Green St. : Assignment: Modernize while paying tribute to the Victorian Era
Moffit Street: Assignment: Create interest, integrate into the natural environment.
Beaver Street: Assignment: Enrich, create more presence on the street.
23rd Street Makeover
This house is currently two pale shades of pink-beige with a subtle accent of warm mint green. The challenge here is that the house is petite with not a lot of space between the trim and body; it is important therefore, that the colors be tightly knit in terms of value, so the house does not look stripey. The owners would like a much richer treatment of their house. Stay tuned.
Buchanan 1880s Victorian
This lovely building is quite tall and is made to appear even more so by its current yellow palette, which is the same color as the stone base that holds the garage. Our challenge here will be to make the scale a bit more petite through a palette that is complementary to the base, so the house is thereby “shortened” and also to choose colors that are interesting without being overly ostentatious. The latter is important both because the architectural relationships are such that the colors cannot be too graphic and because the neighborhood necessitates a certain reserve.
Powell Street Visibility Project
In the picture below you can note three very strong and beautiful buildings in the center. The buildings on either side are creams or whites and have virtually no presence on the block, a portion of Powell St. that is a tourist’s mecca. My client’s building is on the immediate left to the red brick. My main concerns are to align her building with these ones, since they are the most beautiful-rather than the plainer ones; to give her building some substance; and per her request, “to make people smile,” as people are always standing and staring at this side of the block.
Powell Street
To address her first concern I am choosing a strong and luminous blue-grey, Philip’s Perfect Colors G12 Funston Gray, so that her building has the strength of her three rightward neighbors. I also like this choice because it creates a nice rhythm in color temperature (from right to left): warm yellow brick, cool ivy cover, warm red brick, and then cool, watery blue-grey; this will further “lock” her building into the series.
Powell St. Detail
In the above detail you can see the intricate molding that adorns the top; there are really no other details on this building. This is where we are going to provide some punch. This detailing will be a lovely spectacle and also further connect the client’s building to the three on the right, as they all have either some kind of molding, beautiful roofs or both.
Powell Sketch
Santa Ynez
No, It is Not Primer; It Was Painted White
Making A Change
Ace Hardware Billings, Montana
I received a call from the owner of Ace Hardware in Billings, MT regarding their flagship store, which is in the middle of construction. Jeff sheepishly asked me if I would be willing or able to do an interior consultation remotely. I usually decline such a request because I do not think I can do my best work without being on site; there are too many missing variables, and because each design I create is unique, I do not want to put myself in the position of bag-of-tricks temptation: that is to say, pulling out stock designs that I know will work, to save time, but that do not reflect the idiosyncrasy of a particular site/audience/purpose.
Hangar-Sized Flagship Store
In this case, I told Jeff I would give it my best shot because there is no natural light whatsoever coming into the interior. This meant for me that the most tricky element in color design was completely predictable and so I had greater confidence I could do a good job. He gave me the type and temperature of the lighting. The task is to humanize a large (twenty-six feet high) cube at the far end of the store, which will house customer service, a coffee window, a post office, as well as staff offices. I have suggested an effect for the cube, designed to humanize its scale, with each face a different yet complementary combination of colors, one bolder and the other more neutral, with harmony created by both color relationship between the two faces and the use of a consistent color/color family for all the apertures. Stay tuned!
Towering Customer Service Cube
Victorian Commerce
Cortland Avenue
This tiny Victorian, nestled in between two large houses in the middle of Cortland Avenue’s main drag is being converted into a combined commercial and residential property. An apartment unit was built above the petite Victorian and the courtyard in back is being refurbished and landscaped, where there is a second rental unit.
Testing
Courtyard View
Condo Conversion
I have been hired to do the exterior color on a 51 unit condominium complex in Diamond Heights. This will be a five year phased project with ten units being painted each year. My task is challenging: design color that modernizes the property without being trendy; mitigate vertical elements and the perceived thinness of each unit (i.e. create horizontal interest); do both of these while allowing owners to choose their own (base) body colors. To achieve these goals I am creating a system of five body colors, two potential “universal” accent colors (could appear on any architectural style), and a modular sort of formula whereby body color on one unit could become accent on another, thereby establishing interest and continuity on the horizontal axis. The great challenge is that I have no control over what body colors end up adjacent to any other, since body color is the owner’s choice, so I have to design a system that looks good any way you slice it: all colors and permutations of design must look good in any order AND with the existing colors, since this is a phased project.
