colors - A million and one!

A thousand and more colors exists and we come across them everyday. We live in world full of pure colors that are of different shades , value , intensity , contrast etc which makes a the difference.

But, we just chose to live around those colors that we find pleasant and that reflects our personality.

Here are few important properties of the color a decorator and a more importantly the client should understand.

Hue : -

What is the first thought you have in your mind when someone asks you what is the color of your car or sofa? would would think of the name of color - my car is red or sofa is brown. Now that name of the color is called Hue.

Value : -

Remember

• Value is the amount of lightness or darkness in a color.
• Value progress from white (Lightest) to black (Darkest) with shades of gray between them.
• Value is ONLY Lightness or Darkness.

My car is light blue or My coat is dark brown.

Color + White ----> (Light value) Tints

Color + Black -----> (Dark value) Shades

Gray scale chart


Color value scale


What not to do ..!

Never ask anything like "what shade of red is your car?"..!
Never say "Its very light shade".!

There is no thing as light shade.

Shade is like the shade of the tree , always darker than the pure hue. :)


Contrasts :-

Contrasts work both the ways - To hide an object or make it the center of attraction..!!

---> Best example to hide an object that you do not want your guests to notice easily is quick tip #2.

You would have not noticed this fireplace if not for the woods..!!



---> Now to bring something to center of attraction is where the value if contrast will help the most.

For Example : -

Lets consider a situation where we have a fireplace mantel which is of white marble and the walls of the room are painted off white. This is where the fire place is hidden and can not be noticed , or its blends with the wall. This is only when you want to hide the fire place for some reason. But to make it the center of attraction , one obvious way is to increase the value of the wall surrounding it.



And to give it a better look we can arrange some accessories over the mantel...!

What not to do...!!

Avoid sharp contrasts (Very light against very dark) unless a dramatic effect is required.
And to balance such contrast , for example we can add a plaid sofa and two throw pillows between the area of soft and dark values.

Best is to avoid such gaudiness...!

Remember - Dark value heavier in weight than the lighter value. So to bring a balance, we can have more smaller areas with dark values to balance the large area of lighter value.



The pictures used here are not my work. Its just google'd give the readers the best example for the contents in my post.

To be continued ......