So, we are back and our beach holidays are at an end. But that sounds a little depressing and as this is supposed to be a blog full of positive inspiration, I thought I’d share a room scheme that to me shouts of eternal sun and blue skies, with a bit of pink thrown in. Not the pink of raw sunburnt flesh but the soft pink of the underside of shells, worn down by sea water over thousands of years.
Those clever, clever creative people at Farrow & Ball threw this heavenly combination across my way, when I attended their colours schemes for 2017 launch a few months back. Despite the ‘2017’ label, their schemes are utterly timeless and do not follow a fixed trend-phew! I don’t ‘do’ trends.
But I do want to know how and why do three apparently strong tones work so well together. We tend to opt for one or two main colours in a scheme and keep the rest fairly neutral-ish. Or maybe that’s just me. But it is good to break with tradition and be bold, and this scheme inspires me to think outside the box.
As you may know, I do love mixing colours but I often get it very wrong. So I am curious, how and why does the combination below – pink, blue and yellow work so well together? What is the science behind the combination? I put this question to Joa Studholme, the International Colour Consultant of Farrow & Ball. She explained this is because all three have equal depth and strength of colour. They complement each other perfectly. So perfectly in fact that any proportion of the trio would work well. Meaning, you might choose yellow for the walls, blue for the woodwork and pink for a piece of furniture. Or vice versa. Or, if the space allows it, stand in your hallway and choose one colour per room ahead of you, thereby uniting the downstairs space on a bigger scale.
So it’s not so bad after all, this whole September thing (actually my favourite month). Not only do we have an original and novel colour scheme, but one that will always take us back to the beach.
