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Styling With Art: Pastels

Create a sensual ambience by combining pastels with dark colours and texture, using Philip Maltman's 'Perdita Or Lost Over In Libya'.

By Rise Art | 29 Oct 2014
With their low saturation, pastels can often blend into the background. If you want your pastel piece to stand out, consider contrasting it with dark colours and opulent details. We create a sensual ambience by combining pastels with trendy dark colour and texture, using Philip Maltman's 'Perdita Or Lost Over In Libya', which employs the same tactic.

Perdita or Lost Over Libya
Philip Maltman

Be sure to prevent the room from being too dark and enclosing by offsetting the walls with some sort of lightness, for example, white ceilings or floor. We love the idea of a luxurious, white shearling rug to accomplish this, on top of a polished wood panel floor - it ties in really well with the slightly opulent atmosphere we are hoping to achieve. Another tactic is to not use a pitch black paint, but rather an off black. We love this Farrow & Ball colour which is not only more flattering to adjacent objects than pitch black, but has a richer depth to the colour which can prevent any light being sucked into it. 

This art work has some more saturated elements that emphasise the pastel colours. Consider taking the same colours and reflecting them in the room, as with our green Laura Ashely Chesterfield sofa. Of course, more uniformly pastel art works will be more strongly contrasted against such a room as they will not have any harmonising colours, but that is not necessarily a bad thing as it offers a powerful contrast. 

1. Perdita or Lost Over In Libya by Philip Maltman

2. 'Off Black' Paint from Farrow & Ball

3. Auskin Longwool Ivory Sheepskin Rug from Heal's

4. Lotus Footstool from Made

5. Chesterfield Sofa from Couch

6. Lancaster Chair from Laura Ashley

7. Hemingway Oval Coffee Table from John Lewis

 

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