50 Blogs About Color

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Carrie

I received an email this week from a woman who let me know that my blog had been featured as one of the “Top 50 Blogs About Color”. I took a look at the list, and it’s got some really fun sites worth checking out. There’s something for everyone, from an artist who works solely with crayons to a woman who uses color as a prayer tool. Have a look!

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Color and Light

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Carrie

In this post, I’ll talk briefly about ways to ensure happiness with your wall color by taking LIGHT into consideration during your project planning.

I recently received an email from a client in Texas who was dying to know the color of the walls in the photo you see above. She was willing to spend extra for me to recreate the custom hue that resulted in such a striking effect. I looked at the photo, asked various staff around the office, and found that the color was Snow Canyon. Yep. Snow Canyon. The color of the clay plaster without any pigment in it. Really? But what is it that makes the color looks so dramatic and variable in the picture?!?! Simply enough, it was the light, which in this case, seems to be a dramatic natural light streaming in from a window.

The same thing happened to me last fall during a consultation. During a tour of a client’s home, I made a remark about the beautiful tan clay plaster on her walls. It turns out the color was Acacia, a yellow in our standard color line. I’d seen it in the early evening, and the sun was going down. The homeowner’s overhead lights were on, casting a glow on the walls that altered the color. Being so familiar with our colors, it was difficult to believe that it was really Acacia on those walls.

It’s easy to fall in love with a color seen in a photograph, on a plaster swatch, or in a showroom. How can you select a color and know that it will result in the effect you want? Here are a few easy rules of thumb to consider when choosing colors:

1. Obtain large samples of the colors you like. You can obtain samples from your applicator, dealer, or directly from American Clay.

2. Place the samples in the rooms where you’d like to eventually have the clay plaster installed.

3. Observe them throughout the course of the day, in natural light as well as artificial light. Take note of changes at different times of day. Inevitably, the color will look different under different sources of light. The photo below was taken at Lowe’s. It’s from their paint department. They encourage you to hold paint swatches under different sources of light to see how the color shifts and changes.

4. Choose color in comparison with its surroundings. Any color can look great by itself, but how does it look next to your furniture, textiles, flooring, or countertops?

This list could be a lot longer, but off the top of my head, these are the best suggestions I can offer as you approach color selection with a clay plaster job (or any wall finish, for that matter).

If you need help choosing colors, you’re always welcome to call us here at the office. We’ll do our best to guide you through the process.

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New color app available

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Carrie

Today, I noticed a post from Benjamin Moore on Facebook that announced a new color app for iPhones and iPads. I haven’t had a chance to use it much, yet, but it’s only free for the next few days, and I wanted to share the info in case any of you wanted to download it before it costs $2.99. The app is called Color Life, and is available for download here. It appears to be an interactive e-zine, which would make it a bit different from their Color Capture app featured on a previous blog post.

I came across another free app that design lovers may appreciate – Remodelista has a free app available for download here.

Enjoy…

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A Smart Decision

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Carrie

Years ago, a policy was put in place that required our dealers and distributors to order our colors by the box. This meant that they would have between 4-8 units of color packs in stock for sale to the general public. Since the policy was developed, our staff has been lax in reinforcing it with our clients. Some dealers have chosen to carry our products in sparse numbers, which often results in last minute orders of one color pack at a time, sometimes requesting overnight service. As we’ve settled into this recession, we understand that our dealers have more limited cash flow, and have tried to be flexible based on their needs. Is there anything wrong with doing business this way? Not necessarily, but consider:

  1. If a dealer doesn’t have stock on-hand, it inhibits the customer’s ease of purchasing product, and slows down their American Clay job.
  2. Our “green” business is having to ship less product more frequently, thus defeating energy- and cost-savings that are a large part of our mission and values.
  3. Production and manpower costs on our end go up, which could lead to an increase in the price of our products, which we’d like to avoid.

A few days ago we emailed all of our dealers and distributors to let them know that we will be enforcing the policy that requires that they order our top 20 best-selling colors in full-box quantities. This will ensure that:

  • Customers who come to a dealer looking for American Clay will have easier access to our most popular colors.
  • Color packs in a store will more likely carry the same lot number, which will help minimize variations or color differences that can be experienced if bags were produced at different times.
  • Significant savings on shipping costs. We are aiming to make this experience easier and less expensive for everyone.

