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Mix Your Own Thorndown Paint Colours - Naomi Slade
Mix Your Own Thorndown Paint Colours with Naomi Slade
Thorndown paints are really easy to mix together so if you can’t find the right colour on our colour chart and don’t fancy one of the RAL colours, create your own bespoke shade.
Naomi Slade, prolific garden journalist, author and designer, is bringing to life her own small urban city garden which started as an unprepossessing slope of clay and concrete. After plenty of ground work and a fair bit of planting she has now started to focus on the garden structures, starting with the fence and potting shed.
Before climbers shot into action Naomi painted her fence in Wispy Willow to create a bright, fresh boundary that would frame her garden and provide a lovely backdrop to her planting.
Studying the Wood Paint colour chart for hours, Naomi couldn’t quite find the shade she really wanted. Reed Green was close but she wanted more of a sea green. To create the right shade she picked Peregrine Blue to add the right hue, then experimented by mixing different ratios of Peregrine Blue into the Reed Green. Being creative she used clean old yoghurt pots to mix together paint using an old plastic medicine spoon to measure out 5ml and 2.5ml quantities.
The perfect ratio was 90% Reed Green and 10% Peregrine Blue. To get the final quantities right, Naomi poured out 10% (250ml) of the Reed Green from the 2.5 litre tin into a spare container. She then poured 10% of Peregrine Blue Wood Paint into the Reed Green tin and mixed thoroughly to ensure the colours were fully blended together.
This combination produced a gorgeous mid-sea green that when painted on her shed contrasts nicely to the cool brightness of the Wispy Willow fence, adding depth and warmth to the scheme. We love the colour Naomi created and will be adding it to our online store as ‘Slade Green’. There isn’t anything exactly like it in the RAL Classic and Design ranges so these mixes truly are unique. The closest to it is RAL 190 60 15 that captures the blue-green sea feel, but the blue and grey hues are slightly stronger. It’s a beautiful shade that reflects the essence of the colour Naomi wanted to create.
Turns out that Naomi is also a very well-read lady and informed us that “‘Slade’ is an old word for a glade or clearing in the woods, or a small valley or open area”.
If you want to have a colour named after you, send us details of the colour you’ve made, how you made it and pictures, and we’ll look at adding it to the shop.
We were delighted to hear what Naomi thought of our Wood Paint and hope she continues to love the colours for years to come.
“I found it really nice to use – it goes on well and spreads evenly, giving a good coverage; not too thin or too thick. And it was also really forgiving when working on wood that is rough or thirsty like parts of my fence. When working outside, the fact it dries fast is a bonus, but it is not so fast that you have to dilute the bottom of the tin! In terms of application, this is a good-quality product and I approve of the sustainable ethos, too.”
You can follow Naomi’s progress transforming her garden into a thing of glory in her regular column in Garden News magazine.