Vermillion

Newly painted columns at the restored Sanjūsangen-dō temple, Kyoto.

photo by Lynne Rutter, Kyoto, Japan, March 2009

Vermillion columns, deep charcoal gray roof tiles, white plaster walls, deep malachite green shutters, accents of canary yellow. I love this palette.

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting

Turquoise- the color of the year

Erling's turquoise straw fedora

Colors seem to go in and out of fashion so much faster than I'd like. Of course I never tire of a color that I love, further, I feel it's really the combination of colors that makes them appealing or trendy (or not) and not just a single hue.

A New Year, and time once again for the experts to announce the "Color of the Year" which for 2010 is to be turquoise: a bright color full of possibilities and which works well to jazz up a variety of palettes. You'd be surprised how well it works with black, oxblood red, and even lavender.



I am pretty wild about these cobalt turquoise pigments available from Enkaustikos and from Sinopia (right).

Golden Artist Colors makes a brilliant cobalt turquoise acrylic paint; I used copious amounts of it in one of my recent projects.

further reading!

• Rather nice discussions of color from Ellen Kennon
  
• Have a look at this charming blog "House of Turquoise" for thousands of lovely images featuring this favorite color.
  
• Interesting "Color Futures" PDF brochure, from AzkoNobel features some new palette idea for 2010.
  
• Sherwin-Williams has an informative color site with a lot of nice examples.

blue and ivory

I was talking with one of my fellow painters about what to do when you are stumped. I said "try some blue." I seem to remember one of my mentors telling me that it was one of the rules of good design, that there needs to be a bit of blue in every well dressed room. This advice has never failed me!
Think about it, does your great grandmother's flow blue platter ever look bad anywhere?

Likewise when I was asked to add a bit of ornament and color to an antique ivory-colored corner hutch, for a Provinçal-style room designed by Claudia Juestal of Adeeni Design, I turned to blue. How perfect for a room with lots of red and yellow!

The enhancement of this piece started with a loosely painted wedgewood-blue scroll. On the cabinet doors, scenes from a favorite toile de jouy pattern are a nod to the French country tradition.

Another blue and ivory piece I painted recently is this large folding screen, which was custom built for the Vintage Laundry room I designed in the San Francisco Decorator Showcase.

The screen is painted with some neoclassical motifs and lighthearted singerie scenes, with monkeys sewing and doing laundry. This restrained hint of color added just right amount of the blue finesse to dress up the room.

Click on images to view larger


Okay but what about other colors? Have a look in the gallery on my website, to see some more colorful painted furniture.


All work in this post ©Lynne Rutter
screen photos by David Papas

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Exterior Color: Noe Valley Victorian

Beautiful Victorian details celebrated with six colors and gold leaf!

This Victorian in San Francisco's Noe Valley could not help being a bit cute. The Stick-Eastlake Cottage had been painted about 15 years ago using the pink colors from the magnificent hortensia blooming in its front entry.

before: a pink and green scheme for the cutest house on the street!

When it came time to repaint, the owners asked me to design something a bit more grown-up.

Choosing a Color: I ask my clients to drive around town and photograph houses of similar style whose paint schemes appealed to them. Every one they chose was green! So we started with green. The color scheme I devised for this house uses six colors, all from from Benjamin Moore's Historic Color range, with 23 karat gold leaf on the buttons and pediment ornaments.

Managing contrast: This palette is as much about contrast as it is about color. One technique being employed here is the use of what I call a "secondary trim" color, in this case HC-96 "richmond gray" which is about 30% darker in value than the "high trim" color (HC -32 "standish white") and is used to support features like brackets and window columns, and to create a break between the main body color of the house and the more vibrant accent colors of the window sashes and insets.

Know when to say when: The custom garage door was simplified from three colors to one, and painted the same as the body color, so as not to compete for attention from the main part of the facade. The front door, which had been whimsically painted with four different colors, now sports a more European look in a solid glossy teal with polished hardware and gold leaf details, leading the eye right to the entrance.

After: the Victorian Cottage as stately home

click on any image to view larger

Expert Painting by San Francisco Local Color Painting
Color Consulting by Lynne Rutter 415-282-8820

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

simple design = big change!

sketch for silhouette mural: run spot run!

I recently completed a deceptively simple silhouette mural, for a veterinary ophthalmology practice in San Francisco. This mural is designed for a bumpy, angled, and very long hallway wall.
For an assignment like this the two most important things are a good drawing, and the right color.The wall "before" was stark white, in an uneven 36 foot long sloping hallway. Work in progress: Just painting the wall blue had a tremendous impact on this space.

bulldog and horse see eye to eye!

