Design & Style, Home & Lifestyle

Field Trip: Experimenting With Color

Lesson time 8:53 min

Kelly returns to the Downtown L.A. Proper Hotel to experiment with paint colors. You’ll learn how to apply paint and what to consider when testing colors.

Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars

Topics include: Field Trip: Experimenting With Color

Kelly Wearstler

Teaches Interior Design

Award-winning designer Kelly Wearstler teaches you interior design techniques to make any space more beautiful, creative, and inspiring.

Preview

[MUSIC PLAYING] WOMAN: I'm at the Downtown Hotel. And at this stage in the project, we're here to experiment with color and really look at what we're going to do to make this architecture sing. I'm in a hotel suite. There are actually three rooms. There are two bedrooms, and there's a living room. When these doors are open, you're going to see the conversation of color in the adjacent rooms. Today, we're going to experiment with color. So in this suite-- there is a condition in architecture. It's called enfilade. An enfilade is where there is a series of cased openings. And you can actually see all the wall colors in each room. It's important that these colors really speak to one another and they create a sense of magic and beauty. When I say colors in the different series of rooms, one-- this room could be ivory, the other room could be studio white, and the other room could be sand. You're really celebrating the architecture, and you're creating a depth of field in your space. Now what we're going to do is we're going to test out the paint colors that we selected at the studio on location here in the guest room, and see how they react with one another. This color, clay, is really a happy, beautiful hue that I think it's going to look really nice playing off the terracotta building that's next door. And we actually selected a matte, or what's called a "flat paint" because the texture of the wall is a combed plaster. We want to see how it reacts-- the color reacts with the texture and the light in the room. I love this color. Everyone would look so beautiful in this. When you do a hotel, you want to make sure everyone looks gorgeous because they're going to come back. You're for sure are going to want to let this dry. The tint absolutely changes when it dries. Once we decide on the color that is our most favorite, we'll then go back and do another larger sample of this color in the room just to confirm, which it's important to do. Now, we're going to test terracotta. And so this color, I think, looks really nice with the clay. Maybe this is a color that we're going to consider in the other room, which would be a more monochromatic story. This might be a little more calming for the guest. I actually love how this color is picking up all of the combing in the plaster. It just adds an extra texture and-- and nice, fine-- refined detail to the room. Okay, so now, we have the warmer colors on the wall. This goldenrod is a really rich color. And yellow makes everyone happy. I think this color stands up to the weight of this cased opening. Now we have this butterscotch color. And what I'm doing is I'm putting the colors in-- in a monochromatic organization, and we are going to let these dry, as well, right now. It looks like the paint could have a little gloss in it, but it's actually a flat paint. Applying the paint-- you can do it with a roller or a brush. And the reason why I'm using a brush here, which...

About the Instructor

Eclectic and experiential, Kelly Wearstler’s style helped redefine modern American design and influenced the rise of designer hotels. Now the award-winning designer takes you behind the scenes to demystify interior design. Make any space feel larger, and choose colors, materials, and textures with confidence. Curate collections of art and objects, cultivate your own distinct style, and create spaces that tell a story.

Featured MasterClass Instructor

Kelly Wearstler

Award-winning designer Kelly Wearstler teaches you interior design techniques to make any space more beautiful, creative, and inspiring.

Explore the Class