We are thankful to have been able to keep costs the same or lower than they were prior to the recession. We’d like to continue doing business this way. Thanks in advance to our dealers for adapting their ordering habits to best serve our clients.

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The effect of clay on color

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Carrie

In this post, I’m going to address a pesky problem that can affect the resulting color of your American Clay wall, as well as talk about what you can do to minimize potential for problems.

American Clay has been around for about 10 years. In that time, our product has shifted and changed a few times in ways worth mentioning. We have a pretty thorough quality control process for managing our colors, but there’s an ingredient of our plaster that can still affect your color that we can’t control as easily, and it’s the clay itself.

This photo demonstrates two of the major changes in clay color that have occurred over the years. There have been others, but this one will serve well for the purposes of this blog entry. Our plaster formula hasn’t changed all that much, but the actual clay we use has ranged from a creamy oatmeal color (seen in the small square) to a cool gray-white (not shown) to a more cool neutral white (seen on the larger square). So the next question is, what can you do about it?

We’ve alerted people to the value of keeping track of product lot numbers before, so some of this information isn’t new if you’ve been reading our blog for a while. However, we’re hoping to create another way for people to choose bags of plaster easily without having to scour the bag for information to find out if they’re all the same color. This leads me to share a new tool that will soon be showing up on our bags:

With this grid, we hope to indicate the color of the clay inside the bag. As consumers, the goal would be to purchase bags whose marks indicate that the plaster is similar or the same in comparison with one another.

So what do you do with bags that don’t have this grid?

  1. Aim to purchase plaster with the same lot numbers.
  2. If that’s not possible, box your plaster together by mixing multiple bags together into a large bucket, which will eliminate any differences one would see if they were mixed and applied separately.
  3. Make samples. Spread a small amount of material from each bag and allow to dry, then compare the colors.
  4. Call us. We have tracked the plaster color changes over time, and can help determine what color to expect from your bag of plaster.

Take advantage of the resources available to you – You’re always welcome to call if you have questions about how to achieve the results you’re seeking.

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Playing detective…

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Carrie

As I write this post, I am surrounded by beautiful plaster samples that I’ve been asked to match. The conundrum I face with these samples is fairly common. I figured it would be fun to share with our clients. In this post, I’ll explain how I approach the matching process when this particular question arises.

The photo above shows just a few examples of the types of items I’ve been sent by customers. One is a plaster sample (part of the group of 4 I’m currently working to match). One is a piece of leather. The others are made of stone. While different, they share something important in common – They all contain a myriad of colors.

Typically, someone will send me an item and make a general request for me to match it. Being unfamiliar with color matching, though, they don’t often include information as to which of the colors they want, or even the type of plaster they’re hoping to use. That’s when I get on the phone and start digging. Do you want the light or the dark tone? The light brown, the camel color, or the gray-brown? The deep red or the rusty orange? The light gray stone or the deep blue-grey stone? Often times, they’ll entrust me to choose a color that looks best with the sample. In each of these cases, I opted to provide multiple colors for the clients to review.

My most common color requests are still paint colors, but this scenario still crops up a couple of times a month. We’ve been asked to match all sorts of items – Everything from bits of fabric to quilts, from leather to glass, from Labradoodle fur color to children’s eye colors. In each case, we ask that clients try to be specific with their needs so that we can best serve them as quickly as possible.

Not every client forgets this step – One applicator in Arizona recently sent me a piece of tile. A tiny circle was drawn on the surface with a Sharpie marker that read, “match this”. They went on to say, “clients like this color, similar to Verde Valley, but richer and more blue than green.” With everyone in a hurry these days, details like this make all the difference.

A big thanks to all of our clients for keeping our work rich and interesting!

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Go ahead! Break the rules…

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Carrie

It’s not uncommon for someone to call us asking if it’s okay to add more or less of a pigment to achieve a color they’re seeking. In this post, I’m giving you permission to break the rules. :-)

A typical conversation often yields one of two questions:

  • Can I add more pigment to intensify one of your standard colors?
  • Is it all right if I add less pigment to lighten a color?

