Update: Residential Decorator in Training Week 5

So far I am a solid A student with two scores of 14 out of 15 on my assignments. Here is my value scale assignment:

For this assignment I had to do a grey scale (white to black), a blue value scale (light blue to dark blue) and a blue tone scale (blue plus its compliment, orange). This is harder than it would seem at first look. In this assignment I learned about mixing paint efficiently. Working on this week's assignment, a colour scheme for a room based on a given carpet sample, I found that the value study would have been more educational if we had to do a scale of two tertiary colours (like blue green and yellow green) because I had a lot of frustration trying to discern and match the undertones in paint and fabric samples.  The pink carpet sample I was given reminded me of the Barbie Motorhome my sister and I had in the early 90s. When I joined my classmates in the sample room I thought I had totally scored when I found a leopord-inspired  upholstery. Right away I knew I wanted to fill my room with rich, earthy colours and patterns. I pulled together a collection of other materials but wondered what my instructor would think. The only thing she liked was the dark wood trim (top of the above picture). I was crushed. She went to the sample books and pulled for me a pink paisley pattern with touches of green, khaki, blue and yellow. Not exotic, not rich. Not interesting at all. But I'm no dummy, if the class instructor hands you a place to start from, it's a pretty good idea to use it. It is the same in every profession where there is a client: you have to be able to check your personal preferences at the door and work by the basic principles of your craft, be it design or writing. Back at the drawing board, this is the new colour scheme I picked. I forgot to take a picture of the assembled piece and when I got home tonight I realized I forgot the thing at my mom's and dad's (the location of my "design studio"). I changed out some of the samples, including the dark wood trim after I went online and searched for "pink colour schemes". This was my big lesson for the week. When you don't know where to begin, go online and look at what other people have done. I discovered that a lot of people pair pink with green, which makes perfect sense to me now when I think about the colour wheel (the colours are complimentary). I also observed that they often fill the room with white furniture. Putting the sample board together this afternoon I started worrying that my wall colour was too peachy and my blind sample was not peachy enough (tone problems). Again, the best part about this class is that I know when to let go. To me, it doesn't matter if I get marked down for some off-colour choices if in the end I know the mistake I made and how I'd fix it if I had more time.