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Color Schemes 101

Lesson 3 from: Using Color in Home Design

Tobi Fairley

Color Schemes 101

Lesson 3 from: Using Color in Home Design

Tobi Fairley

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Lesson Info

3. Color Schemes 101

Lesson Info

Color Schemes 101

We understood what compliments were blue and blue and orange are compliments. But if you take the colors on either side of ah, one of the primary colors that's, how you start getting split compliments to see how this makes a triangle a cross, the color will so royal and this great purple color and yellow that is a group of split compliments s o two colors immediately adjacent to a colors complement. So we talked about exactly opposite the color wheel. This would be yellows compliment the zahra split compliment. This is kind of a fun little trick because you start thinking about okay, I want to put more than one color in a room. I want to put more than two colors in a room. How do I have a cheat sheet for what other color could start to really work, particularly when you're talking compliments? If I want a dynamic and energetic room, if you flipped it just the opposite and picked the two colors opposite on that side, we think about the fact that you would be getting a lot more warm tone...

s right here we're mainly in the cool tones with one warm ten the opposite of that would have a completely different result, so if you want relaxing but with a little energy that's this, if you take the opposite of that energetic with a little bit of relaxing are a little respite or a little moment to rest the eye it would be the opposite of this does that make sense? But the color will starts becoming a real tool for you and a real cheat sheet of and that confidence booster of knowing that if I pick these they're going to work together here's another version of it on the other side and I love this color combination and we'll talk about trends later, but a lot of you have seen me use colors that are kind of what I would call trend forward maybe trendy most colors have been classically used at some point in history that will talk about that at any given time when they're kind of trending or experiencing, you know, like a popularity we think about him is trendy colors, but a lot of you have seen me use aqua and orange together or even aqua and read together, which we're going to see in some of my spaces. But how flynn to use the combination of these and doesn't this also as we'll talk about later in the psychology of color start giving us a connotation culturally or in society because what does this look like to you? Because to me it's very retro like fifties like the the turquoise car and the red vinyl booth in the diner you know it has color has meaning s so it's even more complex than just looking at it on the color wheel but I love this idea of having a little cheat sheet of knowing these colors could work really well together and already don't you have tools that you didn't have before to say oh this this room if they were all equally place in there would be more done more energetic and more dynamic and warm than it would be cool right enough designing for twenty years and I did not know about that toll isn't that thinking I'm I'm new to this so no, I've never heard of sport confident this is the way I love to teach and you see what I mean so anybody and million designers could teach things different but my way favorite way to teach is to give you those little tools and as I said build you a road map to make great confident choices and this is one of those things that can really give you that confidence to know these work together and we're going to talk in a minute about how to make these killers even different because you know, a lighter version of red would be pink or ah powdery color of this would be, you know, completely different when you add wine and we're gonna talk about that in just a moment so so it'll be just teo just teo reconfirmed for everyone so you choose do you have to choose a primary color and then have it be the opposite the to of sides to get for this little compliment that is how you derive that so you pick what doesn't have to be a primary color it could be any color on the color will because but it's then you'd ghost directly opposite to see what it's compliment would have been and then you go on either side of it to find the split compliment fun isn't it yeah I think I'm gonna pack size he are as much of the color geek ismay everybody smiling this is so much fun it just makes it so much more sophisticated doesn't so you take the opposite then you just take a little step sideways little exactly and I love and that's what I said earlier we're going to want to break the color rules no one wants to be boring and be so you know by the book although I am a rule follower there times that you want to step out of that for something a little more exciting and interesting but doesn't give you that kind of great foundation to know what the rule is first before you start wavering from it before you start you know pushing the envelope and getting a little more confident it's scary and a lot of times I think when we talk about color fears later people haven't intuition about what to do but they something stops them, they get to a point where it's just too scary to take the next step and these kind of tools can give you that sort of confidence to know ok, this is going to work I know why I did this it's very thoughtful andi gives you really the confidence because most things will work it's usually not that things don't work it's that we become insecure about them