Your Studio has a Temperature!

It has certainly been some time since I posted last! The time has just gone by so quickly. I will try to do better in the future.

In the last post I talked about the different types of lighting and I wanted to expand on that subject just a bit. I mentioned that your studio has a temperature. This is not just true of your studio, but of any room.

The two sample photos shown above are exaggerations (and photography blunders), but they help show you what I mean. Generally windows with a southern exposure tends to cast a yellowish light on everything. Yellow, being a warm color, casts a warm glow in the room. On the other hand, northern facing windows will cast a bluer, cooler light into the room.

You are probably asking why this makes any difference. When you are painting your walls, the temperature from the light can affect how the color appears. You may have experienced picking out a color in the paint department and found that it looked different when you got it home. The reason is the lighting you viewed it under in the store as opposed to the lighting in your studio or home. Cooler lighting can alter the appearance of your paint color by making warm colors weaker and intensifying or enhancing cool colors. Warm lighting will have the opposite effect. A soft butter yellow may be intensified and appear much brighter when you paint your room.

This is the reason for the suggestions often made to paint a sample area on your wall before you paint the entire room. I know this is good advice from my own experience. I had picked out a color for my sewing room that I thought was just perfect. When I painted an area on the wall, what I thought looked like a nice warm taupe ended up looking like the dull color of a grocery bag when it was actually on my wall. Painting a small area can save you not only time and disappointment, but often lots of money since paint is not as inexpensive as it used to be. It really can make a difference.

Your choice in bulbs can also create this variation. Some bulbs are warmer and some are cool bulbs, affecting how you see the colors in your room and even the colors of your materials such as beads, thread, fabrics and others. To help neutralize the lighting in my studio, I use an Ott light (which is a natural balance) to help see the true colors of my beads. In my fluorescent fixtures which have two tubes, I use a cool one and a warm tube.

It is just a good idea to be aware of the temperature of your space when either choosing paint colors or lighting for your studio. As everyone knows, lighting can affect your mood and I want you all to be in a good mood.