Color

I’ve been thinking a lot about color recently. I think it’s interesting that children develop such strong color preferences so early on. Benjamin has loved royal blue for as long as he’s had an opinion about things. He loved his royal blue sweats (he had two pairs) and would have worn them every day if I’d let him. Finally when they were about 4 inches too short, I sneakily retired them. We were at the fabric store yesterday, and he ran to a spool of royal blue sequin trim and shouted, “Oh, Mommy! This is SO cute!” Recently, he has also identified an awful royal blue Monte Carlo in a parking lot as “beautiful” and a bike at Walmart (which was actually more a cross between aqua and royal blue) as being the coolest thing he’d ever seen. Whenever we play Candy Land, of course he uses the blue gingerbread boy.
I’ve noticed the same is true of little girls, that often they are obsessed with anything pink. I don’t think I ever was. I loved “sky blue,” and would make fun of my preschool boyfriend Jesse for liking pink best. I’m not sure why my color preference was acceptable in my mind but his wasn’t.
Later as I explored my artistic side, I enjoyed wearing really bright clothes. In middle school, I had a pair of royal blue corduroys that I paired with an awful multi-colored sweater. Later, I had bright red corduroys and purple corduroys. I still love corduroys, but at least since I’ve had kids, I’ve found my color choices have become a lot more subdued. Now I wear a lot of grays, browns, blacks and whites. I sometimes wish I had Benjamin’s complexion and could get away with wearing kelly green, but I don’t.
One of my favorite classes I took in college was “Color Theory.” It’s hard to explain what we actually did in that class, but it was fascinating. It had a lot to do with the relationships between colors, and discovering what “true” primaries and secondaries were. In case you were wondering, I am no longer convinced that red is a true primary color. I think it might actually be more of a magenta. We had a color-blind guy in that class, and he had to work REALLY hard. I thought it was kind of funny.
It’s interesting how color can affect mood. I love October for the vibrant blue skies juxtaposed by the fiery autumn leaves. I love the early Spring for the bright yellow-greens that emerge from the dark earth. I love the vibrant reds that appear in the late Spring. God has the perfect color sense.
The eating area in our kitchen is perfect, as far as I’m concerned. It balances the adjacent red room, and the two shades of green complement each other very well. We had a lot of paint left over from that project, so being the cheapskate I am (I also like to think of myself as “green,” since I hate wasting things), I decided to continue the darker shade of green down the hallway. I think that also looks great in our house. Then of course, the extra gallon of light green needed to be used, so I decided that it would be perfect for the baby’s room (Benjamin’s old room that used to be a dark steel blue. I liked the color, but it looked like someone hired a ten year old to paint the room. We had to go over it with a coat of Kilz plus two coats of green,). But it wasn’t. Now it just looks depressing.
I think there are several reasons why it doesn’t work at all. First, it’s a north-facing room with only one window, so it gets little natural light, and the light that does come in through the window is cool light. Second, the baby furniture we have in there is white, so the room looks very washed out and pale (but not in a good way). I’ve been playing around with different fabrics and am still stitching together a large colorful rug for that room, but it’s still not working. I got some great striped fabric for a roman shade that I’m going to make out of the mini blinds in there. Again, I got the idea from one of my very favorite design blogs, Little Green Notebook. If I can do that, then I feel like I can tackle the five windows in our bedroom that are also covered in awful mini blinds. I love one of the rooms she uses to illustrate the uses for roman shades. The shade here is actually exactly what the rug I’m working on looks like. Which has of course gotten me thinking…maybe it would be worth it to get a nice warm brown and repaint Peter’s room. Again. But this time I’d have to do it alone since Paul is VERY done with painting our house! Can you blame him? :)