and so we form an opinion negative opinion that they're not working well or you could just as easily decide that you love it because color is so personal it's such a personal decision, but I think the confidence comes in knowing why the why that you do something okay, so let's look at another another option double compliments so double compliments form a rectangle on the color will they can go that way or they could go this way? Um, so a little more bold, I think, than the split compliment on do you have a lot more going on? So when you start working with double compliments, you're probably getting a little more, uh, confident in your abilities to bring all these things together. What we will find over the next few days and we'll talk about it a lot is we don't have to be the ones to figure out how to put all these colors in our rooms ourselves because there people out there that create gorgeous fabrics and other things for us that already combined a lot of these colors and they do that's kind of another cheat sheet and so we don't have to be the one inventing the wheel or reinventing the wheel a lot of times but maybe even just starting to understand um color can still help you really gravitate towards and build out a palette based on double compliments but to me already these feel a little more daring do you all think so? It's kind of like juggling and when you have two balls it's not that hard, but you throw a third winning and then you've got four and you're trying to juggle all of those that gets a little more difficult right to keep all the balls in the air s o so double compliments air are really interesting but a little more a little more daring now you do see specifically also where even though this is on the warm side of purple and the cool side of purple and then the warm side of like a citrus tone and the cooler side of the citrus tone to me when I look at thes that really looks like the warm at the top and this looks like the cool at the bottom, so see how green can go warm and the closer it is to a warm color it might change s o citrus towns, green, orange, yellow all feel pretty warm to me, don't they? And they grow in sunny climates like you have that whole kind of warm sort of feeling and emotion when you're saying that so at first glance to me feels really warm at the top of that, you'll see that it's. So, toby, if you had a fabric you really like that had a patent on it. Well, would you use this in reverse? Would you have a look at the fabric and, god, I love this fabric. It's got this pattern that's got those two colors so you might find exactly yes and that's how I prefer to work. And when you were reading that article, that house beautiful road about me yesterday, like five minutes would be fairly I my personal preference is to let things like beautiful textiles and fabrics do the work for me because they're so gorgeous and inspiring to me fight being in a candy store to me to play with fabrics and patterns and colors and florals and things that people have already put together for me. But, yes, and you know what? You could even say if you had a fabric that had these two purples in that green in it? But she wanted to bring in a little pop or a wow factor into the space you could know that maybe the yellow was the great thing to bring in or maybe your flowers or yellow like can it was noticing so it just if if you're at a loss for how to understand what other color would work in here maybe this again gives you a little confidence to know um quincy and there's the there's the other option eso again you see how it forms a rectangle on the on the color will very much cooler it doesn't this green suddenly look cooler and it is because it's closer to the blow on the blue side so this time we are drawing the line down the middle of the color wheel just like it really should be warm on that side cool on this but seeing how they work together is interesting tell me I do have a question from mad lizzie who has a question about the double compliments how would you use double compliments in a room what's the ratio and what would you use as the main color and then the accents is there any rule two there's not hard rules of thumb but here's what we're going to see this in a moment for me personally unless a fabric or something else does the work I'm typically not going to put all four of these at this value like this strong sir saturated hugh, if that makes sense, see, so if you're using something as strong as bright cobalt, you might get away with a bright red or a bright green, but you might then want to tone down these others to be more of a softer green, and we're gonna see how to do that in just a second of mixing wide in or fixing gray and our mixing black. And but the more that that color's air really saturated, which means really pure and not toned down with a wider a grey or black, the more the less sophisticated they sometimes become. If you can imagine, you're not going to have again, as I said earlier, bright cobalt laws, probably with a bright orange sofa and to really bright green chairs in a red autumn and it's gonna look like kitty playtime, right? You're going to be like it in the flavoring. Ah, and you're also going to be overstimulated in that space, most likely so it becomes about a mixture of values and tones and tents and layering them in for me. I sort of have a color intuition when I walk into a space, for whatever reason, the architecture the windows, the view, the lighting's. I kind of get a gut reaction if I don't know this room feels like maybe it should be blue like o r I wantto have an extension of the outside and we're in a high rise, and I