All of our member artists (plus a couple of excellent helpers) worked together to refresh our space with a light neutral wall color, and new contrast wall colors. Every bit of art, pedestals, and furniture needed to be moved and protected. It was a big job. The results give us a great start on spring—the “light and bright” look feels great.
Choosing the paint color was a classic color theory experiment. As you know every color is affected by the colors surrounding it. And, there is actually no such thing as color, only how the spectrum of light effects pigment as it falls on it. So the many types of light, natural and LED’s, shadows and more brightly lit, affect every wall differently.
Small paint swatches look completely different when painted in large swaths on the wall. It took five different paint samples to get the look we were going for. In the photo above the swatches on the walls are to help determine our contrast wall colors.
As we painted swatches on several walls of the gallery to test the colors we found visitors to the gallery had strong opinions! All the way from “art looks best on white walls, go with the lightest one”, to “I only think art shows well in galleries on very dark walls”. We love the feedback, but in the end what we chose fell somewhere in the middle. We lightened up, but kept the walls a neutral background for our art, that is easy on the eyes.
The gallery was closed for two days—day 1 to prep and day 2 to paint—every wall and molding was prepped, primed and painted. We are tired but feel rejuvenated by the results. And we had a lot of fun working together on this project.
Helen Brown‘s painting Garnet Gown was among the 80 paintings selected by juror, Jean Pederson, to be included in the Watercolor Society of Oregon’s 2025 Spring Experimental Exhibition. Pederson selected from 215
All of our member artists (plus a couple of excellent helpers) worked together to refresh our space with a light neutral wall color, and new contrast wall colors. Every bit of
