There's colour, colour everywhere; but what does one do with it?  This was a question that brought forth myriad answers, when Akzo Nobel Paints Lanka, the manufacturers of Dulux Paints held a workshop for its Facebook fans in Sri Lanka at Park Street Mews Colombo recently.

This was the first time that global Fortune 500 company Akzo Nobel, the world's largest manufacturer of paints and coatings held a workshop for its Sri Lankan Facebook fans based on the theme, 'Dulux Let's Colour Sri Lanka' on the very simple aspect that influences everyone's life, colour. In fact, the Sri Lanka Facebook fan page has over 6,000 fans collated in a short span of six months and has become a very popular social media catalyst and an axis for creativity and artistry, forging ideas and suggestions that are centric to its axiom, 'Let's Colour Sri Lanka'.

It was this platform that had prompted such interest in colour and forged multi-facted discussions that saw Dulux moot this workshop, which was an opportunity to not only gain practical input, but also interact with the Dulux Team and gain further insight into colour and decorating.

The event infused the keen creative eye of one of Sri Lanka's internationally showcased designers and Dulux Colour Ambassador Kanchana Thalpawila.   Punctuating the workshop, was a live webcast which brought in Head of the Global Aesthetic Center of Akzonobel Heleen Van Gent who also answered queries from the participants about colour and decorating.

Akzo Nobel, revolves on a mission to 'Add colour to Lives' and this indeed was the premise upon which Van Gent explained that the Global Aesthetic Center which was founded in 1992 with eight designers is a specialist creative center based in Sessenheim Holland.   “Colour trends can emerge from every possible corner of society,” she said, stating that, “Some colour trends can emerge rapidly and some may evolve more slowly.  Hence that is where our Colour Futures concept comes in.”

She also explained the annual process where the Akzonobel  Aesthetic Center invites an international group of experts drawn from fashion designers, architects, interior designers and colour gurus to predict colours for the next year, a practice it has had since 2000.  “Through this unique Colour and Trend Forecasting Facility,  Akzonobel creates leading edge designs and builds knowledge and understanding of the power and impact of colour in both commercial and domestic environments.”

Thalpawila, whose label K T Brown is now firmly established as a couture brand in Sri Lanka has the unique ability to use colours around her, in the most unusual modes, blending, contrasting and even leaving it stark but warm, to get the best from her design.  “I strongly believe that each of us has seen our demeanours and characters develop over the years due to the colours around us.  For example, I spent my life in Sigiriya, which even though I didn't realise it then, I know was certainly an influencing factor to the creative influences in me today.”

She affirmed that subsequently her exposure in London saw her creative eye look at things differently, “Where I realised that I was allowed to make a mistake until I was confident enough to blend the colours and make it whole. ”  She further espoused the use of colour combinations in interior decor, stating that colour has the ability to enhance details and compliment style.  “I love being bold and creative with colour and in fact, painted my home red because that's the way I feel,” she smilingly informed, adding that the Dulux concept of Colour Futures would be the apt tool to add lustre and glam facets to any interior.

She also brought in the unusual cinematic eye of award winning film producer Prasanna Vithanage, who is almost fastidious when it comes to the use of colour, “but the end result is so spectacular.  Look at August Sun for example, the use of colour whether in design or costumes is subtle, yet evident, strong yet delicate.”   
The Workshop took the participants through an interactive process, which gave them hands-on experience of discovering the endless possibilities that colour and creativity can imbue into people's lives.  There was sheer enjoyment all around as participants were prompted to mix, match and play with colours until they were confident when they emerged with the right fit.

Encouraging participants to be bold in expressing colour and creativity and being unafraid of making mistakes the same way she does when she engages in the use of colour, Thalpawila brought out a series of images by young but expert photographer Jonathan Berman, whose unusual eye for colour was the ideal exemplar in urging participants to look for the right blends of colour.  “It seemed very difficult at first but once the participants got the idea, they were most interested,” opined Thalpawila.

“We tend to take the colour around us for granted but from these photographs, the participants developed a keen eye to be more attuned to what is going on around them.  Most of us are not aware of our surrounds and it certainly was a challenge to pull out a colour from a picture, use it in harmony with other facets.”  
However, Dulux takes the concept of mixing and matching colours a step further.

Through Dulux Previews, a digital visualisation tool that allows customers to mix and match colours digitally before painting their homes, colour preferences can be matched and mixed according to a customer's liking before embarking on actually painting a wall. More details on this revolutionary concept of digital colour visualisation is available on www.dulux.lk

Workshop participants who spanned the ages of 18 to 60 years of age were extremely enthusiastic and keen to use this new fount of knowledge of colour they had garnered from the workshop. Having never quite observed or perceived the multi-faceted look and feel of colour in quite this way, they were keen to use the Colour Futures 2012 colour palette to formulate colour into their lives, homes and surroundings, by picking out colours from their environment as they were taught to do and then mixing and matching shades, tones and tints to add 'Colour to their Lives'.