Fiona de Lys
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Thank you

Rachael Smith, Natalie Dinham and Kasia Bobula for photography.
Treasure Hampstead for my vintage Murano necklace.
Antique Textiles Company for the antique patchwork bedspread.

fionadelys_colourconsultant

Specialist in human-centred colour decisions for the home.
The Colour Academy
Delysian Colour System
1:1 | Workshops | Mentorship
BIID partner
A re-set today wondering around Hampstead and High A re-set today wondering around Hampstead and Highgate, seeing familiar and new faces, landscapes and hidden treasures. I stopped and chatted to an elderly woman renovating her home - of several decades - and we recounted the village as far back as the 1970’s. We chatted about her new windows and I gave some colour advice for her front door which she said she would paint grey. I showed her some earthy, chromatic tones - a concept she wasn’t so familiar with but loved. Fonzo and I wondered up to my favourite allotment tucked behind Kenwood - the sort of place you’d happily spend a day reading a book amongst higgledy-pickledy furniture and hand-made huts. There’s something so satisfying about gardens that are perfectly imperfect. I stopped by the Old Kitchen recalling the beautiful original interior - a privilege to of working @kenwood_house_ in the late 1980’s. I bagged some lovely vintage wear and stumbled across a small market where I bumped into a baker acquaintance @mollica_bakes whom I get my olive bread from for my colour workshops. Autumn is very much about the changing feel of colour for me and how it entwines in rituals through seasonal scent, texture, taste and clothing - the human experience - a reminder of the small but special ways colour runs through our personal stories, daily lives and in our homes. Colour stories | landscape | London colour consultant | the feel of colour | cottage core aesthetic | colour and emotion | the call of colour | feel it live it | colour and the home | English style | Hampstead homes | colourful living | learn to feel colour | the ritual of colour | British country heritage
A lovely change of scenery to end the week in the A lovely change of scenery to end the week in the Cotswolds. The palette softens yet enriches as nature dazzles us with her final few weeks of colour before the winter sets in. Mornings are hazy and desaturated, as mist wraps itself around the landscape like a comforting shawl. Leaves move through the colour wheel increasing in chroma, then, gradually deepen and begin to wither before they grace the ground like a carpet. Chimneys sing and fill the air with sweet-burning wood - a smell so distinctive - and earthy chestnuts and mushrooms magically appear as the harvest reaches its end…browns, greys and whispering taupes. colour experience | English sensibilities | the Cotswolds | colour and scent | colour and flavour | autumn colours | autumn landscape | colour through my eyes | your world of colour | colour and style | colour and feeling
See with your heart and feel with your eyes. A vi See with your heart and feel with your eyes. A vibrant scene of warmth, beautiful shadows and dappled light evocative enough to arouse the scent of baked pine needles on the ground and sun on the body. As someone with a colour system borne of creating colour combinations that take their cue from light and form, there is much in this painting that my eyes fall on with comfort. I am always seeking the shadow; the colour of the shadow, often unseen, muted, faded; except for in art. There, the artist brings their personality, their feeling, their experience of the moment or subject to life. Sometimes expressed in vibrant hues, like this painting, other times in subtle, muted shifts in colour. The colours in this painting happen to also occupy my living room, where heat, landscape, warm façades and autumn energy weave a tapestry of atmosphere and narrative. My walls shift from an earthy orange to a warm shadow for the wood trim - a calmer version of what we see in the painting. As someone who mentors other colour consultants and interior designers to explore their relationship with colour, I think it is really important to observe how one responds to colour in other mediums in order to better understand one’s craft. Landscape at Cassis Samuel John Peploe (187–1935) @nationalgalleriesscot Colour in art | shadows and highlights | colour palette | colour inspiration | narrative and colour | storytelling through colour | landscape art | place and colour | place and artist | see with your heart and feel with your eyes | colour consultancy with Fiona de Lys | colour training and mentorship | colour and craft |
