Friday, September 21, 2007

Color Play

Yesterday, on one of the Yahoo groups of which I'm a member, the topic of color comfort zones came up. One of the moderators asked how members felt about color comfort zones, if they had them, etc.

A while ago, when I realized that I had color comfort zones, I also realized that I needed to push myself to use the colors with which I was NOT comfortable. I love color and want to be as versatile as possible with it and didn’t feel happy with staying within my zones. One thing that really helped was to find a decorative paper or an ink pad in a version of the color that I actually liked. That made using the color more attractive. When you get a new toy, you want to play with it! The real key to making color work for me seems to be finding that shade or tint that resonates with my personal color sensibilities and then to find a color bridge that makes it work within the current project. Often, the “bridge” color becomes the next color with which I want to work.

Right now, I am working with orange a lot and have just about come to love it. The last color I challenged myself to become comfortable with was yellow. In working with some orange, red, and purple recently, I chose the yellow as the bridge. Yellow’s relationships with all of those colors (analogous to orange and red, complementary to purple) made it all work. Next up is brown which I really just do not like much and never have. I’m finding that as I start to like one color, my feelings towards other colors cool.

I think this means that I can have fun challenging myself with colors for a long time to come! And the more I work on it, the more comfortable I will be with ANY color. I’ve been studying color for many years. I've taken courses on it in high school and college as well as having studied it independently and in various workshops since my school days. I’ll probably be studying it for many more!

1 Comments:

Blogger &rew said...

Thanks for sharing the concepts of color comfort zones and bridge! My previous color comfort zone was neutrals and I got bored. Over the years, I learned to get out of color comfort zones and challenged myself to use the colors that I don't like, and much to my surprise, they often become my favorite colors! And I have to think about using the concept of "bridge" - mmm, very interesting. Thanks again for sharing!

Friday, September 28, 2007 4:02:00 PM MST  

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