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I keep thinking that there should be some interesting discussion we could have about art-inspired kitchens. Or examples. But I can't think of anything.

One of the things that I hope to see is more painterly palettes. If you look at artwork, there is generally Not a conventional use of colors that "go together", in the interior design sense.

Until you start getting into the op-artists, the color-theory painters, and the minimalists, most palettes are anything goes, as in nature.

If I am doing a correlated palette, I prefer almost monochromatic or dichromatic, but if I am not working with a tight palette I will use a lot of color (my least favorite palette generally being closely coordinated conventional neutral or color/accent color schemes).

But when I study the works I am thinking of using, I am seeing palettes with very little "structure".

I'd love to see an example of someone who designed a kitchen based on mood or feeling from artwork and not just color. Interpreting art can be so personal, so what it inspires in me may not be the same for you. But maybe that's ok as long as we explain it? But I am finding as I try to put a kitchen together that I find I am simply looking at color, not "feel."

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Using an artwork to inspire mood for a kitchen might be kind of difficult actually, compared to inspiring mood for a living room or bedroom. But one could look at a B&W photograph and use something in it as a starting point, something colorful without using the actual colors.

Cartier-Bresson, Siphnos
{{!gwi}}

Mark Seliger, Piers

Martin Parr, Untitled, from Common Sense
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This is how I'm going to do it. This is not the art I'm using but let's say I looked at an art piece until I found something that I liked and it spoke to me in some way so I picked this one. Look at the piece you chose and without thinking too much about it quickly write down the first thoughts that come to your head.

First thoughts ...

Sixties
Flower power
Love not war
Peace
Urban
Drugs
Hippies
Modern
Earth
Orgy
Horoscope
Hair
Denim
Fashion
Laugh-In

Now look at the first thought words and pick an idea for a kitchen design. You can combine a few first thoughts if they relate in some way.

For example- you could reuse prescription drug containers relabeled for spices.
Denim seat cushions on some cool stools, how about one of those manikin hand ring holders as a towel rack all mixed with slab doored cabinets in fun colors and maybe a large print floral rug or a window spice/plants or atrium. Do it all in a way that it would work today in a modern kitchen.

Or, here's another picture. What are your first thoughts?

Or this or that.

Just saw a post on Apartment Therapy yesterday highlighting this blog where they're creating palettes based on paintings. Really fun to browse!

Here is a link that might be useful: Color Palette in Art

Great idea for a DAT, palimpsest! As an example, we chose our dining room colors based on this 1933 color woodcut by printmaker Elizabeth Colborne. The room feels like a Pacific Northwest sunset: the ceiling is "Smokey Grape" purple, the high wall between the plate rail and picture rail is "Copper Penny" orange, and the walls are "Lion's Mane" yellow. In the evening, the ceiling blends into the color of the sky outside the windows and whole room glows with warmth. The room gives me the same wonderful feeling as standing in front of Colborne's print in the museum. (And the paint was a lot cheaper than buying a copy of the print!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Lumber Mills on Bellingham Bay, 1933 Elizabeth Colborne

I can't take credit for the original idea, but I hope that people do work with some of my suggestions in terms of being literal vs. non-literal and leaving the inspiration piece to last so we can see the results without seeing the inspiration first.

I am working on a couple, some of which may not come to fruition but I am trying to work with several levels of interpretation.

Give this DAT some time. It will require an incubation period.

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Dee850, thanks for the link. The art-inspired palettes are cool!

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When I proposed the topic some weeks ago, I was thinking about using art pieces in the kitchen. The discussion and the upcoming thread for DAT postings have gone in another direction, which I might say is quite a head workout. Awaiting the results!

But I would also say that there could be an opposite DAT...put forth, say, four very different kitchens and have posters suggest art pieces, focusing on those four kitchens.

The upcoming challenge requires analysis and visual skills. It's got a lot of nebulous stuff in it and we have few models to look at. I cheer on anyone who is working on an entry. My second idea would be a lot more concrete and a lot easier to participate in. I suppose it wouldn't be "design around this" but closer to "complete this design with art."

You could also use a movie as the inspiration artwork, right? I would love an "Amelie"-inspired kitchen.

The palette would be greens, reds, stained wood and limestone-colored stone (the color of most Paris buildings). And maybe silver-grey (the color of most Paris roofs). Maybe also some verdigris (the color of Art Nouveau Paris metro station entrances). The lighting would be golden, with a few quirky fixtures, perhaps a touch of red neon somewhere.

The feel would be relaxed, slightly eccentric, more old than new, artsy. Like the Paris cafe of my dreams. Nothing would match except the chairs and the drinking glasses. The pans would be a mish-mash of enamelled cast iron, copper and porcelain (creme brulee ramequins, etc.). Nothing would be made of plastic. The sink would be from the 1930s or 40s. The stove would obviously be a Lacanche or a La Cornue, either red with brass or maybe yellow, or maybe that periwinkle the La Cornues come in...

Aaaah! I love this idea, even without any pictures! Here's a link with some pix from the movie, for those who didn't see it...

Here is a link that might be useful: Amelie pictures

Florantha, I like your idea for picking artwork. It doesn't fit with the DATs, but there's nothing to stop you from posting a different kind of challenge.

Ideagirl, movies are art, if not the kind I was thinking of. I'm all for out of the box thinking.

You could also use a movie as the inspiration artwork, right? I would love an "Amelie"-inspired kitchen.

I love that movie. Have you ever watched the Director's voice over?

This was today's listing on the BHG, which I found interesting as a followup to the art color scheme website above.

Here is a link that might be useful: Color Scheme slideshow BHG

Here's the cross-reference to the actual design thread for this DAT #18.

Here is a link that might be useful: DAT #18 'Art of Kitchen Design' designs by posters

For those who are messing with this challenge, I empathize. This is harder than it at first seems. Once you get the color decisions made, you then have to find products to fulfill it. Ain't easy. Many times they are "close matches" at best, close but no cigar.

The discussion on the other thread has run toward a discussion of the difference between using color when creating art and using color when decorating a living space. Color variations allow painters to create spacial dimension within the artwork whereas in color applications in interior decorating, the variations in a color that occur because of light's effects through spatial dimension and object orientation can thwart a color scheme. If that all sounds esoteric, I apologize. It's easier to understand intuitively than to explain.

This makes me think about the House Beautiful series of features using paintings or photos to make a color scheme--they draw out a color from each of a number of prominent places in the image. I can't seem to find an example of one of these features in the online site, but subscribers will know what I'm talking about. I bet the editors have to mess around a lot before they choose the actual color scheme, arguing about whether a matched-up color sample is a hair too green or too dark or whatever to play nicely in a multiple color palette.

Another issue is whether to copy the artwork's proportional emphasis on each color or merely readjust the proportions. In my case, I'm trying to decide about floor color--the best-color-match product I'd actually enjoy having on a real floor is not a dominant color in the art piece. And unless I decide to use painted cabs I have to work in real wood colors also and that creates another emphasis conundrum also.