Several years ago I attended a party at a tiny adobe home near the university. This house was surrounded by one of the most beautiful flower gardens I've ever seen. The place was owned by a painter and her husband and every wall, every floor, every ceiling in the house was saturated with vibrant colors. I counted six different rich shades of purple in the kitchen. The furnishings were sparse - all you noticed was the color and the hostess' paintings on the walls. Every person I've talked to who attended this party remembers the house vividly and talks about how much they loved it. Great colors can make you feel great.
I always wonder why we all are not surrounded by more color in our daily lives. I do the beige furnishing thing just as much as anyone else even though DH and I really do love bright colors. New Mexico is more colorful than other states - you certainly can find homes with lime green trim and hot pink doors here, especially in Santa Fe. One of my favorite artist's residences on the Turquoise Trail is surrounded by brightly colored glass bottles - in the trees, whole fences of bottles, decorating the house. When you catch the house in the right sun it looks like a kaleidoscope.
Even though we are surrounded by such inspiration, most of my friends live with beige furniture and white walls. Some of it is cultural I guess and some of it is that we worry how others will react if we start painting our houses intense colors. I once saw a gardening show where the owner had a traditional beige suburban house. In his fenced back yard (which wasn't visible from any other house) he had painted about 50 different colors on the back of the house and the trim, the fence, the patio furniture. He had his wild colors but noone knew outside his house.
Many people, myself included, feel their color skills aren't great and don't feel confident to try something new and different. I'd be willing to bet that the color masters like Kaffe Fassett, the Starmores, Kathryn Alexander, and Sarah Swett think about colors often and put some thought and effort into working with them.
One of my goals is to develop my color skills and fill my house with more color. I believe color skills can be learned and improved with various exercises. Spin-Off did a great series of articles on this subject and one of the exercises was to design a project with different shades of one color.
Here is my first attempt. I've collected a few shades of red yarns and will start thinking about designing a pair of gloves. These colors are redder in real life than in the scan. This would be easier if I added a contrast color but I think first I'm going to try just reds.
