Bruce Nelson — SF Local Color Painting, Inc
painting contractor, color consulting
543 Hill Street, San Francisco. The strongly-colored blue decorative glass used in the façade windows was the driving factor in developing the 17-color palette for this house. Red-based tones for the body were chosen to harmonize with the blue windows and also used to counterbalance the cool green, ambient light striking the north-facing façade. This eliminates all visual color conflict at a basic level.
The color scheme is built on analogous tertiary hues that form the base palette of reds, red browns, and chocolates, which are various neutralizations of the hue of red. The complements, blue and orange, were introduced to add visual tension. Olive was added to complement the reds and for visual excitement. The gold leaf creates its own illusion of light and life on a façade that receives no direct sunlight.
In the shadowed surfaces of the building façade, color elements were intensified and chroma was increased to add a quality of radiance and light. This brings the normally obscure architectural detail there forward and prevents the shadowed areas from becoming muddy.