Color Palettes: Atmospheric Interiors Using the Donald Kaufman Color Collection (Hardcover)

by Susie Butterfield (Author) "A PALETTE OF DIVERSE colors works to great effect in a turn-of-the-century carriage house owned by two artists..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Even if you know what your favorite colors are, you may be unsure about covering your living space with them. Yet with the right approach, colors can greatly enhance--even create--the visual and emotional appeal of any room. Properly chosen, color can make a smaller room seem larger, a cavernous space seem cozy; it can add structure or introduce simplicity. Drawing on a palette of 26 full-spectrum colors, this book demystifies color properties, explaining how to plan a palette that will work wonders throughout a home. Learn how intensity, light and shadow, background tones, contrast, and architectural details all play a part in a successful color scheme. Find the colors for your walls, doors, and trim that will make everything in the room come alive. By adapting ideas from this beautifully photographed book, you can create an interior you love, enlivened with the colors that are both right for the space and for your own personal style. --Amy Handy

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; 1st edition (March 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 060960144X
• ISBN-13: 978-0609601440
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #187,689 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kaufman--the ultimate colorist and color corrector, February 8, 2001

By A Customer

For those who wrote reviews complaining of boring or limited color palettes in this book, you are not understanding the concept behind pigment color and the underlying potential dangers. Paint stores mute colors with black instead of the complement. Traditional paint stores also use just a few pigments in each color. This "easy formuating" by paint stores and muting with black gives you muddied and problem colors. Kaufman mixes with 10-15 colors in his paint and they are magical to see in person. (All mail orderable from L.A. or New Jersey, you can order a trial pint, too).

Kaufman paints are as he says, full of depth mixed with many pigments (instead of the 3-4 in paint stores). The results are astounding and almost intimidating when you see the colors on your walls. Reflected light changes the paint color in a fascinating way every 15 minutes.

I painted last night a troublesome northern room with an early morning east and early morning southern exposure. They room has vaulted ceilings and shadows. Usually ALL colors greyout with cold, then green reflected color. Yesterday this room was painted with DKC #3 and this morning I woke up to a prism on my wall on the new Kaufman color. Was there a mirror or glass to reflect this? No, I never saw it with former colors on the wall. Kaufman demystifies why wall colors are flat and uninteresting and makes them live by infusing them with many pigments.

He also tells you that you can mix your own colors as well. Using white base paint and using universal tints. This way, as he directs, you can mute with the color's complementary color and NOT black and have intriguing walls. Just write down the recipe.

This book needed more statements telling people how to correct for troubling light exposures and troubling rooms. The public is thirsty for this. But, alas, perhaps his latest books covers this area, I haven't been able to find it in a bookstore yet. Alaways sold out.

My only wish is that Kaufman is not my best friend. I have plenty of questions for him about nuances of color!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars worth every penny, November 6, 2000

By A Customer

I bought 4 books on color, and this is my favorite. I just bought a new house, and I had to choose a color scheme for the entire house. This is the book that de-mystified colors for me, and helped me through the entire process. The best part of this book for me is the "Forward". I could read it again and again. Another valuable thing about this book is the emphasis throughout on the surrounding environment of each room, and how this environment impacts the color choice. Wow! Thanks to this book I considered the view from each window and doorway when I chose my colors. I came up with an entirely different scheme than I would have had I not read the book.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Conceptual color eye-opener, June 2, 2000

By	Edwin Khoo (Malaysia) - See all my reviews

Although I am an Architect, I find choosing and using colors still confusing, though I roughly know red from green. I have read some color books and am still confused. When I picked up this book, I thought, "Oh, another color book. Won't help me much." On reading it, I found the DK concept, that colors should reflect the real richness of color mixes found in the natural world, to be an eye-opener. The book goes on to give examples with explanations. The concept is refreshing, but the examples and explanations is quite conceptual, and not as specific as I would have liked, on choosing the actual colors. Still, I find my eyes slowly opening more and more as I read and reread the book. I intend to get the other two related books.