A while back, I spent time with my friend Lauren helping her to choose new art pieces for her home.

She has a wonderfully decorated 4-story townhouse with perfect spaces and nooks to display her variety of different styles of visual art from illustrations to landscapes.

I often work with people who are convinced that they don’t have “an eye” for art. How can I blame them? The art world is intimidating and has been intentionally been closed off to lots of people for centuries. My job is to pull back those long curtains and show each person that art exist to set all of our hearts on fire! I take that job very seriously. I know that there’s literally “something for everybody” in this vast field.

Once Lauren and I set out on her art discovery adventure- purposefully wandering through aisles of paintings, photographs and sculptures- nothing caught or held any of my friend’s attention. This only affirmed her belief that she was not “artistically inclined”. All I could think was, “Patience, grasshopper! You’ll find the piece you’re looking for!” (***Spoiler alert***: She did.)

Everything changed when we happened upon a simplistic painting of a barren tree with a bright green wren in its branches.

To my joy, my friend’s eyes lit up and she finally exclaimed, “I think I like this one!”

We found the artist and her partner present and engaged them on the artist’s work, past and present. Lauren then found another piece to the first painting in the same size: a similar, simple tree with bright red foliage.

“Do these look too much like christmas?”

I knew these shades of red and green were perfectly complementary after reading this helpful post from T. Espinoza’s post on “What Colors Look Good Together”.

When using color, Espinoza suggests:

• Choose any three colors that are side by side on the wheel for a fun play on the monochrome trend

• Complementary (or contrasting) colors are any two colors that are directly opposite each other on the wheel. In this case, opposites balance each other out

• If you’re not ready to dive all the way in, add just a pop of color to neutrals. Like cobalt blue with gray or fuchsia with olive green

This advice is very helpful in choosing both a wardrobe or an art collection that compliments ones style. [Read: 5 Reasons to Make Art Collecting a Priority.]

As you see, this shade of red of the tree in one painting and the green or the little wren are perfectly complimentary of each another. My friend walked away with not just one new piece, but two that were complimentary!

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I live to help others cultivate a taste for art and discover their art styles. Then all that’s left is to curate pieces that match their styles, taste and budget perfectly.

Are you ready to discover your art styles? You don’t have to go at it alone, take my hand, I’ll be your guide…

Artfully,