could see a lot of sky or maybe it's already two blue because of the outdoors or two grey, if you're living in seattle and you intentionally want to bring in something bright s o I have sort of a sort of an instant gut reaction to spaces and sort of what I want them to be. So I just let my color intuition guide me, or if I'm feeling kind of especially in love with cobol at any given time, and we'll talk about it as a trend, then maybe it becomes the strongest piece of this pie and everything else tones down. We're going to look in on pinterest in a few minutes at some of the's kinds of colors, compliments and used in a space so that we can really understand it even a little bit better, because I think the only way we could we can look at a color wheel all day long, but until you see it on the chairs in the sofa in the wall, you don't really understand how it starts to come into the space. Um okay let's look let's move forward a little bit so here's a try attics color scheme on but it's an exact triangle on the color wheel I love this personally it's really interesting um to me but if you're thinking about a color triad or a try attic seem there three colors that are equally spaced on the color wheel so you could shift it and have the top color which is like a greenish yellow and then the two colors down here which would be to purple's but our let's see nobody here and over there, so I'd be like an orange kind of a blue and a green but you can move that around the whole color will and see that any three colors equally spaced our tri at tri attic color scheme um and then analogous a lot of us used these kinds of color schemes like different tones of warms or like from cobalt teo green to and from cobalt toe aqua to green they're all really harmonious because they live on the same side of the color wheel so rather than be contrast ing which were the compliments that were opposite, we call it a harmonious color scheme if they live right there together on any given part of the color will is that makes sense that's why asai was just using the example of citrus colors together that's why I look so great together from lime too yellow to orange because they're ah harmonious color scheme there in harmony with one another they have a lot of qualities that are shared between each of them is that makes sense you like I really like the analogous schemes and it's interesting, because depending on how again bold and bright they are versus maybe more muddy down or tone down, you get the difference in like something that almost looks like a mcdonald's branding like red and yellow, which is really bright versus we're going to look at some rooms in a moment of a friend of mine that uses this exact analogous teller scheme and it's super sophisticated in her new york apartment. Eso it becomes more about how saturated and rich each color is, um so let's uh, and then finally the monochromatic color scheme is just taking one color and really using a whole lot of different values of that same color, and this gets to be really fun when you decide you want an all white rumor and all blue room or in all pink room and it becomes about layering in different fabrics like a bright still versus a linen that's a little bit softer of that same color along all the different value levels of that one color, no other colors in the space so it's, really fun and it's, not it's it's. Easy, actually, to kind of do this. This is pretty much what's happening done for us by a lot of paint companies when they go ahead and give us the paint chart from the lightest version all the way down to the bottom, the bottom. Uh, and when we talk about paint specifically, I often have people say, um, do you mix your own paints? Why do you do fifty percent of that color or a half tone of that? My answer is always no, I leave it to the experts. The paint companies have already figured this work out for us, so I don't try to make it complex by saying, well, let me put half of this and put some other things in it unless it needs to be matched to match a specific fabric or something. I actually select colors that these brilliant people that create paints for us have already done the work for us. But the way you get this and the way they get colors for a paint chart is by adding either more white or more black. So there's more black down here in this turquoise and there's more white up, but this is, does that make sense to you all on and that's how you get the different value so let's talk about just a couple of vocabulary words for a minute a hue that's what most of us were talking about when we say, what color do you love? It's really? What hugh do you love? But are any of it's going to start using that term? No that's, you know, silly, but really if you're reading about her studying color it's really about a hue, which is green or pink refuse your aqua or purple um red, green, blue, yellow r hughes and then again, you don't have to know all of this, but just a little bit of information for you a chroma is how pure color is so that's when I was talking about that saturation point, it is it really, really bright and un polluted by being mixed down with white or mixed with black to get darker um, or even gray eso it's pure the value of something is how light or how dark it is, so if we want teo mix in different values of turquoise, we're gonna have some dark torque, turquoise and some light turquoise um and it's especially important for paints because I find that many of the most successful rooms have a pretty light value of paint color on the wall and it still reads a lot stronger than it is and a lot of you have had color disasters and it's because