Natures Palette

Some of the colour schemes we are using here at Teindside are extremely vibrant and take inspiration from the Georgian fascination with China, India and the far east. I have always loved how the Europeans came up with the totally eccentric idea of Chinoiserie which was essentially an invented imitation of Chinese and other exotic Eastern art and design, all mixed together. Brighton Pavillion, is a case in point, designed as the ultimate party house for George IV it is a riot of Anglo-Eastern excess, and I love it! On a slightly more modest note, I recently purchased a lovely little Chinoiserie wine table at auction, and this is going to be the starting point for what will be an opulent dining room. But upstairs, in some of the bedrooms, I am taking a different approach. For me, bedrooms should be restful places where one can easily relax. So instead of Chinoiserie excitement, I am opting for natural palettes as a rule of thumb.

When I taught interior design back in the mid-nineties, one of my favourite creative exercises was ‘colour analysis’. It involved the students bringing in a favourite photograph or painting of a landscape scene and then literally analysing the colours within it, recreating the colours using watercolour paint and re-assembling them, according to their position in the chosen picture, as a colour ladder. This exercise enabled the students to do two things. Firstly, to see colour as it really appears, rather than what our brain tells us it should be. By this I mean that for all sorts of reasons our brain might tell us that the sea is blue, but in reality, it might be any number of colours ranging from bright turquoise green to the deepest purple to the coldest steel grey. We might assume a shoreline to be brown because logic tells us it is made from mud and stones, but in reality, it dazzles us in a range of mushroom mauves and pinks. Secondly, the exercise enabled the students to see how colour works together according to how it is placed and in what quantity. I loved to see how pleased my students were when they had created their first colour ladder and then used it to design a decorative room scheme, often remarking how they would never have thought to put such a colour scheme together. In nature, anything goes, and going through this simple process shows how we can trust nature to give us insight and inspiration when designing.

So, I took a leaf out of my ‘old’ schoolbook and used this simple but effective approach for our master bedroom. First, I applied the technique to colour, drawing out a muted natural palette from a pair of small, mid-19th century oil paintings depicting roses, before applying it to texture as well. The result is a calm and sophisticated room that nods to its historic past through the use of vintage linens, natural floor coverings and antique furniture.

This is a very enjoyable exercise well worth a try if you are struggling to come up with a colour scheme to revitalise your room. Take your time, look hard at the colours and create a wonderfully subtle interior that will not date.