Guidelines for using colour

Nature conditions us to expect balance and harmony and offers us guide-lines for the use of colour and provides us with some basic principles.

The darkest value at our feet e.g. forest floor

The medium level at eye level e.g. tree trunks

The lightest value above us e.g. sky

Consider carefully before deviating from these natural guide-lines. Use the most intense hues and values in areas occupied for short periods of time such as formal dining rooms, hallways, staff lunchrooms, laundries, entrances, etc. Avoid monotony and treat the eye and psyche to at least a moderate variety. Visual stimulus or relief is vital. Harmonious colour selections are created by a pleasing relationship of the three dimensions of colour: hue, intensity and value.

The human eye is pleased when correct proportions in colour are achieved. A touch of contrasting colour can be lively and exciting but too much can become uncomfortable. On the other hand, too much moderation produces dullness. Personal taste and preferences are the most important considerations in choosing a colour scheme. Think of colour as a chameleon:

1. It changes depending upon accent colours.

2. It is influenced by adjacent colours.

3. White or beige colours will take on the tint of adjacent hues.

4. Large areas intensify the colours.

Finally, think about proportions of colours. A basic rule using 2/3 one colour and 1/3 another is always successful.

Warm and Cool Colours

Cool

Blues and greens can introduce a cool mood into a room. The level of coolness will depend on the intensity of the colours. Cool colours can also be used to change the appearance of a room, pushing back walls and furnishings and making the room appear more spacious. They look best in a room with a sunny exposure, where the colours counteract some of the strength of the direct sun. They should be avoided in shaded rooms.

Warm

Warm colours, such as red and apricot, have an opposite, effect, closing in the walls of a room. If the room is large, its dimensions seem decreased. Warm colours look their best in a not so bright room with southern light, so that the bright effect of the sunny colours is not too overbearing.

Colour

What's in a colour?

Take a breath – don't you feel that spring is coming, the very emerald bright spring, so fresh and appealing to our eye? It s high time for people to take off their bасk-and-white uniforms that protect them from slush and to put on colourful, cheering-up clothes, which are always so tempting to look at.

And do you know that each colour with all the variety of hues it has, and each flower as well, has its own nature and peculiarities of perception? Leaving out common things, I'm eager to bring you up to date with the novelties.

RED. It is definitely a marvelous colour. Its light hues inspire passion and look determined, its dark variants are more respectable and serious. Red is a symbol of a holiday, life, love, passion, freedom, revolution... Be careful with the colour, it can take you too far...

The reddish-brown colour of TERRACOTTA is charmingly pretty. Being so sunny-warm and full of life, it arouses happiness and catches on quickly. Remember, only the most fabulous girls get rare terracotta Michaelmas daisies.

Peaceful and formal, the DARK-GREEN colour can turn into a blissfully cheerful thing if it's of a lighter tinge. Never give anything green to the French. They believe it brings misfortune; for them only in few cases can it stand for youth and amicability. More than that, do not forget about the Italian and English "green monster" and about the green face of somebody who doesn't feet well. All the same, the colour is very popular since all the beliefs and associations connected with it are nothing but exceptions, in the whole world it is normally considered to be a symbol of spring and a good start.

The phrase "life in the pink" is sure to have an equivalent in any language, PINK in its full variety shades is extremely popular in oriental countries. Maybe that is why exceptional oriental plants look so fine in pink.

The best way to express your admiration and respect towards a lady with the help of colours is to use WHITE. It is so light and untouched, and so eloquent that it can indicate friendship, trust or even something you do not know how to call at the same time, a rose, a lily, a chrysanthemum, -any flower can show it. By the way, be aware of the chrysanthemum. In France the only place you can find them is cemetery.

The royal VIOLET doesn't always look down on everyone. It can as well turn into a gentle iris or a sweet-scented lilac. It's a very controversial colour.

You miss your dearest friend? Give her a posy of sky-blue forget-me-nots. Their colour is so far away from the formality of dark-blue. In European cultures BLUE can have different connotations: Italians see the appealing to Russian people image of a 'prince on a white horse' being blue, and they see it in a positive way as we do. But on the other hand, the same Italian nation can be frightened or can miss somebody to such an extern that- they say everything turns blue inside them.

YELLOW is dangerous. The sign "radioactive" is accompanied by a picture with a yellow skull in the black background; a referee shows a yellow card to a player; A yellow line prevents you from parking; the yellow press with its qossip; icterus... Be attentive when choosing the yellow colour: only its tight pastel variants can it create the joyful atmosphere of a

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31