you picked a much too strong value for the wall you thought I went to be really bright and sunny in this space I'm gonna pick like a yellow that's almost a tte the bottom of the paint charts and you put it on the wall and it's like a stop sign or a taxicab ah and it's just blaring and you think what went wrong? Because I saw these other people using yellow in their rooms and it looked great well a lot of times if you pay attention the wall color itself is a really lied about you and it's maybe a painted table or you know a upholstered chair or something else that is the richer value that really punches up the color and makes the whole room feel like it's that bright but it's really not that bright often andan saturate that saturation is how vivid or intense hugh is compared to a grey of the same value. So if you put a color next to a gray like this yellow next to the grey how vivid is the yellow next to the great that shows you a saturation point and I use that term a lot really chroma maybe what I'm talking about sometimes, but it's really that house strong a color is it and fabrics because they have texture in different material content silk farces, linen versus will really help pull off strong saturation in a way that paint can't so where we can't go put that bright cobalt on the wall a lot of times, but we could bring it in and like a ah wool or a silk and it just looks exquisite and sophisticated it's because of the content and the sheen or the nuttiness or the texture that really make something look more expensive and really more successful a lot of time. So as we go through the week, we're going to now start realizing it's not just about picking your paint color. In fact, your roommate could be completely beige as faras the walls and the ceiling when a lot of the furniture pieces but it's in some key elements like pillows or drapery or lamps or something else that has a more complex and make up a a fabric content or something else that makes it really work for you. Um and then I've alluded to this a few times um but a tone is a pure hugh so red plus grey a shade which makes sense you think something being in the shade is the dark has black added to it and then a tent is appear hugh plus white now most of us use these words entertain changeable we were like, oh, just give me a shade of white, but she really meant a tent you don't have to remember all of this, but I just always like to have a little bit of an education on what I'm talking about, an understanding mohr, why I am doing something because probably I won't start using all these words all the time. Exactly, and there is this definition, but what I will pay more attention to once I know this or I'm reminded of it again is m I wanting toe add white to something to change it? Are my wanting to add black to something to change it and just becoming more mindful of how do I control the color? Do I make it what I would call more muddy because it has black or grey are gino is softer a lot of times because it has wide, innit, um, and it just starts giving you a little bit better understanding of how you can start controlling color in your own space is right is that nasty lots of net nodding as heads? I think there's a lot of nodding of heads on the internet, there are a lot of nodding heads and dancing hints happy it's a happy there's happy is amazing discussion from all number of professionals online is actually it's it's uh, it's exciting, how many other professionals are looking at what you're doing and asking questions for me personally as well? These are things again, as a photographer, I had not thought about it as what she tore known this vocabulary at all. Well, a national designer, we get so in the habit of just doing things that we don't stop and see why we're doing them and that's what I love about teaching a class when I have to go right content that helps a person that's not familiar with this be ableto understand it really makes me better at using color too, because I start asking, why did I do that? And what was you know, how did that? How is that successful? So I'm sure ah lot of the professionals out there going maybe didn't even know I did that. But now that you mention it, that's what I do every time and that's why I work so it's kind of fun and a pure design interiors would like to know from youtube has the selection of color scheme has become second nature? Or do you go back to your color wheel and analyze this games um well, some of both, you know, most of us fall into that eighty twenty rule like eighty percent of the time we go to our toby's top ten painkiller sort of thing, but one of my favorite things to do because I love color so much is to create unique combinations of colors and particularly because my work is often getting photographed or I wanted to be photographed, I want to pick something that that no one's ever seen before or even for clients, I think clients that are hiring me to create gorgeous professional leaders on spaces for them because they know of my use of color they deserve something unique, not something that I've given everybody else so for me it's sama both yeah, probably, you know, oh sixty seventy percent of an entire home are going to be some of my go to tried and true neutrals and other favorite colors and then there's going to be a percentage of a space that I'm gonna turn up that color volume a little bit step out of my comfort zone, start mixing some unique things and that's when you want to go back to the color will to go what would be interesting? What if I not used before but for me also fabrics do that do the work for me a lot of times I'm playing in a myriad of