Colour Stories: Inspiration from Art

I’ve been obsessed lately with Monet, especially his waterlily paintings from Giverny which have given me inspiration from some of my embroidery projects. But the more I looked at my favourite paintings, the more I found myself being influenced by the colour palettes. Recently, I realized that I was (subconsciously?) seeking ways to recreate those colour stories in my outfits.

Pulling ideas for colour combinations from existing patterns is one of my favourite (and easiest) styling tricks. Someone has already done the legwork for you, figuring out what goes together. It’s an especially helpful trick for finding less common combinations, especially if you don’t feel confident enough to make the decision — do these two or three or four colours go together?? — on your own. Doing the same thing with a piece of art is, well, kind of a no brainer.

Here are some examples I’ve been working with recently.

[Note: we all see colours differently (especially when viewed through a screen) so this isn’t going to be an exact science. My two cents would be: trust your eye to be your guide.]

Per last week’s post, here’s my current obsession. There are a few colour stories I’ve pulled from it, including these two 3-colour palettes.

There are more colours and combinations that could be pulled just from this one painting, including 2-colour, 3-colour, 4-colour (and more!) palettes.

Here is an example of a recent outfit based on a 3-colour palette drawn from this Monet painting:

Here is another Monet painting and a possible colour palette:

And here is an outfit based around it:

Never fear, you don’t need to stick to Monet only. Here are some ideas based on Van Gogh’s irises (another favourite of mine):

And here is an outfit which incorporates a 2-colour palette:

Klimt is another favourite of mine:

Here is an outfit built around a similar colour story (with multiple colours):

Norval Morrisseau was an Indigenous artist, whose work is wonderfully vibrant. Here are a couple of palettes based on his Man Changing into Thunderbird triptych (one panel only) which speak to my closet:

And here is an outfit based around a similar palette (but picking up the royal blue instead):

I hope these are helpful illustrations to get you thinking about how you might draw inspiration from art. As a general tip, I would suggest looking at paintings/drawings whose colours are similar to what’s in your closet, not necessarily just your favourite artists. To discover new (classical or modern) art with which you might not already be familiar and which might provide inspiration, I recommend following art accounts on Instagram such as @dailyart_official, which post a broad range of artworks on a regular basis, or borrowing art books from the library which cover different eras/movements in art.