Seven Coats of Paint Later…..

If you regularly read my blog, and thank you if you do, you will know that colour is of great interest to me. When you immerse yourself in a topic like colour, you can go quite far along many fascinating and often quite complex paths but something very simple occurred to me this week.

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing 1136

There are an endless number of books and magazine articles available instructing us  how to ‘be happy’ but this week I witnessed numerous people entering a room looking pretty serious, glum even, and emerging from the other side transformed into carefree smiling happy looking people.

This remarkable room they entered is in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,  Edinburgh which currently has a Sol LeWitt installation, Wall Drawing 1136, painted directly onto the gallery walls. Wouldn’t it be great if the gallery filmed visitors as they entered the room and showed the footage as a separate installation? The transformations were really quite marked.

Wall Drawing 1136 contains the seven colours of the rainbow and it literally dances around the room. Sweeping through the bold vertical bands of colour is a wide, playful curve. Complementary colours red and green are the only two colours which are repeated in the curve boosting the energy levels of the curve even further. Interesting that such a colourful, dynamic, powerful and happy work should be designed by Sol LeWitt in 2004 when he was 76, which was close to the end of his life in 2007.

Considering part of my job is to specify paint, I was intrigued by the process of translating Sol LeWitt’s detailed instructions into the physical artwork that appears in the gallery. It took a team of eight one month to complete. The gallery walls were re- plastered, then washed with a fine adhesive paste making the walls smooth and hard. Eight coats of white paint were then applied before the process of masking (150 rolls of tape were used!) out the bands could take place. Each band of colour then had seven coats of paint applied! The process can be seen on the gallery’s flickr stream – looks like they had some fun too.

The  water based acrylic paint they have used is Lascaux, a Swiss paint company – the first European company to produce acrylic paint for artists. An interesting company who pride themselves in their water based production methods. All the water that leaves the factory is cleaned in their own purification plant.

But back to my initial point. Colour, especially the colours we associate with childhood (we all loved our packs of crayola‘s after all) can create intensely powerful emotions. Couple this with the imaginative and detailed instructions from Sol LeWitt which are then perfectly executed by a dedicated team of craftsmen  and you create a heady installation of pure joy.

Colour makes you smile.

London: a Riot of Colour

I have to admit to not quite knowing where to start with today’s post. I spent last week in London, a city that never fails to blow my mind, and last week was no exception. It was of course in the throws of London Fashion Week and the The Brit Awards which meant that the shop windows were groomed and styled to perfection.

Strong colour trends were clearly visible throughout London. Blocks of coral crashing into great chunks of Klein blue and 70′s purples anchored by spicy tans and cinnamon hues – tribal colours without the pattern, instead emerging in great blocky geometric shapes.

As if I needed any more colour stimulus, I made a trip to the David Hockney exhibition ‘A Bigger Picture’. Suddenly you find yourself looking at the English countryside though a new set of eyes. To say the exhibition is vibrant, energetic, zesty would somehow be an understatement. This huge exhibition positively bursts off the walls of the Royal Academy with a ramped up sense of optimism and freshness. I would strongly recommend you to watch Andrew Marr’s interview with David Hockney on last nights The Culture Show - so much can be learnt from the mind of this artistic genius. As Hockney says, ‘everything becomes interesting if you really look’, I couldn’t agree more.

looking at patterns and exaggerating colour in Fife

Space is something David Hockney often talks of, particularly where one thing stops and another thing starts. Where two colours meet is something I am intensely interested in as the energy created at the boundaries of adjoining colours is the perfect fusion of art and science. But infinite space is one of  Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s enduring obsessions.  Her show at Tate Modern is one of the most fascinating exhibitions I have ever seen.

It shows her work constantly changing over the decades which probably mirrors her life which includes living in rural Japan, New York, Tokyo and for the last thirty years living voluntarily in a  psychiatric institution where she has created work hoping to show the psychological trauma she so often feels and wants to escape from. Leaving the exhibition you must navigate through a darkened room covered in mirrors and tiny coloured lights which completely disorientate you and seem to stretch out to infinity. It really is something you should experience if you are in London.

Apologies for the lack of photographs on this post but I couldn’t take my camera into the exhibitions. I’ve also been very busy creating some new products – I’m still at the messy stage but I am really pleased with the pieces that I started in Iceland last month.  I hope to have images up soon!

Your Personal Paint Palette from a Photo

It’s the fun part of decorating that many people find rather mind boggling – choosing a paint colour. If you regularly read my blog, you will know it’s a subject I frequently write about but today, I have found another way to kick start the inspiration required when selecting colours. Of course there are many things to take into account when choosing colours which I have discussed in detail previously but if it’s a starting point you are looking for, why not try this.

People tend to be naturally attracted to “colour groups”. The groups may be seasonal colours ( see previous post Finding your Dominant Colour Personality), or environments such as woodland, beaches or urban colours. However, why not flick through your photo collection and find an image with appealing colours. It may be tricky picking out individual hues so why not pixelate your image and discover a palette looking right back at you?

I very definitely fall into the “beach” category so this photo of a Isle of Syke beach throws back a palette which is ideal for me.

As nature is an expert in combining colours, you may find this wild flower meadow a good starting point.

Looking for some natural grays? What about this group of Parisian pigeons

Or your favourite piece of contemporary art?

You may find a palette in a surprising place. This serene palette is a photo of graffiti I saw in New York City.

As you can see there are infinite possibilities so have some fun with your own photo album. Why not have your pixelated image enlarged and printed onto a canvas, a unique artwork for your room – the colours will be perfect!

On Target

If you are feeling a bit flat or bogged down, can I suggest you have a browse through French company  Domestic wall stickers.

From Finnish artists depicting magical Moominish landscapes to graphic designers such as Ich & Kar with their vivid use of colour in “Target 1″ you will discover your problem suddenly becomes which one to choose!

Wouldn’t mind the George Nelson bench in the foreground too…