a recipe for an artificial blue that he thought rivaled the beauty of the natural pigment. So thrilled with the colour he called IKB (International Klein Blue) was he that he took out a patent on it and painted a series of all blue canvases.
Today stores selling china, jewelry and glassware use blue for the displays because blue is the colour of things we cannot touch or hold – water, air, and space – so, psychologically, it says Do Not Touch. In advertising it is the colour most often used by banks because it conveys honesty and trustworthiness. In clothing blue has always been the conservative colour of uniforms, blazers and the easy going denim. It is a way to wear colour without appearing colourful.
So why not on walls?
Naho Kubota's photograph of Jeffrey Inaba’s pop-up café, located in the halls of the Whitney Museum of American Art for the 2010 Biennial, which uses blue light to create a surreal ambiance.
Perhaps it is time to disassociate the colour with sports and see it as van Gogh did – the divine colour - and tap into its unearthly beauty.
In this powder room I used blue wallpaper, blue gloss on the ceiling and the client added a black mirror to complete the surroundings.
Use blue as an alternative to red in a dining room and as a way to expand the dimensions and drama of a powder room. Deep royal blue alters space, blurs the shape and size, and transforms a room into a mysteriously magical world with surrealistic splendor. It can be had without the requiring a king’s ransom!
In this room I used shine on the walls and gold on the ceiling for warmth and drama. I cannot imagine how unpleasant white would be here!
Tips on using indigo: Go all the way. The key is to be submerged in this colour. You are creating a three-dimensional atmosphere – space - not defining an area. No white ceiling and trim!! They interrupt the ambiance.
Blue trim! Painting trim the same colour as the walls or ceiling prevents colour interruption.
Paint the trim the same blue as the walls or a deep colour. Ditto the ceiling. though gold, metallic or mirror finishes are also good because they bounce light and add shimmer. Alternatively, use a second and slightly lighter blue, for example, with a dark blue like PPG Pittsburgh Paints 349-7 Dragonfly on the walls, use PPG 348-5 Shrinking Violet on the ceiling.
Blue Graffiti: This mural in San Francisco has an interesting blue based palette that avoids complementary colours that kill blue’s mood.
Sheen will increase depth and space. Feel free to use satin finish on all surfaces: walls, trim, ceiling. The floor or carpeting can be lighter or brighter, a contrast, a relief.
Pop-up café designed by the Rockwell Group, NYC
Furnish the space with things that are white or bright, have crystal or sparkling surfaces. Metals are good. Expand the palette into magenta and berry colours. Blue is the deep background against which these things play.
Note: Blue is not always cold. It gets warmer as it gets darker. Blues can be warm if you choose one that leans away from the turquoise and green side of the colour wheel and goes toward purple and red where it picks up warm undertones. Try PPG Pittsburgh Paints 347-6 Blue Odyssey, PPG 348-7 Brilliant Blue, or PPG 445-7 Royal Hyacinth from my Coming Home Colour Collection. (Ask for a big chip or a brochure.)
Janice Lindsay is one of Canada's leading colour designers, with a wealth of experience in residential, commercial and institutional projects. She is a colour consultant, travels the continent speaking about colour and design, and is also a casaGURU GURU.
This week seemed especially full of colour treats.
Treat #1: Pantone announced the Colour of the Year for 2012 and it is a favourite of mine! Tangerine Tango, Pantone #17-1463 (or variations like PPG Bay Coral 127-6 and PPG Cinnamon Stone 129-7). Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute said, "Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy,” How perfect!
Room designed by Susan Diana Harris Interior Design, image from sfgate.houzz.com
Chairs designed by Herman Miller
Wishbone chair, designed by Hans J. Wegner, manufactured by Carl Hansen & Son
Deborah Lippmann's 'Super Model' nail polish
Treat #2: My daughter took me to Red at Canadian Stage, a play set in the late 1950s in the studio of New York abstract expressionist painter, Mark Rothko. It portrays him as he works on what was the largest ever modern art commission - $35,000 for a mural series for the Four Seasons Restaurant in the then new Seagram Building on Park Avenue. Rothko actually did thirty red paintings but not one ever hung in the restaurant. Rothko found the place too vulgar for such serious works. He gave back his advance and sent nine of dark red canvases to the Tate in London, England. They arrived the day he committed suicide in New York. By then in his paintings he was mostly using black. You may enjoy this video I found which takes you to the Tate for a recent show that reunited the thirty red pieces.
One from Rothko's Seagram commissioned series.
Treat #3: Cindy Bisaillon’s The Power of Colour series aired on CBC’s Ideas. I had the thrill of being part of it and in the company of some of my favorite colour authors:
In the second episode I especially like Riley’s description of van Gogh’s yellow house in Arles and the effect of its colour.
Treat #4: My hot-off-the-press copy of Eve Ashcraft’s The Right Color arrived. I confess I am a little envious of this New York colour designer who got to work with Martha Stewart on her first colour collection, the Araucuna Collection, based on the colour of Stewart’s hens’ eggs. Stewart might be challenging to work for, but she is a colour genius. Years ago, one of her colour team told me about going out to her farm and having to colour match things like the fur on the back of her dogs’ ears and the tarnish on her pewter collection. But most challenging of all was when she waltzed into the studio, threw her pearls down on the worktable and said, “Look at all the colours in these. They are beautiful and I want them all!” Yeah, Martha!
Eve has just done what I would kill to do: her own collection of 28 colour essentials (made by Fine Paints of Europe, the Farrow & Ball of U.S. paint companies). The collection includes two reds:
Ashcraft’s book, which showcases the collection, does seem a bit like an ad and her colour guidance seems to state the obvious (maybe that is because we colour designers think alike - it was as if she were inside my head). But she did make me think about using colour on stair risers more bravely. White gets too scuffed and shows the dirt. I often tone it down or do two alternating tone-on-tone colours. But she used dark blue in an orange hall of a Georgian home. It did not look at all garish. It fit right in. Thank you Eve, for one more way to ditch some white and unify colour.
It was a great week!
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