The Power of Colors – Part 8
Let’s take the power of colors and add them to your life. I’m going to add more articles about how color affects us in our homes and on us personally when we wear certain colors. Right now, we are going to cover the last of Leslie Kane’s article before we move on to other information.
Adding Color to Your Life
When you use colors to evoke a particular mood, you must take into account not only your own color preferences but also your environment outside the home, says Walch of the Color Association. To provide a psychological boost, your home should represent a color “break” from the outside environment.For example, because the brown landscape in the Southwest offers very little color, people living there tend to favor flaming orange, hot pink and other vibrant colors in their homes.
“I think most people are color-deprived,” Walch says. “People have real color needs, just as they have food needs. It is human and healthy to desire color change. If I live in a white space all day at work, I need a splash of color at home. But,” she warns, “the bolder the color statement, the more quickly you may tire of it. You may love the idea of a red kitchen, but you grow bored with the real thing.”
Remember, too, that colors exist within a cultural context. “We can’t ignore the strong, long-standing associations people make with colors,” Walch says. “Take brown. The dying grass is brown; school desks are brown. We think of brown as dreary and utilitarian. So I wouldn’t want to paint my walls brown.”
When selecting paint, wallpaper, carpeting or furniture, keep in mind that color is partly determined by the light in which is seen. A carpet sample that looks fresh green under the store’s cool white fluorescent lighting will appear hunter green under daylight fluorescents and olive green at home under incandescent light. So be sure to check your paint or carpet in the lighting in which it will live. That way you won’t end up being so angry that you see red.
That bit of advice is very good. You do need to see your colors in the environment. Using color to create moods in your home is fun. I’ve taught one of my daughters what I know. With her classes at a university on design, she has taken it to another height. We will talk about it in another series of articles.
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Tagged with: Color • colors • environment • life • Love
