Posts Tagged ‘Color Combinations’

Artists orefer to make their own color mixes

I don’t consider myself a great artist but one that is an artist by avocation, in other words it is a hobby. I have always enjoyed dabbling in the arts as a relaxing pastime and an avenue of exploring my creative tendencies.

I have often been asked about what the difference is between artists’ colors and those used by the paint manufacturers that tint interior and exterior paint products. Are the pigments themselves different or the way they are combined unique? Do artists think about color combinations in much the same way an interior designer or house painter might? The answer is yes and no, there are similarities but also many differences. 

Artists’ colors are made for their end use just like architectural paint is. Watercolors are usually non opaque as the paper serves as an influence on the color. White pigment is not used by strict water colorists; they use the white of the paper to convey the appearance of white. Light colors are made with transparent washes rather than with the addition of white. Oil paint and acrylic paints are more like architectural pigments in the sense that they are opaque and they use white pigment to make lighter colors. However watercolors, acrylics and oils have a much broader range of choices for pigments based on their appearance and they rarely are a mix of pigments but are a single pigment composition. Artists prefer to make their own color mixes for their own end result and are not concerned with repeatability or a formula. 

One the biggest difference between architectural pigments and artists colors is the way colors are mixed. Artists often make neutrals by mixing complementary colors such as blue and orange to make a brown or red and green to make a gray. Black is used by artists but not as often to make grays or neutrals. Architectural paint manufacturers shun away from this practice of mixing complements as it is hard to control the end result and use black to neutralize colors. A slight mistint in a complementary mix shifts the color in hue rather than in chroma or intensity. Colors are not just a little grayer but can be too much of the two colorful ingredients, for example too red or too green. 

Some paint manufacturers that make their own colorants use a combination of pigments for their colors. When a colorant contains more than one pigment and is mixed with another colorant with more than one pigment then the end result is often much grayer or neutral as the combination of more than four colors commonly will result in a combination that may contain complements. These popular neutrals with unique undertones are also often difficult to match by companies using single color colorants, especially when the matching programs try to do it using a maximum of three colorants. 

Color can be enjoyed for its end result and not so much for its method of achieving that end result. The old adage that beauty is in the eye of the beholder is as true for a work of art as it is for a new wall color, how it was achieved may be different but what you see is what counts.

-Pat Verlodt

Every room in every home inside and out must have someone making color decisions that impact the look of the final setting. The choice of floor material, paint for walls and ceiling, fabrics, and furnishings will involve someone making several color choices. This task can seem daunting to many, horrifying to others and sometimes there is someone who does it with ease. But most of the time it is an overwhelming chore to the majority of the population. They look for guidance in shelter magazines, television shows, hundreds of books, newspapers and even advice from their friends and family and in many cases they still are at a loss as of what to do. Here are several avenues to follow to find that elusive road over the rainbow and into their homes.

• If the is an existing, unchangeable or desired color in a room or on the outside of a home use that as a starting place. Find a pattern or combination of colors in a piece of fabric, on a pillow or in the case of an exterior, a single stone or brick that contains that color. This pattern or combination of colors should appeal to you; search until you find something that really draws your interest. Use the other colors in the pattern for the rest of your color choices. Perhaps there is a neutral hidden in the pattern that can become the wall color, an accent color may exist in the group and that can be used in small amounts, maybe on a feature wall or on a front door.
• When starting from the ground up you can also accomplished this with a pattern or in some cases a favorite painting or even a pleasant place to visit. Using a painting or print you can identify the colors that caught your eye when you first saw it and use them to create the color combinations you are looking for. Take a photo of your preferred destination and select colors based on them.

What initially intrigued you about a particular painting or fascinated you in a pattern or combination of colors should be used to create the perfect environment for living and being comfortable in your color decisions.

Use a Painting for Inspiration

Using a painting as inspiration, in this case the pale off white could be the walls, the deep blue a carpet or piece of furniture, the lemon could be curtains. You don’t have to take the colors as they appear you can neutralize them by making them lighter or grayer and you can make them lighter to tone them down. The colors should be used in three proportions of visual interest, the largest for walls, the medium for carpet and the smallest for accents.

Suggested Color Is Colors: 0391 Sripsa, 0620 Star Studded, 0848 Yellow Tail