The client asked that the design feature a variety of animals, emphasize the importance of sight, as well as show interaction between the animals and their human companions.
Here are some more details:

kathy explaining derivatives to her hound.

the great butterfly hunt!

Both the reception area and the hall now have a nice view!

You can see this mural in person at the office of Veterinary Vision in San Francisco.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Exterior Color: Contrast and Simplicity

10th Avenue Edwardian with its elegant new paint job

When less is more.... Once in a great while I find myself needing to use less color to reach the goal. For this circa 1915 stucco Edwardian house in San Francisco, the homeowners asked me to help create a more sophisticated, period look.
The previous paint job called out every detail in a mauve and white palette, with accents of forest green and dark rose. This gave the facade a somewhat whimsical, more Victorian appearance, which somehow de-emphasized the architecture by separating each element with a deep color; many features seemed to float unsupported.

10th Ave Edwardian, before and after

Houses of this era were originally far simpler, often covered in wood shingles, or with unpainted, natural stucco. To create an appearance more in keeping with the home's true period style, I recommended we give it back some of its architectural stability by simplifying the scheme to emphasize the form of the house, and started with a color similar to the stucco material itself.

Using a limited palette and strong contrast, my scheme features charcoal green stucco, with dark ivory woodwork. All of the structural woodwork is painted the same color: brackets and beams are now connected and supporting the roof! Roof tiles that had been painted red were replaced with natural brown tile, to relate better with the dark foundation brick. A touch of a warm light green in the eaves reflects some light behind the beams.

This house now has an impressive presence from the street; the architecture is doing all the talking.




Color Consulting from Lynne Rutter 415.282.8820

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

The Silver Kitchen

This gorgeous custom kitchen was recently featured in the Spring 2009 issue of Better Homes and Gardens "Beautiful Kitchens." This room features a silver and ecru color palette and is dressed with rock crystal and stainless steel. I painted a faux limestone finish on the walls and used venetian lime plaster to create the irregular stone-like finish on the range hood.

These warm stone finishes compliment the silver pearlescent cabinets and white calcutta marble counter. Silver is a recurring theme color in this Piedmont, Ca. home, where I contributed color design and well as many other decorative finishes.













photo courtesy Camber Construction, where you can see more of my work in this house.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Geek Color

Can these new iPhone applications save me lugging around giant paint color fan decks? We shall see!


This week the internet is all abuzz with news of a new iPhone application ben® Color Capture™ - developed for "ben" by Benjamin Moore, that allows you to snap a picture of whatever inspiring beauty you see, then match moments in that photo to the more than 3,300 colors in Benjamin Moore’s range. The application will be available for free download beginning June 1.

Fans of SuperPaint will rejoice that Sherwin-Williams has its own interactive iPhone app called ColorSnap™ which is available for free download now. It identifies colors in your images, and suggests palette colors surrounding them, and will even give you the RGB code of each color for web use.

For you advanced color players there are even more options - beyond paint!

Color Expert, from Code Line Communications, uses an interactive color wheel displays color sets in various schemes including monochromatic, complementary, analogous, split complementary and triadic, which update as you drag a finger across it. You can also view a variety of color palettes, find hex codes for RGB values, look up HTML named colors, Web-safe palettes, etc., and then email your designer friends with your inspired finds! This one is $9.99

Palettes, by Ricky Maddy, can analyze a photo, web URL, or any other image, and offer a breakdown of its colors into a pleasing looking palette. $9.99 for this app, or free for the "lite" version.

For me these applications are not quite sensitive or accurate enough for picking colors but they are interesting for working out palette decisions. Looks like I will be eye-matching my paint for a while to come.

Images courtesy Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Exterior Color: using paint to emphasize architecture

Here is another case study on the placement of paint color, and how to get the most from your Victorian facade.
This Laguna Street Queen Anne Victorian had some common issues- raised to add a garage, the house looked so high off the ground that the nice parts of the facade were hard to find; you could see the garage door but not the front entrance.
My clients asked me to give this Grand San Francisco Lady the refined look she deserves. I started by talking to them about not just the colors, but where we put them, and the difference between emphasizing details vs emphasizing architecture.
You see, it isn't just the colors you choose, but where you put them that makes all the difference!

