Robert Adam 

A Neo-Classicial Genius

Robert Adam was an extraordinary man;  his sense, understanding and interpretation of colour still reverberates today. He went off to visit Rome in the late 18th century as part of his studies ( the Grand Tour), stayed for 5 years and returned with extraordinarily influential ideas on architecture, interiors and decoration. 

Detail from a ceiling design for 5 Adelphi Terrace, by Robert Adam, England, UK, about 1771.

Duck Egg Blue 

Louis Blue  

Burgundy 

Old Violet

You can see from my paint  that Robert Adam's  have been very influential in my colour palette. 

Henrietta

Modern Contemporary

In the 20th Century there was an explosion of colour.   
This was because of new developments in technology.
These colours had never been available before

The American Colour Field painters worked colour like no one had before them 

Take a look 

 Barcelona Orange

Morris Louis  (b. USA 1912 -1962)

A painter who was hugely influential when I was an art  student  in 1968

         Emperors Silk 

Sean Scully (b 1945 - ...) 

I was at Croydon College of Art with him 

Wikipedia ; Scully was born in Dublin and raised in South London. He studied at Croydon College of Art and Newcastle University. He was a recipient of a graduate fellowship at Harvard in the early 1970s and subsequently settled in New York.

www.amynicholas.co.uk

Antibes                  Provence 

Let's see it on your furniture!  

After New York.......

                                               .........New Orleans

 David, my husband and Felix, my middle son, 

came with me to the Annie Sloan Stockists' Meeting in New Orleans which was an incredible experience.  

What a great bunch of  positive inspiring doers the stockists are !! 

We all agree that New Orleans is a fabulous place where Europe meets America.  

 It has the feel of parts of Spain and France and yet it is definitely America.

Love it. Can't wait until next year! 

The French Quarter has some great shops - 

I photographed these great French pieces through the window of a shop in Royal Street. 

Antibes for the door? 

Arles mixed with some Cream ?

The back room of a painted furniture shop in the French Quarter.

Rustic French cupboards and Provencal pots and bowls.

Paris Grey 

Highlights of America

In New York I visited the Russian Tea Rooms with Melissa Riche, who is doing PR for us in North America.  It was her idea and what a great idea it was!  
It was started in the 1920s by members of the Russian Ballet and since then has been a mecca for  entertainment people - Madonna worked there as a coat check girl , it's in loads of films and Rowan Atkinson got married there etc etc....

 The design and the colour is outrageous but perfect.   
Red leather seats, deep green walls and blingy gold
Great Russian paintings on the wall. 

We drank vodka and ate black bread. 

Delicious!

Gold leafed ceiling

Complementary Colours

A complementary is the opposite colour - 

it can mean they fight each other or they get along really well - just like people really!

Purple and yellow are opposite each other on the colour wheel 

With a complemetary one colour is a primary colour and the other is a secondary. 

In this case the primary is Cream - it's a yellow but with lots of white in it. 

The secondary is the Old Violet which is made roughly from two primaries - blue and red. 

Mixing yellow and purple together makes Paloma - a grey made from two complementaries. 

I've made some great boards I have painted with colour swatches I want to share with you! 

Louis Blue & a pop of it's complementary Orange on the cups

I love talking about colour and I think  I can tell you some things that will make painting easier and more fun! 

This is the sort of thing I will be explaining and enlarging on at the Workshops I will be doing all one the USA starting on March 16th in

Dallas 

then 

San Francisco, 

then 

Denver, 

then 

Chicago 

moving to 

Nashville, 

to

  Atlanta, 

then 

Leesburg (near Washington) 

and finally finishing in

Boston 

on April 2nd! 

Get a ticket from this link below

http://www.anniesloanunfolded.com/event/

I don't want to hear you didn't know it was happening! !

Painted Whites

Old White
 is a soft cool neutral undemanding white, 

like the old whitewash seen here in Norman Rockwell's depiction of Tom Sawyer and the painting of the picket fence! 

Old whites are soft like these old French pieces 

It's perfect for the Swedish look too

My Old White is the same colour as the old Lead White which is no longer made. 

Modern whites are bright made possible because of the Titanium White pigment

which was not generally available until the *1930/40s 

SO if you are painting something white and you want it to have that aged look, to be soft and sophisticated like an antique, 

don't paint it in bright white! 

*(Although it was identified in 1795 it was not until 1921 that an economical method of purifying it was established and then it became very popular because it was such a strong opaque colour) 

                                                                                        Annie