In both cases, the answer is often yes. In the case of heavy color packs like Bryce Canyon, Palomino Valley, Painted Desert, or Sugarloaf White, it isn’t a good idea to increase the pigment load. You can comfortably divide the color pack, though, often for amazing results. The image at the top of this post shows our standard color, Amber Grain, next to a lighter section of the wall that uses the same pigment, but at only 1/6th the strength.

It’s funny the way many of our customers try to follow instructions to a tee, not feeling safe enough to deviate from what they’ve been told is the “right way” to use our product. Customers trust that what we tell them is THE way things should be done. Often, that’s true. The methods we suggest in our instructions are the tried and true methods that have yielded good results across a wide geographic range, as well as with a diverse demographic audience (largely professional plasterers vs. first-time users).

There are certain qualities inherent in our product, though, that allow for creativity and some flexibility, and color is one of them. When you read our instructions, which tell you (in most cases) to combine a bag of plaster with one bag of pigment, understand that those suggestions are given so you’ll get a specific end result color. You can opt to take your own route and create a different color. Depending on your comfort level, it could be as simple as deciding, “I really like Chesapeake Bay, but it’s too rich. I’m going to blend one color pack among 4 bags of clay to create a lighter version.” In other cases, we have some artisans who are comfortable mixing 3 and 4 pigments together to create a brand new color completely different than would have been achievable with just one of our color packs alone.

If you decide to “break the rules” and adjust a color on your own, make sure you consider a few things, most importantly cost and pigment weight.

If you’re increasing the amount of pigment, ask yourself – Is it cost effective? Here’s a good example to consider:  A popular request is for an intense version of Wild Horse Smoke that would require upwards of 6 color packs per bucket of clay. I don’t know about you, but I would be very hesitant to purchase that many color packs if I felt I could achieve the same look at a smaller cost. It’s far less expensive to have your dealer contact us to have a large quantity of pigment packaged as one color pack and shipped to your location.

Your other consideration is making sure you don’t exceed the pigment weight/clay plaster ratio. You want to stay under 2-or-so lbs of pigment per batch of clay. There are certain exceptions depending on the pigment, type of application, geographic region, and other factors, but this is a tried and true number for many reasons.

We encourage you to keep calling to talk about your color options. Many times, I’ve already tried to achieve the type of color you’re seeking, and can either do it for you, or I can better advise you on how to start the process on you’re own.

I hope this post has boosted your confidence to break the rules and explore some new color options!

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Discerning clients need to know…

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Carrie

Today’s post is as much for dealers, applicators, and artisans as it is for clients considering having American Clay installed in a space. In this blog entry, I’ll talk about a scenario we see occasionally, and how a client should respond in order to maximize the likelihood that they’ll be happy with their walls in the end.

In recent weeks, we’ve received multiple calls about a 30,000 square foot residential job in which the architects have specified American Clay. To give you a sense of the timeline, I matched a custom color for this residence 2 years ago, and it’s just now about ready to have the clay plaster installed. The calls we’re getting are from applicators, four of them from four different companies, all who say they ARE the applicators for the job. Obviously, something’s amiss. Upon further investigation, we understand that a contractor has not yet been selected.

Each of these applicators want samples. In some cases, they’re requesting that I produce and mail them a sample which they’ll present to the client. What else do they want? Application instructions. Samples of our material so they can play with it. In other words, they’ve never used American Clay before. In the meantime, my samples may be shown as examples of the potential final result. Scary. A catastrophe waiting to happen. They’ve been advised as such. The final decision is in the hands of the architecture firm, and we don’t have much say in the matter.

If you’re a client, what comes to mind when you read this? A variety of contractors approach you, and you receive bids that reflect radically different price points. Which one do you choose? They may all have beautiful samples (some created by yours truly, and are clearly labeled as such on the back). There have to be other ways to find out if an applicator can really do the job.

