The Elements of African Theme Decorating
All interior designs of African theme decorating are based on creative elements. The elements used in this process are….. color, line, shape, size and texture. These elements collectively will provide your project with spatial aesthetics providing emotional involvement.
Color is very powerful when it comes to emotional involvement. Consider for a moment your African theme is Egyptian. You could use a monochromatic color approach by applying only a light sand color to your walls, (depicting the Sahara Desert) with Travertine flooring, (in a complimenting tone) then accenting these base colours with purples, reds, greens, etc. You have become involved by way of color, which is providing a relaxing setting emotionally.
Lines provide depth of perspective - a point of interest for the eye - when entering a room. A feature wall can be a point of interest as well as a large window. Very large paintings are popular and usually accented with halogen spot lighting to get your attention. A wall featuring a cascading water fall is extremely powerful because you are now involving another one of the five senses important to total emotional involvement…..Sound. The five senses are Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell, and Feel. The more senses the better.
Size can depict strength, weakness, clutter, scarcity. Imagine a room with eighteen foot walls with massive Roman columns supporting arches over the windows and doors. The doors are eight feet high, with all the casings; baseboards as well as wall trims measure four, seven, three inches respectively. This setting in your minds eye conveys strength, mass as well as presence. In some cases theses items tactfully placed along with paintings, lighting, furnishings etc can provide a very elegant design.
Texture supplies a quality of ruggedness in a natural way to your decorating project with the sense of touch. A wall finishing technique called Elephant Skin reflects this with Venetian Plaster being another example. Floorings in Limestone, Travertine, Granite even Marble also work. Tactile, Visual textures form warm pleasing patterns to the eye. Window treatments, furniture coverings all play a vital part in African décor. Subtle textures will always provide interest with visual richness to your home décor.
Shapes such as squares, circles, cubes, spheres, cones found in architecture provide mass to your decorating themes. Good examples of this are the Roman arches, Egyptian Pyramids, Limestone square blocks used to build the Pyramids, Domed huts of South African plainsmen. These shapes also provide a sense of balance to the space you are designing or decorating. Balance is one of the principals of design found in African theme decorating.