you know tones and fabric contents and prince and florals and stephan, they get me excited about s o they kind of become the color well, for me, those textiles, you know, I'm came tonight to do you take all the colors that you've created. And do you have your specific tobey callow wheel? Do you keep on expanding a very pissed off? You know, when we when I started putting together this kind of toby through the years and some of the things that were going to see over the next few days, I was even surprised at how often I use certain things, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you, over the next few days, it's kind of fun, and for one of the things that I used so often that I really had no idea like you is black and white, um, as a base for a room, but when you start seeing the proportion like if it's ninety percent white with a tiny little black accent and then a pop of color that's, a completely different room from a room that's like fifty percent fifty, fifty black and white in the background and a pop of color are almost all color with just a little bit of black and white, so you could tell any. There could be a hundred designers right now that took the same four colors and we could have so many different looks because of the way we put it together and whether it was on the wall versus ana fabric and whether it was you know, the percentages of each color used in a space um so you don't have to reinvent or go back to the color wheel a lot of times just to mix up how you use your favorite colors and you'll see over the next few days I'm guilty of doing that myself but the rooms look very different from one another to so kind of fun you don't have to reinvent the wheel you don't the celery and the way that reinvents color will exact put cool would you like to look at some pinterest board just done by some of my friends that are in east designers in the hamptons mabley handler this was a show house they did recently about a year or two ago that I love and it's a harmonious color scheme so you see it's analogous on the color will it goes from the cobalt to the aqua like we talked about all these colors in this room live right side by side nestled next to each other on the color will but look how vibrant it iss because what they've done so beautifully is used all of those tents and tones and shades of the same colors isn't that amazing that you could be so close in the color will and very little difference from the blue navy to the aqua, and you can have this much excitement from one space that texture on the back wall is amazing in that color exit this so the grass cloth is fantastic, and then we'll talk about over the next few days, but one of the tricks I love to use which they be so beautifully here is they've allowed this fabric, the chevron it's on the chairs, in the drape to be the one element in the room that brings all of it together in one place. So they've got all of those so that's kind of the another one little cheat sheet tip like they that fabric set the tone for them, and then they could pop out pieces and parts of that, realizing it was an analogous, um, scheme, and what they did is they made a very specific decision not to introduce another color they could have, even in flowers or something else they could have brought in yellow or an orange, but it would have changed everything right on dso because they kept this this harmonious color scheme, it is like looking into a reflecting pool you feel like you're almost at the beach or on vacation or really relaxed, I think, in that space it's not a lack of energy like this is getting towards a warmer tone in the in the turquoise aqua butt so interesting. Okay, let's, look at another one. Kulick. Um, this one is gorgeous and a contrast. Um, and it really is probably closer tio it's a triad, but it starts becoming kind of a closer to that idea of the split compliment we saw earlier where we had the the purple and the cobalt down this in. And then we had some color coming from the opposite side of the color will which would be but this wasn't just a try. And it's got green blue and, um and the purple and again layering it in in different percentages. So at at first glance, when you read this room, it almost to me reads more purple than anything because that is a warm, almost reddish purple. And it really, um it has a lot of energy it's moves forward towards you, and then the cobalt sort of grounds it in this space. Do you know who has a question about this? Does this make sense? Because it looks pretty complex when you start looking at it? Because there's a lot going on when you said that it was a triad, do you, when you look at a photo or a room do you automatically see that that this was harmonious? This was a triad I do with harmonious or analogous because it's so much easier to see it almost looks monochromatic to you because it looks like it's almost all the same color more than anything when I look at this I just think contrast I don't necessarily off the top of my head go that's a triad on this is a ten and that stone and now it's not about being that specific but more understanding that the goal of what they were trying to achieve was probably something dramatic they were trying to make a statement this is from a friend of mine who's the designer lindsay coral harper and it was a show house just like the last one so the shell houses in our industry is sort of like the runway for fashion it's when people do stuff it's really daring so you might not put all of this actually in your house you want kind of the ready to wear version for the most part other than maybe a couple of rooms in your house but I know