Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Day 262




Let's think about color.



Once, many years ago and many miles from here, I was a student with little money and a budding aesthetic. I learned to dye natural fabrics with coffee, tea and certain dark vegetables. I learned that a set of mismatched solid and striped towels could be unified with an application of powdered dye in black, turning them into coordinating deeper shades of themselves with black flecks.

Probably should've been a clue to rethink that biology major.

Wasn't.


Possibly I found my palette there. Reds were deep, orange was burnt and yellow was gold. Purple became eggplant, Blue muted by winter, French and midnight. Green shades of sage, moss and Charleston. Rare touches of pink dampened into deeper shades found in varieties of flesh.

Possibly it goes way deeper.


It rained the other night and I turned everything off so I could listen to the sounds. As I lay there, Bilbo bit at my toes. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to ride. He climbed on and hung on tightly while I bounced my foot up and down, up and down. I imagined the spring-based tot rides at the park. How about a giant foot to bounce on? Bilbo is getting too big for this. Soon it won't work anymore.

I can no longer throw Orion in the pool.

In a way, it's like shrinking.


But I was talking about color. As I lay there listening to thunder and bouncing Bilbo I looked at the art on my walls. My work and that of others, all in the palette I'm drawn to. The same colors that followed me to and from all the places I've lived.


My furnishings fall within these shades.

As do the clothes in my closet.

Basic colors with undertones of black. It makes perfect sense for me.


Shades, not tints. Is my palette made up of ghosts of other colors?


Children ask each other, "What's your favorite color?" It is, after all, a completely logical question.


What's your favorite color then, and why might that be? Let's talk about color.


14 comments:

Melissa P said...

For me, blues, mostly deep ones. Though things in my home are earthy, the things I make tend to be much more vibrant. It's something I've been wondering over lately. Is this a disconnect? The bubbling up of something latent? I don't know.

Syd said...

My very favorite color of all time is peacock blue--I love the depth, the hint of green-ness that augments the blue without overshadowing it, and it makes me feel like a million bucks on those rare occasions I can find something wearable in that color.

I am also a fan of most other variants of blue. I like jewel tones of all varieties. Many pastels. Many earth tones. But peacock blue will draw my eye like flame draws moths.

yemamaya said...

A friend of mine described my palette as Combat Snowhite. Weird, but apt description.

Diandra said...

My all-time favorite color is the green of leaves when the year transitions from spring to summer... surely there is a name for that color, but... ^^

(I like being outside. I like the energy and fresh air that time of the year, and the promises that come with them.)

Shonna said...

My colour palette includes several colours - greens, blues, purples and a touch of red. Strong colours, not pastels. Adding texture just makes colour more exciting.

And so good to see your Gothic Angels as the picture on this post. Love them! One day, a pair of them will be mine :)

spacedlaw said...

My favourite colour is words (the fact is I have no real favourite).

For you, a poem I wrote some years ago:

PAINTING LOVE BY NUMBERS

You could be any colour of the world, he said,
The faded pink of the kisses from seasons past,
The silvery mother of pearl of treasures, lost at the bottom of the seas,
The fiery red of a setting sun, ever renascent,
The powdery green of the wild thyme on a Cretan hill,
The copper glaze of vine shoots curlicueing in the sun,
The delicate blush on the cherry tree blossoms,
The lavender shade underneath a scorching daze,
The golden hue of a sunflower field,
The flaming red of poppies gently swaying in the breeze,
The silvery gold of the barley around them,
The hush of forget-me-nots, winking gently in the morning dew,
The Prussian blue that poisons the mind or
The cobalt blue that poisons the soul.

But what is your favourite colour of all, I asked,
The deepest plum shade smelling of autumn,
The delicate cream shade of magnolia in bloom,
The cerulean flares of a dying star,
The earth around Sienna, so deeply red as to be brown,
The gentle green shade of olive tree flowers, twirling in a late spring storm,
The iridescent glaze of clouds in a summer sky,
The ginger flavour of marigolds in love,
The vert-de-gris on an old shingle, mossy with age,
The lilac hue of the wisteria surrounding your garden wall or
The glistening moist of a first rope of pearls ?

You could be any colours of the world, he said,
But my favourite colour is YOU.

Mélanie said...

When I first moved into my current place, it started to feel like home once I decided which colors to decorate it with. The place is mostly white, with turquoise/light brown in the bedroom, and purple/light grey in the living room. They really feel like "my" colors, ad so it became my own place. Turquoise and brown for the summer, purple and grey for the winter.

Beautiful entry, by the way.

annnoe said...

Green. The deep and sparkling green of emerald, which is at once bright and dark.

Blue. The dark velvet of the near-night sky, after sunset but before full-dark. Twilight, I suppose, but more so.

Michaela said...

Peacock Blue for me too.. the Greens of a forest in May..the blueish grey of Stormclouds, the Mee Sees You / Poppet kind of red. the color(s) of whisky and wood...
i´m a sucker for colors, not many pastels though.

Interestingly enough i couldn´t stand one special kind of orange for quite some time, it made me physically sick, bur not now anymore ... hhhmmm.

What i would like to know: (Lisa i hope you don´t mind me throwing it in here..) do you connect colors with any other immpressions ( music in general,sound of instruments, numbers, letters, smells..) ?

Michaela said...

@spacedlaw: your poem sums ist up perfectly for me, i love it...

Stacy Hurt said...

Super deep plumbs; but dirty. Firey orangey reds; but dirty.
And black. Somber, solumn, easy to wear (except if you are a redhead with oliveish skin tones).
I envy Ravens and Crows their elegant dress.


My bedroom is rather strange though; sand(ish) walls with a hint of purple in them; all white trim and accents are all dark, deep purples. (and some greens that can't be helped when you deep purple hydrangeas)

An art major friend of mine said to me once 'Purple is natures blender'. I think she's right, whenever I'm stuck in a project and the colors seem to be fighting, some well placed purple usually fuses the entire thing together.

best,
S

DavidK said...

Gotta go with deep, dark, greens. Not so black that you can't tell it's green, but heading that way. The richness and depth of color are appealing.

Na said...

always purple. deep, earthy-yet-jewel-toned purples are magic to me. hi Stacy! ;) i love the idea of "nature's blender". i'll look at your work differently with that in mind.

and really, any other deep jewel-earth tones attract me: chocolatey browns, emeraldy greens, lapis, ultramarine, umber. and pastels repel for me, generally but not utterly.

combinations matter.

J.W.B. said...

Tie between green red orange black and purple. When I'm painting I usually gravitate towards shades of those colors with some blue here and there. I think a main reason behind this is my love of Halloween and Christmas as those are the typical holiday colors. Always been attracted to them.