Tavi remodeled her home and took the color scheme from a photo of the Arenal Volcano overlooking Lake Arenal. Lilac-colored clouds covered the majestic cone, the water is a deep blue, and sunlight falls on the plants making them pop out in psychedelic greens.
She designed a large couch that can be dismantled into smaller parts with bright turquoise and lime green. We worked on creating a 5’6” wide 13’ long area rug to put in front of this couch
Proportion of a pattern is crucial.
She showed me a photo of philodendron leaves scattered on top of palm fronds. “I want these leaves to be spread out, not packed on top of each other,” she instructed me.
My question was how big did she want the leaves? When you make any pattern on a large area the size is crucial. The look you want to feel when you see the art is governed by proportion.
From design to canvas.
She decided on 20” leaves so that helped me decide how many to place on the rug. To convert a pattern size I use a photocopier place that enlarges designs for me.
Interested in doing something similar? Check out how I do it in this video.
Paint swatches lie
After deciding on the pattern it was time to choose colors! We selected colors from paint swatches from two different companies here in Costa Rica.
Tavi chose a dark blue to represent the lake in the photograph and a dark green with a lime green center to represent the plants around the lake. Then she selected a soft lavender that mimicked the cloud covering the Arenal Volcano. (In spite of all the fantastic photos on the internet, you rarely get to see the top of the volcano!!)
Continued Collaboration.
I promised to send a photo of the colors and design before starting the rug. As we all know selecting paint for anything is challenging!
What the tiny little paint swatch shows and how it appears on a larger surface are very different.
How paint colors change on larger surfaces.
In this case, the lilac was too pink, and the dark blue did not hold the deep turquoise Tavi desired. So I tweaked these colors to give her the tones she wanted.
I placed the large copies of leaves about the rug and painted palm fronds in the background. For these, we used a dark green, almost black color that really popped out on the off-white background.
I told Tavi I don’t work with white because the four coats of OIL-based polyurethane give the colors a very slight golden hue that really shows up on whites and pastels. She was fine with that saying” I take that into account for the colors of the rug.”
Finally, I delivered and installed the rug. The lime green of the large leaves really picks up the green on the couch. It was interesting to see how much lilac color there was in the floor tile once we put a rug down with lilac leaves!
I love the idea of a photograph inspiring the colors of interior décor. The large picture windows look out over the lake and incorporating the colors into the house was a brilliant idea.