Laguna St. Queen Anne before and after: color design by Lynne Rutter. Click on image to view larger

In the previous paint job, every detail was painted differently. Despite a complicated scheme of 5 colors, the house looked a bit flat; the placement of colors emphasized individual features, but without honoring the role they play in the architecture.
Columns in the entablature as well as in the entry arch, were painted dusty rose while the areas behind them were much lighter, so rather than stand out, these columns receded into the background, and everything above them, crown moulding and brackets, "floated" unsupported. Fancy rosettes had dark "holes" of burgundy, and the lovely egg and dart feature in the crown moulding had been painted out like a dark ribbon, slicing an otherwise substantial crown into three skinny horizontal stripes.

Laguna St. entablature before and after: click on image to view larger

So, in addition to a new palette, we needed a new "map" of where to put the colors to best bring out the shape of the architecture, and help this house stand up straight!

The first thing I did was de-emphasize the garage, creating a "foundation" for the house by painting everything below the entry the same deep neutral gray, a color very similar to the stone covered foundations of neighboring houses.
"Structural trim" that is, everything supportive, or the "bones" of the house - columns, cornices, crowns, capitols, etc. - are painted a warm ivory, so that they are connected and supported by each other. Carved elements like the egg and dart in the crown, now show up as sculptural relief, with shadows and highlights adding detail. From there, shades of green, bamboo, gold, and ivory, are arranged to focus attention on the beauty of the structure. In all, seven colors of paint are in use here, with some choice decorative features highlighted in 23 karat gold leaf.

All colors on this project were specified using C2 paints.


Bring out the best in your historic building, whether it be inside or outside. Color Consultation 415-282-8820

Entablature is in the glossary!

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Exterior Color: Two Stucco Edwardians

I love working with color, particularly with period homes. Here are a couple of recent transformations which illustrate my motto: do what will make the architecture look its best! Often this involves a bit more than paint colors to get the desired result.

28th Avenue Edwardian, San Francisco: color by Lynne Rutter, painted by Local Color

The previous owner of this home in Sea Cliff had "simplified" this house and painted it yellow in an attempt to make it look "Tuscan." My clients wanted to see the house restored to its original style, and look more like a formal City house. Black aluminum windows were replaced with insulated windows using the original Edwardian profile. San Francisco Local Color Painting stripped the paint off the foundation walls revealing the original red bricks, and then painted the entire house using all C2 paints.

The color scheme is a nod to the arts and crafts era. I started with a de-saturated green/grey accented with oxblood-red windows, and a linen-color trim that appears white in contrast to the body color. A fourth color; a warm, lighter green; is added under the eaves and on the stucco cross pieces to show off the more horizontal features and give these details a lift in the areas where it might otherwise get heavy. The result is a calm, formal facade with elegant detail.

Here is another Edwardian-era stucco and wood house with some similar issues:

Cole Street Edwardian: color design by Lynne Rutter

My clients on Cole Street disliked the whimsical "storybook" look of the house and wished to downplay the decorative half-timbered beams. They wanted the house to be simple and modern. However, previous attempts at "modernizing" this facade- by removing some features and adding others- only served to make it look more convoluted, and the old pink and purple paint job was borderline silly. I convinced the homeowners to restore the facade as much as possible, to give it back its architectural stability, which would go a long way towards creating a more refined entrance to their home. Iron railings were removed, missing brackets replaced, the garage door replaced with something simple.

The color design involves six colors of paint, some of which were custom mixed. The body above the main horizontal beam is painted a warm, tan color, with just a bit of contrast between the stucco and wood. A jazzy cobalt blue front door integrates the blue stained glass surrounding it, and calls attention to the entrance. The base and garage door are painted solid with Benjamin Moore "Hampshire Grey." This deeper color gives the massive facade a grounded base, and makes for a more stately appearance from the sidewalk. Now the overall look of this house is grand, true to its period style, without being cute or nostalgic.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Joy Prevails Over Apathy

Every year some team of experts decides what the "color of the year" is going to be, and for 2009, it's a certain color of yellow. I had already been working on this panel of chinoiserie using a bright Imperial Yellow field when I heard this "news."
Interesting how these "fashions" in wallpaper, trends in paint, styles and colors, come and go, and come back again. The myth here is that anything is ever really all that new.

My painting above has a trompe l'oeil illusion, of brightly colored chinoiserie paper being torn up from its predecessor, the monochromatic neoclassical stencil pattern. Don't get me wrong, I love neoclassical design, but these days I feel a need for color. I find myself attracted not to just one color, but the combination of them, and I come back to this bright yellow every so often because it makes me happy. I felt, every moment I worked on this painting, basking in yellow, the sensation of pure joy!

So to me this painting is about the triumph of joy. The joy of color dominating the innocuous, monochromatic style; the joy of vision over nostalgia; of radiating rather than retreating.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting