For the love of color

Can color alone make someone so happy? Well, yes, I think it can. I can stand for hours in the paint store looking at paint chips, fanning them, arranging them, rearranging them, refanning them, restacking them and then happily leaving with them. Then I get home and start the process over again.

Two of the four people in this family do not understand that at all. And well, I feel sorry for them, I really do. Oh, to be missing out on the love of color. I have the daughter though, and she’s right there with me in a wonder-spectrum-land. We’re a little like Alice in her wonderland, but with the drug of color pulling us down that rabbit hole.

Many times when I start a new collection I get out the trusted paint chips, deal out the colorful cards, and see just how that hand will play out. It’s just as exciting as beginning new sketches, playing with shapes for the patterns, and wondering just where the collection will end up. I never have the entire design in my mind, but I have a very good sense of what I want it to become.

Here is a little study in color I’ve added to the Beau Nouveau collection. One of my all time fave color combinations is using the warm and cool blends of a color together. In that I mean, a coral (pink-orange) with a bubble gum (pink-purple), or a chartreuse (yellow-green) with an aqua (blue-green). When I can mix colors in that way I am in my wonder-spectrum-land of happiness. That’s all it takes.