Often the inspiration in a room comes from a pattern in a wall paper, a painting, piece of art, carpet or accessory. When designing a space around an aforementioned item it is important to ask the following questions:
- What colours, hues, tonal values and chromatic values are included in the item? As mentioned in the post “Johannes Itten’s Seven kinds of Colour contrast” high contrast can make colour appear brighter than it is. Most often colours that look bright are not all that saturated. Even colour without saturation when placed next to a neutral colour can look brighter than it is.
- What is the colour harmony in the pattern? Refer to “Colour Scheme” post. Is it complementary? Analogous?
- What are the proportions of lights to darks?
- What are the proportions of colours to neutrals such as white, black, grey and brown?
- Does one colour dominate the tonal or chromatic variations?
- What is the design of the pattern or piece of artwork itself?
- A colour directly from the item the room is being designed around should not be pulled. For example, if designing a room around a certain drapery, the wall colour should be in harmony with the drapery not directly matching the drapery. Usually best to have a range of tonal values distributed in various ways throughout the room.
The above image is from Elle Decor.com and was featured in the article by Samantha Weiss-Hills and Angela Serratore titled “How to choose new furniture that will stand the test of time”.
The painting is a monochromatic colour scheme as it likely has values ranging from 3, 6 and 8 on Munsell’s Hue 5PB chart. We can see that the blues in the painting are placed against neutrals such as greys, whites and off-whites. Thus, presenting the blues as even more saturated than they may actually be. We see the blue monochromatic theme of the painting repeated in the room.
The top of the sky and the right most part of the sky has the darkest blue or highest tonal values. We see the higher tonal values repeated in the boat. Therefore, the light to darks are evenly proportionate. However, the proportion of neutrals compared to colour is much higher than the proportion of light to dark. We see the even proportions of light to dark translated to the the physical space. The designer has used light tonal values in the centre piece, chair cushion to the right and the cushions on the sofas to the right. Medium blue is used on the two sofas and darker tones are repeated in the cushions to the right and in the large central cushion to the left. The designer has also used more neutrals compared to colour just as the painting does. We see the floor, walls, centre table, side table and side chair are all neutral colours. Even the painting frame is a neutral colour. Window panes, the central brown light fixture along with the central accent pieces are all neutral.
The painting is of a beach and a boat, thus it creates a very relaxing beachy vibe. We see this vibe carried into the theme of the room. The central light fixture is a reminder of a thatched roof of a hut on a beach. The floor and the carpet are off-whites and creams and seem to be a continuation of the white, off-white sand on the beach. The side table on the left conveys a rugged finish in a white similar to the sand and the bottom ends in a sandy brown. The sandy brown theme is carried to the central table and side hut-like chair. Even the central vases and show pieces have textures and white colours similar to those found in seashells on the beach shores.
As mentioned before the varying tonal values and chroma of the blue sky, water and boat are repeated through the sofas, cushions and accent pieces. The outside back drop adds to the natural theme and the green actually provides a touch of analogous colour scheme and the brown in the tree branches tie nicely with the sandy browns in the interior. Far off in the distant outside there may even be an actual body of water which further adds to this beach theme. Lastly, we see that the designer has not pulled exact colours from the painting but rather has used similar colours that would be in the same range of tonal and chromatic value of the hue.
Information courtesy of New York School of Interior Design