Colour study – nature’s neutrals

Nikki has written some wonderful posts for mydeco about neutral rooms – sophisticated, decadent, chic and glamorous. I love every room she chooses.

Meanwhile, I have been studying neutrals from a very different angle – the neutrals from nature.  I have cast my net w-i-d-e and while my choices might not be neutral in the sense of “colourless” I think they are very definitely neutral in the sense of “harmonizing”, “calming” and “easy-going”.

I have been photographing every example I can find – just ask my husband and children who have to stop and wait on every bushwalk while I photograph yet another tree trunk, rock, cluster of shells or even mud!

Starting in an odd place – mushrooms.

Mushrooms

Using some neat free on-line tools I extracted all the yummy colours hiding in this image.

Colours extracted from Mushroom photo

Reducing them to a core set yields a palette of six colours.

Mushroom colour palette

Can’t you just imagine a room built around these colours? Well you don’t have to because here are some I found with the mydeco 3D planner (created by KittiFarkas and chania).  The first is modern, light and open, while the second is rustic and cozy. But they’re based on exactly the same colour scheme.

paula by KittiFarkas

living area by chania

Now, once I started this I just couldn’t stop.  How about these shells?  The image contains these wonderfully restful tones.

Shells with colour grid

This scheme is beautifully captured in a kitchen design by auntiehelen -

Pied a Terre Kitchen by AuntieHelen

So far the colours have been fairly “earthy”, but what about something more organic?

Cactus with colour grid

LizyD really nails this.  Some of her colours are stronger than those in the original image, but this is still not an overwhelmingly colourful room because of the neutral background and the mostly de-saturated colours.

mod living room by LizyD

Just a couple of pieces (the rug, splashback and print) capture the mood of a mossy tree trunk (by LizyD again).

Mossy Trunk with colour grid and room design

I did this design for my sister, who took a picture of pumpkins in the US (hmm, must be genetic, I have LOTS of pictures of pumpkins).  I wouldn’t have thought black, beige, grey, brown, pale blue and olive would work so well.

Pumpkins with grid and core colours

pumpkin by toadfool

The most surprising colours popped out this tree trunk -

Trunk with colour grid and core colours

I’d love to see someone create a design for this one – use the 3d planner and go crazy!