About this combination
Kariyasu is a soft, earthy yellow extracted from wild mountain grass. Rikyū-nezumi — a cool olive-tinted grey — is named for the 16th-century tea master whose wabi-sabi sensibility changed Japanese aesthetics forever. This pairing embodies wabi restraint: warmth present but never loud.
Where it works
- Tea brands, ceramics, artisan food packaging
- Minimalist editorial with a warm undertone
- Interior design mood boards
Historical context
This editorial combination anchors Kariyasu, Rikyū-nezumi and Neri-iro in the yellow family — a 3-colour grouping with a serene, earthy, austere, refined character. It is an original composition by the editors of colorcombinations.org, built with Wada's method from traditional Japanese shikisai colour names associated with the Muromachi era; it is not one of the 348 plates in Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations. Its strongest pairing — Rikyū-nezumi on Neri-iro — reaches a contrast ratio of 2.99:1, below the WCAG text-contrast floor, so it reads best in decorative blocks rather than text pairings.
Studio
Taking Grass Yellow & Rikyū Grey off the screen
A hex code is an instruction to a screen, not a colour. Where this palette is going decides what it needs next.
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...onto paper
Start here if the palette gets printed. Screen colour and ink colour are not the same colour, and this is the deck that translates between them.
Listed on Amazon as Pantone GP6102B Color Bridge Guide Set Coated & Uncoated, Multi-Colour
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...onto a screen you can trust
Start here if it stays digital. An uncalibrated monitor is the single most common reason a palette that looked right on your desk looks wrong everywhere else.
Calibrite
ColorChecker Studio spectrophotometer
Listed on Amazon as Calibrite ColorChecker Studio Spectrophotometer for Complete Color Management for Display, Projector, Printer and Scanner Profiling
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...by hand
Start here if you are mixing it. Wada's plates were flat printed colour; gansai pans are the closest everyday medium to them.
Listed on Amazon as Strathmore 300 Series Tape Bound Watercolor Pad, 140 lb. Cold Press, 11 X 15 inches, White, 12 Sheets (360-111)
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