Every year various paint companies release their paint color predictions for the coming year.  Sherwin-Williams has already published their predictions for the coming 2011, and some of the words used to describe the colors are airy, elegant, exotic, bold, gentle, tailored, artsy, expressive.  Many of these shades will be very popular this coming year, and although you should choose paint based on your own preference, it is nice to be aware of the trends as well.  To see all of the colors Sherwin-Williams predicted click here.

Are you looking for inspiration while deciding on different paint colors for your home?  House Beautiful's 500+ Favorite Paint Colors features over 500 color swatches, as well as interviews with designers, expert advice  about painting and design, and images of interior spaces.  The bookazine is a great resource for any painting and design enthusiast, or for anyone who wants some inspiration for re-decorating and painting their own space.  Available at national book stores, the bookazine retails for $9.99.  Check out some of the gorgeous images from the book below:

One of the photos used in the study, (with the faces in focus) which worked out that the men in red are seen as more attractive by women

I'm sure you've heard the song "Lady in Red" by Chris de Burgh, but did you know that women actually prefer a man in red?  According to a new study done at the University of Rochester, women are more attracted to a man dressed in red than in any other color.  For the report, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, researchers showed young women photographs of men.

Some of the photographs had the men dressed in red clothing or featured against a red background.  In other photographs there was no red present.  More and more, the women were attracted to the men dressed in red or against the red background.  What is so interesting about this study is that the women were from England, Germany, USA, and China.  No matter where they were from, the results were consistently the same, women preferred a man in red.

This study shows how color affects us both consciously and unconsciously.  The color of shirt or a pair of pants can attract or repel an individual, just as the color of a wall or a whole room can do so.  When choosing color for your space it is important to be mindful of how the color makes you feel – what memories, emotions, thoughts does it invoke?  Just as you may be more attracted to a sweater based on its color, you will be more attracted to a certain shade of paint.  

Read more about the study here.

From October 2008 until February 2009, Rachel Berger, a San Francisco based graphic designer wrote 100 short passages about color.  It was a simple project, she picked a color chip, noted the color and day, and then wrote about what the color made her feel.   What resulted was 100 examples of how color can invoke the senses, different, moods, and favorite memories.  Below are some of my favorites of Rachel's musings.  Read more of her work, and about the project, here.

09 Castle Moat

At some point during college, a curious sidebar article appeared in the Daily News. I clipped it, filed it, and never found it again. A sad fate for the clipping, but well-suited to the content: Campus police found a six-foot-tall marijuana plant growing in the dry ornamental moat surrounding one of the dorms. It was destroyed.

27 Billowy Clouds

I’m flying today. PDX to JFK, via ATL. The unasked-for jag south means that the midday sun shines brightly through the window of seat 26F. The man in 26D tells me to close the window shade, first halfway, then all the way. The sun is in his eyes. My favorite thing about flying, an unfavored activity, is the window, landing at night in a city spread out like dying embers, popping up above big cartoon clouds into the blue. Surely it is fate, to be staring at a color called billowy clouds even as my rumpled shade is pulled tight, blocking all sight of them.

55 Treasure Isle

A color like the banged up Pyrex bowl we got from Second-Hand Rose, the roadside junk store in northern Minnesota on the way back from the cabin we rented a couple summers ago with Marc and Esther. The ladies at the checkout blessed us and wrapped the little bowl in five layers of newsprint. 

But the bowl is bluer. And white on the inside. Slightly translucent with a blue cast — the way some people like to describe skim milk.

87 Desert Sunrise

Grandma Cynthia made a thousand paintings of the Palm Springs desert, the blooming, living scrub edging the mountains beyond the golf course. Early in the morning, before Grandpa Maurice lumbered out onto the green for the first game of the day, she drove into the desert, away from the chilly dew coming off the swimming pools, from the orderly roadbeds of bougainvillea clumped around a single palm, from Gerald Ford Drive, to take the pictures that would become paintings. She wasn’t one of the heroic, romantic landscape painters, in wind and sun, her canvas lashed to the hard earth. Painting was done in the studio, surrounded by treasured views of a hot, alien land.

An architectural color consultant will help you make color selections for paint, interior, and exterior.  Anya is  able to interpret your ideas while looking at paint chips and how they will appear on an interior or exterior wall.  

 Kathleen A. in Seattle, WA