I suspect I don't know for sure that her goal was to make something that's really bold and dramatic and that's where she gets she makes that happen about having some strong contrasts and some really saturated colors happening in this space but you see a big difference in energy level already from the harmonious little analogous color scheme that was much more relaxing, right? Even though these air primarily cool colors it's still got a lot more energy um and then there's something like a neutral um, which is just layers and layers of different shades of wide and cream. Ah, but still very, very gorgeous and interesting and what? The way you could achieve interest there is by different kinds of fabrics in different form and dimension. So this is essentially, although why is technically a color it's really what most of us would consider a color less room on dh that could be very beautiful, teo and it has and you can have rooms that air warm whites on dh having the gold mixed in which we'll talk about later because your medals actually almost become like a color in a space and this is, is it gold is going to be much warmer than something like silver. So this reads as a really warm space the wood tones air really warm we're gonna talk about that over the next few days, so wouldn't eat most of you look at this and think it's bright and warm and even almost cheery as if it were a sunny yellow space ah, even though it's all white I think that's a phoebe howard room um let's see let's look at some other fun ones so this one is another harmonious space by miles rid so the blue and green are on that same side of the color will very not a lot of contrast either look how look how close the wall color value is to the chair value so he had intentionally doesn't have much contrast happening there if he had made a decision to make those chairs light blue the greenwood have really popped down but because there's little contrast it gives a totally different look they're from the wall um and when you're going really bright on the wall that's when you do wanna consider toning other things down in the space so there's not a lot of difference here to here and it makes that really sophisticated I think would be fun toby if to challenge our studio audience and pulling up and see if we can figure out what way which scenario it it was like that a quiz let's see um you could start with a fairly easy one time. Okay yeah let's go with this one because I referenced it earlier so what do we think about this? How would you describe that space? This is my friend amanda and is bits um new york apartment analogous right which would also be considered a harmonious because it's kind so this is where I was saying red, yellow and orange could be very mcdonald's very primary colors not very sophisticated nothing not saying anything negative about mcdonald's but they're not trying to create a sophisticated atmosphere they're trying to create something that's dynamic and people move through really fast and get in and get out whereas you don't feel like you have to leave this space any time saying but you feel like you're wrapped up in a in the sunshine or in a really warm cozy environment right um yeah so analogous and that's I think it's gorgeous um and let's look at when we are about this it has to be analogous again but it's got the brown it's got even look a tte don't don't take into account the wood towns yet we're just talking about the color pure design interiors says monochromatic is correct a way different sounds intense of peak right um so you think about it being analogous but actually it's that one straight line like we saw that turquoise coming from rich turquoise through the color will these air this is a gorgeous jamie drank room on its monochromatic we have ah we have a question from mad lizzie which is a good one I think I live in this very small spice do the same color rules apply because it seems like a really bold color will make the spice same even smaller so we're going to talk about this this week but I'll just give you a little hint about this yes and no eso sometimes a um bold colors could make a small space feel smaller, but I love to sort of challenge that thought process and actually embrace bold colors in a small space often because a small spaces are small it's note there's usually no hiding it so why not wrap it in something and make it almost like a little jewell box or have like a lot of impact instead of trying tio you know, hide the fact that it's small really kind of moving tours and sort of leaning into the smallness and making it really vibrant and bold? It depends on your color goals if I'm going to show you another one actually the room that I showed you earlier that was blue and orange were going to show you another part of that room later because the ceilings in that space air only about seven and a half feet tall it was a basement edition and so we didn't intentionally wrath the room in really light colors like y to expand it so some of both so ultimately the most important rules for them to think about is what their goals are what what do they want to achieve is the mood, the feeling and then the rules are kind of going to say the same if they want to be dynamic really lean into bold colors even though it's small or if you wanted to be arrest but maybe it's light colors um so what did don't you love that? I answered the the answer with ten different options unless he comes back with a left, there is not a yes or no, there is a yes or no, but she has to make some decisions first, and we're going to talk about that and that's where everybody's personal color style is going to come