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Colour

Choosing Paint Colours

Thursday, 08 July 2010

Posted by Niki Fulton at 09:15 AM in Colour

If you are decorating your house but feel bamboozled when choosing paint colours, can I suggest some great ways to find the perfect palette.

As colour is totally subjective, you are the only person that can make a truly successful colour choice. All you need to do is discover which colours you feel most comfortable around. Over the next few weeks I shall give you several ideas on how you can choose the perfect colour for your home.

This week's suggestion may be easier if you live near a city. We are lucky in Britain to have so many wonderful art galleries and museums and my advise is to visit them to seek as much inspiration as possible. Artists and curators have worked with colour all their lives and are therefore experts at grouping and balancing colour. Walk around the gallery and stop at a painting or set of objects that you feel naturally drawn towards. The likely hood is that the colours are drawing you to painting as the brain sees colour before form. Pick out at least five colours from the piece of work (or collection of objects, such as the glass vases above) and match them to your paint chart (take one with you to the gallery). You may want to use the softer colours for large areas such as walls and use the bolder colours as highlights.

Artist Giorgio Morandi was famed for his subtle graduations of hue in his beautifully balanced paintings, colours which transfer beautifully to create an extremely sophisticated interior. However, there are thousands of paintings out there bursting with great ideas you can use very successfully in your home.You will probably enjoy your trip to the gallery too!

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Comment posted by Anne Brooks on Saturday, 14 August 2010 at 06:16 AM

Thank you for all the marvelous suggestions. Our kitchen is in three shades of blue. I now have some great ideas for bold accessories. Off I go!

Comment posted by Toni on Sunday, 29 August 2010 at 13:50 PM

Where can I find a colour wheel. In the past I have found them useful in helping me to decide on colours to use .

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