How does color affect space?
A reader asks:
"Is there a book you could recommend that would explain how your eye perceives color in a room - what I mean by this is what effect does having a light color ceiling vs a dark one do to a room or how does painting one wall one color and the remaining walls another? I don't know if there are formulas for this process and was wondering if you had any ideas?"
The workings of colors in a room are quite complex. I can't think of a book that explains it all for all circumstances. Light, surface color, shape and space together form our visual reality. I don't think you can seperate the color part from the rest. It follows that the effect of color very much depends on circumstances. This means that if you want to understand the effect of color in a room, you need to study it in unison with the specific circumstances. The way to do this is by making sketches and playing with cardboard models. I personally work a lot with photo prints, covered with transparant paper which I use as a base for sketches with coloring pencils. Even though I'm quite skilled at using Photoshop, I find that pencils are more direct and faster to work with to make a rough sketch. The sketches and models will show you quite clearly what happens with the space by using different colors. Doing this will also train your eyes to analyse a space very rapidly, to eventually make much of the sketchwork superfluous once you gain enough experience.
