Colour Your World

I've been painting lately. Rooms, not art. I find it interesting the colour choices people make to shade their everyday lives. Some are bold... some are deep... some are subdued and some are almost all white.

Sometimes I paint a room for someone and wonder how they chose that colour. After all, it isn't something to be taken lightly (or darkly, as the case may be). The colour of a room depicts some part of their personality and the room they chose to put that colour in is as important as the colour itself. After meeting a person (or couple) and seeing the colours they have chosen, I can often tell if they are projecting their personality or if they are attempting to project something else.

The colours we choose reflect something in us we want to show off or something in us we want to bring out.

I wondered about the choice of colour and my impressions of people. Is there a link between the person who seems to be an introvert and who has a brightly coloured home? At first glance, it might not feel right. Usually when I spend some time in a person's home and get a sense of who they are as compared to the colour I'm putting on their walls, I get the sense of whether they are projecting something they wish to be or whether they are showing something they already know they are yet keep hidden or are simply re-enforcing what we all can see.

I wondered about my own colour choices.

I tend toward earthy tones... colours that feel comfortable to me. Browns and greens are my penchant though colours that “punch up” a feature or accent a wall are important to me as well. For instance, yellow is a traditional kitchen colour and it's one I will avoid as much as I possibly can. Why yellow? Yellow is a colour that wakes you up, is mentally stimulating, activates memory and encourages communication... all things that are a good thing in the morning. To me though, it's harsh. I don't like something that (to me) screams at me when I haven't yet had three cups of coffee. I would prefer something subdued in the morning rather than something which jolts me into photoelectric shock. Bright white kitchens do the same to me.

I would prefer orange in the kitchen... specifically, pumpkin... ish... sorta.

To me, the living room should be some hue of green... along the line of deep sea green; it's soothing, mentally relaxing, helps alleviate anxiety, depression and offers a sense of renewal, self-control and harmony. This explains the green used in hospitals for so many years... though the hue wouldn't be my choice. It also explains why I feel rejuvenated after a walk in the woods.

The choice of colour in each room should reflect how you wish to feel in that room.

The colours I've been painting this weekend have been rich and full of life. Subtle differences appear in some spaces and dramatic swatches appear in others. It seems to me to be a blend of solid grounding and outside the box thinking; colours of fire and earth.

Colour is the backdrop, the foundation if you will, for all of those other things we will place in a room that also represent bits and pieces of who we are, who we were and who we wish to become; the backdrop for our pictures and saved trinkets and the family wall and the furniture and that weird rooster thingy we got at a garage sale four summers ago when we had a great day with our kids.

Colour, to me, is the representation of the basic person we really are.

The world seems a more vibrant, exciting and interesting with colour.

It's the same with people, I think.

Namaste