When we moved to our new digs last year, among the first things we had to get used to were the, um, distinctive accent colours on the white house directly across the street. During our first weeks, I'd imagine what colours I'd prefer to see as I looked out our front window. A pale olive with cream trim, maybe? Or a buttery tan with light olive trim? Or if it had to be blue, a subtle slate blue with a deft touch of black around white woodwork?
Blue is my favourite colour, and purple is one of its natural companions in a so-called analagous colour scheme (one based on adjacent colours in the traditional colour wheel). Recently, in planning a new painting, I found myself testing a mix of these very two colours -- "Cerulean Blue" and "Prism Violet," in the terminology of Liquitex®, my preferred brand of acrylics.
But on their own, this blue is just too blue for a house, and the purple too purple for just about anything.
It's a curious thing that every time I've tried to view our own house in Google's Streetview, the viewing window refuses to travel our block. No matter the direction from which I navigate, as soon as either corner of the block is reached, the scene immediately snaps to either the alley north of us or the alley south of the white house. Maybe these colours are the reason why.
I don't know if it's the blue or blue and purple that doesn't work, or the context. I think these colors would work in a different environment, like in the Caribbean?
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