Mood Muted palettes Ambience Tone, Shade and Ligh Mood Muted palettes Ambience Tone, Shade and Light I guess some people want to know “How does a colour consultant choose colour for her own home?” It starts within and unfolds into a journey across time, light, intention and meaning. My work is complex; a dance between the aesthetic and the deeper, unseen inspiration that drives someone’s taste, their style, the parameters of how they want to live and feel at home. What you see on the surface is a collection of colours and physical experimentation; what is happening beneath is the channeling of emotion, behaviours, aspirations and new beginnings. That is how I work - bringing colour to your story. These images taken on a vintage lens are the beautiful and sensitive camera work behind the short film of my cottage for Soulful Homes produced @nostalgia.corporation that I was asked to be involved with. Head over to my stories to click the link and watch. Soulful homes | cottages with character | moody cottage | dark aesthetic | dark camera work | buildings and feeling | aesthetic narrative | colour and feeling | intentional living | the crafted home | home is sanctuary | healing homes | curating colour palettes | colour consultant’s home |
My Halloween edit - a mix of the moody, quirky, sp My Halloween edit - a mix of the moody, quirky, spooky, hair-tingling, silent-but-felt and colourfully odd moments ✨🦉🎃 1. Skulls and symbols adorn the entrance doorway of a replica Iron Age home. Just love that weave. 2. The most perfect purple jumper and necklace of my local witchy friend who appears through the trees and meets me for sunset walks. 3. Sunset walk - Hertfordshire 4. I’ve always believed in the power of plants and am passionate about monastic or witchy gardens. 5. Seen in Bali 6. At a Green Party. Me as a sea-witch with my son as a pirate @zsllondonzoo 7. Church in Orosei - Sardinia 8. Street in Wirksworth - Derbyshire (said to be called the quirkiest town in the UK by King Charles when Prince) 9. Experimentation following my fascination with toxic, arsenic paint and wallpaper after reading Bitten by Witch Fever @vamuseum - London 10. Decaying rose - simply beautiful 11. Downstairs loo - seen whilst styling for @englishhomemag - Norfolk 12. Intoxicating hops and pots in my back room - High Barnet 13. Party thrown by @harrison.goldman - he knows how to - London 14. A collection of masks at a makers studio - Cornwall 15. When @rachaelsmithphotographyltd caught the mood of the cottage to photograph me for @englishhomemag - High Barnet 16. An Iron Age bed @chilternoam a favourite place I cannot get enough of - the Chilterns 17. When my woodland room had a witchy vibe. 18. Candles seen in Turin when I visited to deliver a colour workshop at the lovely villa of Kate and husband @mad_about_the_house 19. Intense black interior at the home of Beatrix Potter Halloween | spooky aesthetic | witchy vibes | primitive decor | how to get a spooky look |colours for Halloween | moody cottages | gothic decor | the witches home | colours that will freak you out | how to make a cottage moody
The way it was around six years ago. Looking back The way it was around six years ago. Looking back at these images I can see how I was searching for meaning and translation within my immediate environment. Fragments of fantasy, mystery and memory hidden in-between layers of colour, texture and craft. The evolution of darker then bolder colour, before settling on where I am today, has been nothing short of a dance with light, mood and imagination. Years of observation and work have taught me the synchronicity between my inner architecture and that of my home; something I now bring to my everyday work in the ways in which I am curious about the relationships people hold with the spaces they occupy. Where space and dimensions have challenged me I have learned to lean into these to make them a feature. Where daylight has compromised my function, I have asked ‘what is the best purpose of the space?’. When colour was uncertain, I asked ‘how might that make me feel?’. And when I wasn’t sure I did it anyway to see how it did. I mixed colour and experimented. Slowly, I learned that light is atmosphere and colour is a gateway for experience, and when blended with possessions owned can create something timeless where past present and future coexist. That was around the time I began asking myself the deeper questions around how I actually wanted to feel and live through conscientious colour, when I understood that each room could be a story to fall into, if I knew what I really wanted it to be. Colour sense | how to with colour | mindful interiors | the home edit | homes with purpose | the neuroscience of colour | colour and emotion | colour consultancy | explore colour

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The Colour Academy

All courses
How to Define Your Own Unique Colour System course
Aesthetic Narrative course
Colour Perspective course
Aesthetic Narrative + Colour Perspective course (bundle)
Aesthetic Narrative + Colour Perspective course (full-day)

©2026 Fiona de Lys Ltd. ‘Aesthetic Narratives’ and ‘Delysian Colour System’ are registered trade marks.
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