Virtual Art Gallery Wall Colours.

Cream or creamy grey.

Your work especially Michael would look gorgeous on strong colour, my preference being , yes, Black.....not that people have black walls at home, but, a Gallery is a showplace, the black is very helpful to your colours....see what the others say..

Thanks for the feedback Jeffery, have not tried a creamy grey yet.

Vivian, strange you say black, as some of my initial investigation into suitable colours, does actually mention black, saying that it stops colour from your clothes being picked up by the walls and distracting you from the paintings. I have always used black for my sculpture print backgrounds, but never really thought of the background for my paintings. The sculptures will be walkaraound, and upto now have started with slate grey floor paving, but the paintings and walls around the gallery will reflect onto the metallic parts of the sculptures.

I always like these kind of questions because then I can say... 'it depends' ;O) Which of course it does.

It 'depends' on the mood your are trying to convey.

It 'depends' on the color of your sculptures... Black would be inappropriate if your sculptures were of black cast iron, but great if they were of white plastic. And grey would not be a good choice if that were the color of your sculptures. If they were of some style of POP art in neon colors, well.. then go crazy with the walls.. ;O)

It 'depends' on what kind of room lighting effects you have available..

For framed paintings I think black walls with controlled lighting would be best... but even there... "it depends".

As to show casing your sculptures you might want to consider placing them in other than gallery locations. Maybe an outdoor garden, or luxury home interiors.


You have the luxury of being a 3d artist so you can do renderings of all sorts of options.

This is my first sculpture this year, although not finished yet, will give an example of the kind of sculpture or materials to start with.

As I said earlier in the post, the reflective facets of the sculpture will pick up of the surroundings, paintings walls and general architectural features.

I once read that galleries paint their walls red because everything looks good against it. I didn't believe it until I moved into a house with red walls. It's true, you can hang anything and it really looks great. But I know that's probably not the direction you want to go... so just saying.

Thanks for the feedback bob, I do intend to site the sculptures in an outside scene eventually, just that I don't use a lot of software related to outdoor scenes , landscapes etc, and I am more in control of the surroundings in the gallery at present, plus I can place the paintings in the scene also.

One of my next moves sometime this year will be trying Vue out for some of the xternal stuff, but that is a way offf yet.


Patricia, I am totally new to themes for wall colours as such, so will not rule anything out, it's good to know what colours people have tried that vere away from the traditional neutral colours. I will add it to my list to try out, incidentally what colour red would you say it was or proximity rgb colour?.

Michael, the walls in my house were a deep, dark red, kind of like what you would see next to a wooden dashboard on an old car or sailboat. Out of curiosity, I just did a google image search for "museum gallery walls" and a lot of options popped up.

I tried as well Patricia, it ws my first thought, so many variations though, just thought some of the artists may have gone through the process and found some good norms. As Bob and Vivian said, black seems to work as a background for paintings, and the style of paintings does obviously come into the equation, trying to get some known good combinations to start.

Any more ideas on gallery wall colours appreciated.

Michael, that wip - looks sensational on black, just to make my point again..........black is very sophisticated / modern/ timeless....your sculptural works/metallics look sensational against black.

Deeper Reds create a wonderful atmosphere, are a little warmer, maybe more 'traditional'......and would work too.

A number days to go yet before my trial gallery is ready with some paintings and other objects in the scene, then will center this sculpture in the middle of the domed gallery and walk around it which will be 360 frames, so I will be able to try a number of different colour walls on the different frames. In my test so far, I have the walls a slate grey, and the dome that sits above the circular walls is a creamy colour, mainly to disperse the natural light. The floor at the minute is an almost black slightly polished stone with a slight reflectivity, although I originally started out with a slate grey paving flags, but the joints between the flags taper off to nothing in the distance with perspective, so have changed that for a continuous floor medium. I will post a few versions with suggested colours when it is ready.

Thanks for the feedback so far everyone!.

I am probably too late but thought I would add this. Our art gallery here has all beige walls except one which is a deep red. They were showing a major artist, Emily Carr and all the paintings looked dead on the beige walls but the one painting on the deep red looked fantastic.

The reds do appear to be popular Theresa, I have been looking also at some of the colour schemes from "The National Gallery" virtual tour site.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/virtualtour/#/central-hall/

Thank you for your feedback.

Michael,

I have seen some Gallery walls a silvery grey, that works well, but I suppose it depends on what is in front of it. Good Luck.

Thanks for the feedback James, I have a grey at present, which looks good, just trying to find some criteria with the styles or brightness of painting relation to background.

Here is a link I have found during my search. http://paintedroom.com/2012/02/exhibition-color/

I am also going to try and convert the colour combinations into greyscale, to see what the brightness contrast is like.

Here is where I am at with my 3d virtual art gallery design, that will be used to showcase and also as a backdrop for my paintings and sculptures.

I have not decided on the final clours for the interior yet, but have lots of windows and mods to add to the gallery yet, got to fill it up with artwork and sculptures and then make some walkaround animations that I will choose selected frames from for some of my high res prints.

hmm, read all the links, still haven't seen Black used...........I'd agree with that ! .....all very nice on a web page or intimate space. I'd say modernity requires something different as a complement, including White, whereas traditional art really looks wonderful in its gilt frames against a strong colour. Just musing aloud..................

The modest gallery that I started off with has grown quite considerably, it has taken on a life of it's own and also a lot of manhours, so the colour trials will have to be put off until I have finished the final design, but should have lots to create intersting scenes with within the framework of the building.

Vivian, with the number of extra gallery rooms that now exist with the gallery, I should be able to have lots of variations on the popular colours in different rooms to show off the different kinds of sculptures and paintings, plus I can change the whole decor for any room.

Sounds so exciting, Michael..........looking forward to new developments/decisions...........Cheers.V

Thanks for the feedback and support Vivian, your input is appreciated!. Michael

Well about a month to go on the main structure of my 3d art gallery, which like most things that I take on seems to grow and grow and grow, the gallery now has over 16 million cubic feet capacity, and lots of new features, here are some of the latest low res progress shots.

Three of the floors will be sub surface floors even though there is a background landscape in the attached image, just a trial until I complete some of the other work.

Some images also of the double spiral staircases that drop down from the domed gallery floor eighty feet into the bowels of the lower galleries.

Each of the bottom three floors alone could be divided into about 96 60ft x 40t x 20ft galleries, although I will vary the size of the galleries based on content and painting sizes.

I am working on ornate tiled floors at present for the smaller hexagonal galleries that break off from the domed gallery.

I am hoping to start producing some prints in the next 2 weeks or so, as I will start my prints as and when I complete each floor level.

If anyone has any links to interesting ornate tiled floors I would appreciate them posting here also, I have started my own but good to see examples that might spark the imagination also.