Color & Clutter

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Pinterest lately and I’ve noticed an odd thing when looking at home decor. There is a plethora of minimalist, neutral (i.e. white and beige) rooms around the world. That’s not the odd part. What’s weird is that now that trend is losing its edge and rich colors are heading back, so is clutter. Why is there a duality of beige & uncluttered, purple & cluttered? Why can’t a room be teal with a magenta sofa AND have bare table tops?

Maybe it’s like seeing a full buffet after three years of eating nothing but egg whites… eventually things will settle down to colorfully tidy. I hope so.

If you had unlimited resources to decorate your home, but with the condition that nobody who doesn’t already live there would see it, even on social media, what would it look like? (Tell me in the comments, I’m really curious!)

The Color of Fear

“I’m afraid of color.” she said wistfully, seated on her oatmeal sofa in front of a tasteful, beige wall. Let’s call her Ellen. I’ve met a lot of Ellens. I don’t seek them out but they seem to gravitate to me. I would venture to guess that Ellen isn’t afraid of color at all. She’s afraid of not getting it right, of wasting money, or worse having to live with some garish mistake while not having a clue of what to try next. When she’s feeling brave Ellen might buy a teal cushion for that oatmeal couch but it stands out so much she stuffs it in a closet, proving to herself that neutrals are more calming (since they don’t bring on an anxiety attack!)

Life is too short to live in fear

There is no magic potion or boxed set of ‘rules’ to make boldness of any kind completely safe and risk free. Really that’s part of the fun. And that brings me to the phrase or style, “Bohemian”. Look it up in the dictionary and you’ll find geographic references (Bohemia is now part of the Czech Republic) and vaguely disapproving notes about artists and writers living a bohemian lifestyle in defiance of cultural norms. It’s left up to your imagination as to which rules they’re breaking, but painting walls bright colors was probably one of them.

Ellen’s pretty sure I’m a Bohemian but she’s polite so she calls me a free spirit instead. It’s a bit like when a surfer dude complimented the window-high mud splatters on my car (which happened exactly one time). I felt all cool and daring. But really when it comes to color I just go with what I like - its that simple.

Your turn! What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done with color? Put it in the comments below 😊

Compliments for Complementary Colors?

Primary, secondary, and tertiary colors

It’s all about the color wheel

If you don’t remember from grade school science, complementary colors are color pairs directly opposite each other on the color wheel (red/green, violet/yellow and so on). Put together, each appears more vivid than it does on its own. For some people that’s all they need to know! Bring on the bright blue and orange - everywhere! For the rest of us though, a little zing in a sea of calm may be a bit harder to achieve. Here are a few other ways to use complementary colors.

1. Change the saturation

Not everything has to be dialed into pure, paintbox tones. Pastels (or darker shades) can still play off each other. Here is yellow and violet - but with a lot of white for a more Easter/Spring effect:

2. Get color mixing for more sophisticated combinations

The color wheel, like the spectrum, is really infinite, limited only to the colors humans can see (about 7 million). Despite that you’ve probably not seen too many color wheels that go beyond the tertiary level (what I have at the top) due to space and layout. School lessons usually stick to just primary and secondary colors, figuring they’ve made their point and you have those color crayons. And like above if red and green are your thing you don’t need more. Dial it into blue-violet or yellow-green or even yellow-yellow-green and you’ll start to get some more unusual and interesting combinations. The math is still the same though. If you’re going to use yellow-yellow-green then you’ll need to pair it with violet-red-violet. Below is red-violet with yellow-green. The exact same shades as in the larger circles in the color wheel above.

3. Play with the balance of the two colors.

The simple design above has more red-violet than yellow-green. Compare that with below which has increased the amount of yellow-green.

4. Add neutrals

The above are simple geometric designs created to get across a point (but if you love them, by all means let me know!) You can still use complementary colors in a more subtle and relaxed way. Here the red-violet moves up into the design and a whole lot of neutral (in this case white) is introduced.

It’s a totally different look, isn’t it? Whichever your favorite, I hope you’ve gotten a few ideas on how to use complementary colors to enhance your environment or your wardrobe. You can be subtle or bold, bright or subdued, it’s just a matter of letting the color wheel guide you.

Please share your thoughts and your favorite color combinations in the comments. I’d love to know what draws your eye the most.

Working With a Green Color Palette

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Green. It’s the most universally pleasing and yet one of the most challenging colors on the spectrum. We see green more easily than any other color.   Artificially, getting it on to fabric or dishes has historically been a nightmare as it is often chemically unstable and the color shifts over time. (One of the many reasons you still don’t see very many green cars on the road.) And yet, it is restful, relaxing, and generally a fabulous way to bring the outside in.

 So… with all the those shades of green that the human eye can detect you can see how there’s a lot of room for things to go slightly (or horribly) wrong aesthetically.  Here are a couple of simple tips to keep your green color palette on track.

Pick Your Favorite Nature Spot

Here’s a bit of Hawaii I captured with my camera and just some of the greens that are in the photograph

• If you are after a particular nature mood – tropical jungle, Scandinavian forest, Appalachian Spring, find an evocative photograph and stick to the colors in the picture. Mother Nature always gets her rooms right!

• Keep strong prints and contrast colors to a bare minimum and focus on smaller designs and textures

• Alternatively, limit patterns to a contrast color in the photograph (pink blooming trees for example) and go all out with a cherry blossom print that works with your theme.

What Kind of Green are You?

Not after a theme room? No problem, just stick to this basic separation of greens and you should do alright.

There is a huge range of green shades but like all colors on the spectrum it blends with adjacent colors – in the case of green, that means yellow on one end and blue on the other.  The majority of greens available on home goods or apparel fall pretty clearly into one end or the other. Olive greens on the yellow end:

A simple pattern of 4 shades of olive greens

And forest greens on the other:

The same pattern shifted to forest greens

 To confuse things, most  actual forests are shades of olive, but that’s not too important to remember.  Where you can easily get into trouble is mixing the two groups:

An unfortunate mix of yellow greens and blue greens

This one is two shades of olive and two shades of forest. It doesn’t work so great, does it?  Most people naturally fall into one or the other camp in terms of what they’re attracted to, maybe based on what era they were exposed to as a kid (the 60’s and 70’s were olive heavy (avocado carpet, anyone?) while the 80’s veered heavily into the blue side of green as did the 00’s with a grayed version.

If you’re shopping online you probably know that colors can vary a bit from what they look like on a screen. But they won’t be looking blueish green if they’re in the yellow green camp or vice versa (without someone doing some seriously bad Photoshop mucking).

 As you become more aware of greens you will probably begin to notice where things fall and be able to easily say no to something that’s not going to work. But it’s always a good idea to carry a photo or a small swatch of something that has the key color(s), like wrapping paper or fabric, if you’re going to be making big or highly visible purchases.

  I hope this gave you some useful ideas to add more green to your surroundings. Green is truly good for you!

If this was helpful please share with a friend…