Here’s what jumps out at me as being important:

  • Do they know how to use the material?
  • How were they trained?
  • What references do they have?
  • Did they make their own samples?
  • How do you REALLY know they’re properly skilled?

There are plenty of other questions, but these are good initial inquiries when considering a contractor who says they can apply American Clay. Check our website for a list of applicators who have demonstrated adequate training and competency with our material. Don’t take our list at face value. Check references. Ask the applicator if THEY will be on-site applying the clay plaster, or if they plan to subcontract the work. (This has happened. Not a good phone call to receive. Homeowners don’t appreciate hiring one person and getting a completely different crew to install plaster at their home. It isn’t always bad, but it’s worth asking questions ahead of time so you’re informed.) Make sure you ask them to produce their own sample for your approval – You need to see their abilities and craftsmanship, not mine.

Every applicator comes with a different set of skills and history of knowledge. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, to pick up the phone and make a few calls, or to visit sites where they’ve installed this product in the past. In this economy, hungry companies are doing everything they can to get work. We support good workers efforts to keep their businesses going, but only if they can provide beautiful results.

If you ever need help choosing a contractor, ask your local dealer for a recommendation. You can also call us, but often times, dealers are more aware of applicators in their area with good reputations.

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Binders and their effects on color

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Carrie

American Clay offers multiple binders to use with our plasters. These binders serve to help the clay adhere properly to a wall surface, and depending on your needs, you might need one over another. In this particular blog entry, I’ll be focusing on color differences that can occur between binders, as well as address some things that can be done to address these color differences.

I’ll start from newest to oldest…

First up is Plaster Plus and Up and EZ. Two different names, but largely the same performance. When using these binders, there is no effect on the end result color compared to clay plaster with no Plaster Plus or Up and EZ.

Next, there’s Mud Glue. Mud Glue contains ingredients that will lighten the color of your clay plaster. In many cases, you can add a bit more pigment to deepen the color back to it’s expected shade, but if you are using one of our heavy color packs, such as Bryce Canyon, Painted Desert, or Palomino Valley, then you would want to avoid adding extra pigment.

I recently had a call from someone looking to lighten the clay plaster to match an existing clay wall that contained Mud Glue, but she wanted to do a wall WITHOUT Mud Glue. By adding a small amount of Sugarloaf White (less than 1/4 of a pound) to her 50-lb batch of clay plaster, the color matched the previously completed wall.

We see these products used less frequently nowadays, but Penetrating Sealer and Gloss Sealer can also be used as a binder in clay plaster. These soy-based acrylic products have a tendency to darken our colors, and the difference can be significant. If looking to keep your end-result color light, you can add less pigment to the clay during the mixing process (by approximately 25%, but varies depending on color). We often see people choosing sealers as an attempt to deepen their color, though these sealers inhibit the breathability and ease of repair of the plaster.

There are many products that can change the color of your plaster. Always make sure you test products ahead of time so you are well-prepared for your end result. If you need help understanding how to make samples, you’re welcome to contact us here at the office.

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Desert Plum

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Carrie


As some of you know, we’ve had a range of colors over the years that have been discontinued for one reason or another. Often times, this is because of inconsistency in a pigment’s performance or a lack of availability in the U.S.

Desert Plum was a color that people LOVED when it was available, but it was placed on the chopping block because the resulting color sometimes varied because of differences in water chemistry. Depending on the water used to mix with Desert Plum-colored clay plaster, one would sometimes get a different color than they anticipated.

As you may be able to deduce from this photo, it’s a beautiful, warm purple, not too light, not too dark. It’s very similar to Benjamin Moore 1264 Mauve Mist, though a slight bit warmer and more red. It’s a relatively small color pack, and could easily be doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled to receive a richer effect. Whether or not your color will turn out exactly like this is only determinable if you make samples prior to starting your clay job. (ALWAYS MAKE SAMPLES AHEAD OF TIME!)

In spite of the variation in results, the demand for this color continues, and we have a small quantity on-hand that we can sell until it runs out. If you would like to purchase color packs of Desert Plum for a limited time, they are available for $14.28 MSRP. Once we run out of the pigment, we won’t purchase any more, so enjoy it while it lasts!

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