into play later because it's awful pacific to you and what you're trying to achieve. So yes and no is the answer. Okay, so a lot of us know kelly worse lor is like the drama queen when it comes to color and boldness look at how much is going on in that space, so much going on. Um but it but in a cool way, if this happens to be your aesthetic and I think it's very interesting, this is going to be we call it contrast ing is there's definitely a lot of contrast, I'm not sure if I'm a hundred if it's one hundred percent split compliment, but it could come really close to that. So you know how we had that split compliment that was cobalt green, red and orange? Isn't that really close to that right there, that split compliment? But very daring and it's very intentional and very well thought out. And although it looks accidental in haphazard, like she just put everything she wanted to in that space, it's really most the time just the opposite when you see a room this complex that it was very, very studied and intricately detailed. I love this it's really interesting and one of the things that she did well, as you see a lot of color in the space, but then you go to the anvil, what I call the envelope, the backdrop and the walls are really kind of a bluish gray and all the floors underneath the rugs are black, and the the oriental rug is really a neutral, so a lot of the room is raft in something simple so that she can have fun playing with color in the fabrics and you can see a big difference, and I don't know if you can see it, but I can tell that these have, like almost a linen texture. The gold chairs have, like a velvet or even a more a kind of taffy machine. This is something like a washed cotton, and so depending on what fabrics are made of, they get more interesting and help achieve a certain kind of look. Maybe there's a really interesting question here pertaining to you know this is a room that looks like a meeting room could be a meeting room and in that people are going to gather there and do things right pure design interiors asks I'm designing my own office which I mean would also be a place for betty do you recommend going with all white so as not to distract from the color you're analyzing the projects? Not necessarily so your own design office att least maybe the surface you're working on so like in my work room I have a big a big table a big service that is kind of a white tone and that goes to sort of the thinking of why art galleries have white walls because it really lets you understand what's happening so probably at least some area of a space that is, you know, pretty white and allows them to really see colors for what they truly are but of course depends on how much time you're gonna work and there are also don't want to feel like I'm in a straitjacket all day at the office so part of the room really needs to reflect you know a goal or a mood or her personal color kind of personality so she's going to want to spend time in there um so yeah maybe an area where she you know for me it's about lighting as much as anything even more so than than the white surface. But really having lie that gives you the correct color rendition, fluorescent lighting is bluer, and it could make everything look a different color where incandescent or like us, you know, a light gold that you imagine kind of regular lighting is warmer and a little more true. And if you can have some natural light even better, if you can have some of the outdoor real lighting in a space even better. This is a great room, but a friend of mine, philip gordon, it was actually in house. Beautiful red and blue are primary colors, right, and even almost yellowish on the ceiling. So when you think about the fact of looking at red, blue and yellow, you think, oh, my gosh, that would be really garish in a space. And how could that ever work? Yeah, but when you start thinking about the tents and tones, isn't this really gorgeous? The red is the purest, most saturated piece because he wanted to make a bold statement, I'm sure, and the blue is probably a tent. It looks to me like white has been added to appear blue to achieve that color in the fabric. Does that make sense to you, like it's a it's, a patmore powdery? Softer version and then even using the metallic I guess it's a wallpaper on the ceiling really almost brings in that gold or sort of yellow idea of a primary color palette but there's nothing unsophisticated about this at all it's dramatic it's gorgeous it's glamorous um and I think it's super successful questions or comments on that day all you have comments about it let's start with our studio audience about it doesn't have to be about this just about are this color one on one any any questions? Yes um it was really interesting for me to see how like the metallics and the woods and stuff at first I was just looking at the colors and then I realized I was for are not forgetting but just leaving them out intentionally and then I just realized they're not even on the color wheel and that's why I'm like not looking at the whites or the black sort of the browns right and we're going to talk about that more as we go through the week but one of my favorite things to do and when I teach people even in my design from a dizzy everything about design course we talk about how to mix finishes and wood or how to mix medals and my favorite little trick is exactly what I mentioned in passing earlier and we just did it right here is to think about medals or wood tones as an actual color brown is a color it is achieved by mixing a lot of colors on the color will together to get a brown, but it's still a color, and gold really