A Horse of another Color
What Color is this horse? Actually there are several colors if you look carefully. Now we have a tool to help you!
Often in working with murals, our clients would like to see a different color treatment than what is seen in your average NOAA nautical chart. Which is just fine with us; we change colors in charts all the time.
But there are some "color cautions" that you need to know.
1. There are a LOT of colors out there! Depending on what scientist has the microphone, the average person can see somewhere between 1 and 10 million colors. And how we perceive color depends on the configuration of cones in your retina.
2. Source of light can significantly change how we see color. Tungsten, fluorescent, LED, sunlight are all types of lighting which can make a difference in how our mural colors appear, and how they may or may not match existing color elements in a decorating scheme.
3. Beware of online "swatches" of color and their "digital recipes." Your computer screen can change how online color can look, and make you think a color will appear a certain way when in reality, it is quite different.
The ColorSnap is less than $60 and is the best decorating buy you will make.
4. And to complicate things further, the digital coding (hex codes, RGB, etc.) will often vary significantly from what you see online.
Have you lost hope of finding your true colors yet? There is a way to achieve some success, but your will need some new tools. One is an old tool -- a paint color deck -- and the new tool is magnificent. It is called ColorSnap, and it is about the size of a C Battery.
Let's say, like the little girl in the photo by Lucie Hošová on Unsplash.com, you love this horse! In fact, you love this horse's coloring, and want to come up with a paint color to match good old dobbin! Well, instead of breaking out the color swatches, you buy this cool tool called ColorSnap from your local Sherwin-Williams store for about $60. Now, go to your smartphone and find the free ColorSnap app and load it onto your phone. Make sure the bluetooth of your phone is on.
Your next step is to press the button on the ColorSnap which will turn it on and communicate with your smartphone app. No batteries needed; you keep ColorSnap charged with a USB port.
Once you calibrate your ColorSnap, place it on the color you are seeking and hit "scan" on your app to display your color.
You will next be asked to "awake" ColorSnap by pressing the button on the top. A blue light blinks on, and your app senses it and asks you to calibrate by putting on the cap on ColorSnap and calibrate the white color inside the cap. Now you are ready to find out what color this horse really is!
Remove the cap and put the Color Snap on the horse's picture and then click on the "Scan Color" button on your phone's app. Immediately the correct color appears, and even lists the correct color for Dobbin's furry face. Immediately I learn that Dobbin's nose is Sherwin-Williams' Coral Island 6332.
Think of the fun you will have! You can walk up to the house on the corner whose outside paint you covet, place ColorSnap on the side of the house and walk away with the color recorded in your app! Working on your suntan? Measure the tan on your arm and boast about your latest epidermal shade in your next Facebook posting!
The world is your coloring book!
But back to the subject of color changes in murals. There is one piece of solid color advice I want to give you, and it is this: Pick the colors in your chart mural BEFORE choosing your paint for the same room as your mural. Once the mural arrives THEN get your ColorSnap out and use it on your mural colors to pick other colors that will look well with your mural. And please, don't try to match exactly the chart color. Just find something of a similar but different color that will compliment your mural.
Do this and you will be universally heralded as the quintessential, chromatically-conscious decorator.
Now let's get busy and get your mural ordered, okay?