Basic Color Selection
by Annie Margarita

Color selection can be very confusing. A large percent of clients don’t know where to start. As a color specialist, I have had many college classes in color theory, along with over 30 years as a fine artist, mixing colors on a daily basis. Most house painters do not acquire the skill of mixing paint anymore. I can remember my grandfather’s garage (I’m a 5th generation decorative painter), where he had his own mixing station. Professional painters of long ago generally did it themselves. With the computer generation, painters frequently rely on color matching and mixing to the paint store. The paint companies have also created new paint sample sizes to help minimize client costs. So where to begin?

 
Color Chips
Anyone walking into a paint store will notice a huge wall of color. Color chips are organized into different palettes for ease of use. Each manufacturer creates it’s own ideas about what will be popular and what is frequently used. Everyone has different taste. With the infinite amount of colors to choose from, each company must limit themselves to a certain amount of set colors. One company may have the color you want, but not offer the quality that you want. Many times painters will use a color chip from one company to color match into a different paint manufacturer. The paint companies don’t particularly like this, but you are usually able to switch if the paint chip isn’t marked.

You can use your own paint chip, so long as it’s at least a few inches square. It’s lucky when you can find a magazine article etc. in a large enough chip. The paint store can put this into the color matching machine, where they will get a close match to the original. It’s not perfect. Sometimes the color needs additional “tweaking”. The paint store employee is often capable of the adjustment. This capability allows for more possibilities for additional colors.

Interior designers have “color fans” of these paint chips. Color fans are neat organized tools to carry to different locations in an entire set. The reason color chips are so handy is that they are portable and are a good rendition of the paint color.

One big rule to remember: Paint colors always appear darker on a big wall than the paint chip. For some scientific reason, the more of a color that you have, the stronger the color. The paint samples are the same way.

Paint Chip Organization
Most companies organize their paint chips in percentages. One card will have multiple paint chip colors. These are usually different shades of the same color. A shade is a degree of darkness in a single color by adding either white or black. The card will go from light to dark in the same color range. These chips are “safe” to choose complimentary colors from. Often times walls are deeper shades of ceiling colors. So using the same color card to choose both, is a safe bet that you will get coordinating colors.

Some companies will put colors together on a card because they “go together” or are in the same color family. These cards have different shades and hues. A hue has a color other than the primary color with shade in it. So you can have a brown with red in it next to a brown with yellow in it. Smaller paint companies organize the color fans more often this way, because they have more limited paint palettes to work with. These aren’t as safe for choosing complimentary colors.

Note:
Complimentary colors - Colors that work well together.
Complementary colors - Colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel that work well together. <next page>

 

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