How a family’s outback road trip inspired this year’s colour trends

It was always going to be an unforgettable adventure for a young family – an epic road trip that would traverse thousands of kilometres of the vast and breathtakingly beautiful Australian outback.

But for Wendy Rennie, colour and concept manager for Haymes Paint, the three-month-long getaway with her husband Shane and their sons Leo, 10, and Hugo, six, also proved unexpectedly fruitful. It provided her with the inspiration for Haymes Paint’s 2021 ‘Grounded’ colour range – a quintessentially Australian, nature-inspired palette.

“Australian landscapes are some of the most dramatic and raw in the world,” says Rennie. “It wasn’t until I actually travelled the country that I knew I had to use these tones in our annual colour forecast.” 

For the family, now based in Hervey Bay in Queensland, the journey began in Melbourne, where they were living at the time.

“We decided to take a full school term off and head away,” says Rennie, who originally hails from New Zealand. “It’s always been something we wanted to do.

“We went from Melbourne up through South Australia and the middle of Australia to Alice Springs and Uluru, then Darwin, before making our way across to Townsville, Cairns and all the way back down to Melbourne.

“We had planned to spend much more time driving along the coast, but we fell in love with the dirt roads, the trees and the bush in central Australia. There also seemed to be a real community of people with a like-minded reason for wanting to travel. And there were so many hidden treasures and gorgeous little places to discover in the middle of nowhere.”

In fact, Rennie says, “We loved everything about it!”

The glorious hues of the more remote and predominantly uninhabited regions were where they “found unexpectedly dazzling beauty”, she says. “In the places where there was nothing and no-one for so long. The changing of the light at different times of the day in the outback was incredible. The colours were just enchanting.”

Rennie took hundreds of photos along the way.

“I wanted to soak up the entire experience,” she says. “I would take 50 photos from the car of the roadside, the trees and the different colours of the bush. To me, everything was amazing.”

Returning home, Rennie quickly settled back into the busy pace of everyday family and work life. Yet she remained deeply influenced by her travels.

“I thought, ‘How could it not inform the colours that we are making and the trends we are talking about?’” she says. “The timing now, with everyone looking inwardly, is particularly relevant. It seems more important than ever that we turn to our own backyard for inspiration.”

The Grounded range, incorporated within Haymes Paint’s current Volume 14 colour library, features three of Rennie’s favourite hues – Arboretum, Sand Haze and Moment.

“A whole palette has been developed around the beautiful colours that I saw on the trip,” she says. “There are beautiful chartreuse greens, lilacs, terracotta and blush tones, as well as the gorgeous greens and blues that came from when we travelled further towards the coastline.”

Rennie believes there will soon be an even greater emphasis on Australian-inspired tones for interiors.

“More Australians will travel domestically and learn to really appreciate what our incredible country has to offer,” she says.

Colour at home

The impact of colour in the home is incontestable. Yet introducing saturated tones into our living domains can seem a risky move. Not to Wendy Rennie.

“More than ever,” she says, “we are spending time at home, so it should be infused with colour and beauty – a space we just love to be in.”

And for those who still remain hesitant to take the colour leap, Rennie imparts this sage advice: “Try stepping a little out of your comfort zone. Pick one room that is purely for you so you can experiment with colour and bring it to life. And know, too, that colour can always be changed.”