Sample Unit
Working Sketch
Victorian Hodgepodge
I am currently working on a Victorian that is a bit challenging due to somewhat incoherent architecture: decorative elements kept being added… and added…. In the current color scheme, every single element is pained a different color. A really well designed building “tells” you to a great degree how or at least where to apply color. Our task is to simplify the building, which requires many decisions about what to mask and highlight. Our color scheme will be a bit more monochromatic, though richer in color, to achieve some clarity. Stay tuned.
Fillmore Before
Fillmore Before Detail
Color Sampling
WE HAVE A WINNER! Baseball poles are PPC-G3 Moss Gray 150% to be painted in the Spring. Go Giants!
I have been asked by University of San Francisco (and the neighbors opposite the baseball field) to make these poles “disappear.” They were erected so nets could
America’s Favorite Pastime
be installed to prevent baseballs from flying across Golden Gate Avenue. Per Division regulations, they were painted black, one of the two most obtrusive choices-the other is probably white. (The foul line pole is canary yellow.) I am tasked to use one color to make the poles as invisible as possible so that they fade gracefully into the trees, skies, and beyond. This color will be painted on the GG Ave side only. The facilities manager apologized for the unglamorous job. I laughed because not only is this a fascinating puzzle to solve, it is also the reverse of what a colorist ordinarily does: make something stand out. Update: Visited the poles yesterday. I laid six color chips on a truck that happened to be across the street and sighted from the chips to the putty-yellow dormitory to the fog grey sky. I was not surprised that the two full spectrum colors with the most complex formulas disappeared the most. This was my plan: the more colorants present, the more metameric it would be, changing and accommodating itself to the environment. What did surprise me was that the colors were warmer than I expected. This warmth was necessary to at once straddle both the building and the natural elements (trees and sky). I have chosen for sampling PPC-G11 Foggy Veil 150% and PPC-G3 Moss Gray 150%. Both are warm, natural greys that will mitigate the industrial nature of these rather large poles.
Jackson Street High Rise
I have designed six color schemes for this seven unit condominium building. Like many buildings in the city, the facade itself is quite narrow, but the view from the cross street is wide as the open plains. This presents some interesting challenges in terms of scale and also drastically different light exposure. My next task is to render our various placement options. Once this is decided we will decide which colors to sample on the building itself. I am pushing for a deep enough color that the facade is cleanly and dramatically defined between the red brick to the left and the soft midtone to the right.
Big Tudor
I started this large Tudor a week ago. K and I discussed making the house “younger” and “uncreepy.” The house has lovely features but suffers from dull and heavy colors. In some ways, this is a classic case of color correction: we chose colors that on their face, are similar to the current ones; that is, the body will be a beige, the fascia a brown, but all with a twist. Samples go directly on the house this week and they are:
PPC-B4 Beachwood flat body (stucco)
C2-342 Saddle semi-gloss all woodwork except mullions/varnished
C2-343 Rickshaw semi-gloss bolts on fascia
C2-368 Serene 150% semi-gloss mullions
C2-368 Serene 150% eggshell columns, benches
While Beachwood could be considered a beige, it is luminous, energetic, and its full spectrum formula complements every tone in the brick; while Saddle is a brown of sorts, it is rightly a green-red (brown). Per requested subtle interest, Rickshaw, a red-green (brown) will appear on the large bolts on the fascia and on the gargoyles. The two complementary browns will create a subtle shimmer.
I am most excited about the gargoyles…
Duck Gargoyle
While the larger feline gargoyles will be subtly painted, I am giving this beloved duck the Hokusai treatment. I want it to be graphic, funny, and still a little scary.
Design for Duck (gouache + Photoshop)
PPC-G4 Steeley semi-gloss convex body color
C2-467 Jailhouse Rock semi-gloss concave body color
C2-124 Sundown semi-gloss major bill color
C2-086 Tiger Lily semi-gloss minor bill color, eye/iris
C2-368 Serene semi-gloss eyeball
