True Colour Expert

The system that I’ve created for distinguishing undertones is still evolving and each workshop I get better at teaching it to the designers, decorators and design enthusiasts who attend. For example, I have been trying to figure out an efficient way to work with fabrics, tiles and countertop samples to make it really experiential for participants. They already work with real paint chips on the first day and compare, compare, compare. Comparing colour is what I do with my clients throughout the entire consultation so that they understand why I’m recommending certain colours and it’s the first thing I teach to everyone.

What would it be like for you to have more confidence when specifying colour for walls, fabrics or finishes?   You can learn something new in a course, but do you always walk away with the ability to apply what you’ve learned the next day? “I learned a lot in this course and I’m way…

Photo by Maria Killam I am in Toronto preparing for True Colour Expert Training at Designers Walk starting tomorrow!  After my assistant and I got everything organized, we went out to find a patio and I found this sign (above), that I had to share with you sitting outside a variety store downtown on Dupont….

For You!  (source) My good friend Irene Fraser (below) from Design Happens asked me to give a talk on ‘Creating Flow with Colour’ next Saturday April 30 at the Ridge Meadows Home Show in Maple Ridge. I’ll be on the design stage at Noon and it’ll go for approximately 20 minutes and then I’ll be…

source Think back to an experience in your life, when you were young and sitting in the backseat. Who was driving?  What were you doing? You could coast, hang out and harass the person driving, but they still determined where you were going.  There’s parts of our life where we’re in the back seat but…

Photo by Patsy Overton, True Colour Expert Last weekend, 17 participants convened at Gregory’s Paint & Flooring in John’s Creek, Atlanta.  It was perfect being in a space right above a Benjamin Moore Dealer (way easier to do the homework each day) as well as having flooring samples conveniently in the same place to show…

source I arrived in Atlanta on Tuesday night to a heavy rainstorm.  It was just like this. . .  source Then 2 of my participants who were schedule to fly Wednesday couldn’t make it because of the snowstorms happening elsewhere (this one in Chicago): source Everyone else arrived and we are having a wonderful time…

Penelope Trunk sent me an email this month after she received my newsletter ‘Colour Advice from a True Expert’:   “Unsolicited advice. I don’t think it should say “true expert” in the headline. I mean, only people who think people don’t trust their expertise would say that. When you just say “colour advice” it already…

The other day when Kelly from Restyling Home posted this interview with me, one of my readers emailed me and said ‘Maria it could have been loooooonger’. So here’s another one. Jennifer Duchene is one of the talented designers that attended my last True Colour Expert Workshop in September, her blog and business is called…

Yesterday I arrived at a consultation. I had been referred by the project manager of a renovation company who would be starting this one right after Christmas (he reads my blog). This company is very organized. They don’t begin construction until their client has signed off on all the finishes. This had been completed one…