leans towards yellow or some of those warm tones on the color will, whereas, you know, silver medals or in the gray tone. Ah, and again, gray is made by mixing a lot of colors and the color will together, but for our purposes, gray is still a color to us and a very popular and trendy color for walls, particularly right now. But if it gives if it helps you to break it down and start thinking about everything, even like a wood tone like this as a gray or beige or a brown or a neutral, that always helps me understand how they play a part in the complex interior of a room that's really great the good observation? Do you have any other comments or questions, or thought someone from online from cow who asked other gender specific colors like the triad, purple, blue and green, or the relationship of tone and human tin? Have you found? Well, you know we're going to talk about color psychology later in there are you, um, to a point and a lot of that comes from cultural um things societal maims sometimes it's it's things that you know, people even in your own family pinkas girlie are wearing pink is girlie and you know, but a lot of people challenge that I always love to see a man who's confident enough to wear a pink shirt or a pink tie, so I love just like I love creating unique color schemes I like to kind of challenge those, but yes, definitely there are certain colors that are more appealing two genders for a number of reasons whether it's societal or just personal preference and ultimately more people like blue than anything else men and women it's the most universally liked color and we're gonna talk more about that later. Um, I think and you can imagine that different tents versus tones versus shades can make someone like a color or not more like a pale blue that's. A tent with a lot of white or a pale aqua might be more appealing to maybe a feminine um a female or, you know, be a little more feminine as opposed to something that's richer and bolder and stronger but again most the time it's personal preference and it's the congee conglomerate it's the whole life experience that person has had what's they're comfortable with what was used in their home, what they've been exposed to in their travels and their culture and again complex there's a lot of stuff that goes into what people like and, um certain colors s o I loved how how you started off the day saying it's not just about picking your paint color correct and that's again blows my mind that that would always be what I would think about first for everybody not first if I could count the number of times that people call and say okay, well, I think I want to hire you to do my house, but we're ready to move forward and the contractor is on the job and he's gonna go to another job if we don't hurry if you just pick my paint color, then we can do all the other things and I always have to say that's not how it works that and we don't want him and how many times we have been forced to use an existing paint color that we should have just painted over. It would have been a lot easier because we have to then try to find all the pieces and parts that matched to it. But think of the number of pain options you have like the sky's the limit so why not get everything else in place fabrics and other things and then be able to get a look at this rainbow of options and how do we start placing that into the color scheme that with the most success I love it the ability to use the color wheel to take your favorite fabric and go from the fabric I mean I've always wondered how you went from a fabric to the paint colors and now we have this incredible tweet just ignored sir isaac newton for years haven't way like you just acted like he was smart and he was a genius so yeah really using that tool and isn't it it's I mean I hope that you get as excited as me but I just love to look at the color well many people you know love a prism or crystals because they have come in a rainbow that whole effect it's the same thing using that on creating that in your own and you know, I just I just commented that I want teo frame a color wheel and put that up in my kitchen or something I just think even that alone it so just you know a lot of homework from my college courses of color study which were so fun of creating like little color blocks and tissue paper and artworks of colors that work together and so beautiful they are art and a lot of the reasons that a lot of us like abstract art in modern art is it's really bringing those same kind of saturated tens and color mixing in combinations to came this that we decorate our walls so absolutely well here's what people are saying online digital skillet said, I've been waiting for something like this. Yeah, I get to set up and create all of my own images of digital scullers photographer so this is going to help me take my photography to the next level. I'm buying this one now so off awesome congratulations, emilia says, wonderful, so nice to connect with professionals here. So again, the chat rooms are a wonderful place to be having these conversations and pure design interiors. Thank you for all of your, um, comments and questions. Pure design interiors. So far, this is a great reminder to bring the technical aspect of color back into the design. That street we get away from things and stop doing what we know and don't forget to use house beautiful as the beautiful source of inspiration cause they do cho that's. Why this is such a fit and while many of my projects or such a fit for them because they embraced color so well, too, and really show it and gorgeous ways.

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