After two years of being told to stay indoors, we’re all more aware of how important it is to make your house feel like a home. If you’re one of the thousands who spent the pandemic redecorating your space you’ll be no stranger to Lick Paint – a sustainable and thoughtfully-curated brand who take the hassle out of picking paint shades and wallpaper for your home. 

What makes Lick stand out from other brands is that their range of colours is created with emotion in mind by their resident Colour Psychologist and Director of Interior Design, Tash Bradley.

We’re delighted to bring you a collaboration with Lick Paint where Tash will be offering her insight on how colour can impact your emotions, how to pair colours with your art, and tips on how to choose art for your home.

For our first instalment, we’re chatting to Tash to learn a little more about the psychology of colour and the impact it has on our moods…

The psychology of colour 

We all have a favourite colour, but did you know that colour has the capacity to make you feel certain emotions? And did you know that humans notice colour before they see form? So, in terms of art - typically it will be the colour combination of art that you will take in first, rather than the actual picture. Interesting!

Tash is a Colour Psychologist, and she has employed everything she knows about how we interact with colour to curate the whole Lick paint palette. So, what colours make us feel what emotions? Tash explains:  

“Blue is the colour of the mind. The lighter the shade of blue, the more mentally soothing it is. The darker the shade of blue, the more mentally stimulating it is. Red is the first colour that we see and it sparks a fight or flight reaction. That’s why stop signs and danger signs are this colour - it provokes a physical reaction. If you’re in a red room, you’re going to physically feel something, most likely energised or aggressive.”

“However, the minute you water that red down to a pink, it becomes more soothing. If you walk into a room that’s soft pink – you instantly relax, your shoulders drop. That’s why soft tones of pink are really good for places where you want to relax and calm down, like bedrooms and living rooms. I actually call pink, ‘the colour of cuddles’. Interestingly, there are certain prisons that paint cells pink as it is proven to calm the inmates down and Norwich City famously painted their away team dressing room pink due to the calming effect it would have on their opponents.”

“These are just a couple of examples of how powerful colour can be, and why you should always consider the emotions you want to feel when choosing colours (and art) for your space.”

Pairing art and colour

Bearing in mind everything Tash knows about colour psychology, we were interested to understand how she goes about choosing her own art, and how that influences the rest of her home. She reveals:

“Over the last two years or so, my husband and I have started collecting art – and everywhere we go, whether its Cornwall, or we’re travelling further afield, we make it our mission to find a piece of art that means something to us. We discovered an artist called Simeon Stafford and bought one of his big pieces of our favourite beach in Cornwall. It’s such a fun piece and when we started decorating our place in Somerset, we decided that we wanted the feeling of this painting to be the feeling of our entire home – joyful, playful, lots of pattern.”

 

 

“Once we’d decided this, I took out the main dominant colours from the piece – lots of pinks, yellow accents and blues - and we set about injecting those colours around the whole house. Throughout the house, you can really tell that that artwork is the inspiration behind the decor.”

A colourful match

Given they are both masters of all things colourful – it was no surprise to hear that Lick Paint launched a coveted collection with Enter Gallery artist, Yinka Ilori. We wanted to hear more about this colourful match made in heaven…

“I read about Yinka in Vogue, and when I did some research, I discovered he’s called ‘The Ambassador of Joy! How could I not want to work with anyone that has that title! Yinka’s biggest thing is the emotion that colour can have, and that’s what the entire Lick brand stands for.”

“I love that he focuses so heavily on joy, and on going against the grain when it comes to trends, colour harmony and colour pairings. He’s all about clashing. If that orange or pink brings you happiness, then why not surround yourself with it?"

“I just love his relaxed approach to colour and design. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Yinka’s career is taking off at a time when people are actively seeking more joy in their lives. He’s giving people confidence to be themselves and to embrace the bolder colours that make them happy. As a brand, Lick are very much about embracing what people want in their homes. It’s our job to provide you with the guidance and tools to design the home that feels perfect for you!”

Read Tash's Top Tips on choosing artwork for your home and her favourite Enter Gallery artworks.