Illuminating Art Work

This post covers a very important topic if you want to have your artwork look its best.

By Bridget A. Otto, The Oregonian 
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LIGHT IT CORRECTLY:
When it comes to artwork in the home, hanging it correctly includes lighting it correctly. Designer Susanna Salk and lighting expert Jayson Serrault give this advice:
"Serrault says consumers who want to illuminate their artwork need to switch their focus from wattage, which measures brightness, to Kelvins, which measure the warmth and color that emits from a bulb - the higher the "K" temperature, the cooler the bulb. This information is typically found on the light bulb packaging and will make the biggest difference in how a piece of art looks on the wall.
 "Bronze, Metallic Prints: Preserve the antique look by using UV-filtered PAR halogen or a PAR LED flood light bulbs. Select light bulbs with a warm color temperature in the 2700K to 3000K range to enhance the prints' deep undertones.

"Black and White Photography: This art is exceptionally vulnerable to fading, therefore it's crucial to limit its exposure to natural and harsh artificial lighting. Instead, use a light source with a complementary color temperature that will accentuate the piece's light areas. For warm tones, use light bulbs with a 2700 to 3000K range, and for cooler colors, use 4100 to 5000K range bulbs.
"Earthy Tones: To make earthy prints such more appealing to the eye, select a light bulb with a CRI (Color Rendering Index) of 85 or higher to ensure that your reds look red and your blues shine blue."Darker Hues: To accent deeper tones such as violet and blue, a cool white light (4100 to 5000K) is ideal; however, be mindful of dominating grays by using a neutral color temperature (35000K), which allows both warm and cool tones to shine." 

Leonardo's Anatomical Drawings on Display

Leonardo's Anatomical drawings on display

EDINBURGH.- Almost 500 years after Leonardo da Vinci’s death, an exhibition that sheds new light on the his groundbreaking studies of the human body opened at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. Long renowned as one of the finest artists of the Renaissance, Leonardo was also one of the greatest anatomists the world has ever seen. For the first time ever, the pages from Leonardo’s anatomical notebooks have gone on display alongside 21st-century medical imagery, revealing how Leonardo’s work foreshadowed modern techniques, such as MRI scans and 3D computer modelling, to an astonishing degree.

 Of the 30 works on display, more than half are exhibited in Scotland for the first time. Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man (2 August – 10 November) includes 18 of Leonardo’s finest sheets, collectively known as ‘Anatomical Manuscript A’. Produced during the winter of 1510-11, the pages are crammed with more than 240 individual drawings and notes running to more than 13,000 words in the artist’s distinctive mirror-writing. Here Leonardo illustrated almost every bone in the human body and many of the major muscle groups.
 Manuscript A has never before been displayed in its entirety in the UK. Leonardo initially began researching the human body to ensure that his paintings were as ‘true to nature’ as possible. But the artist soon conceived the idea of writing and publishing an illustrated treatise on anatomy. Between 1507 and 1513 he dissected more than 30 human corpses. He filled hundreds of pages of his notebooks with detailed studies of the organs and vessels, the bones and muscles, and the heart, the like of which had never been seen before. On his death in 1519, Leonardo’s anatomical studies remained unpublished among his private papers, and they were effectively lost to the world for hundreds of years. Had they been published at the time, they would have been the most influential work on the human body ever produced. Computer modelling, CT and MRI scans, and 3D film today allow the body to be explored in minute detail and from any angle. But at the outset of Leonardo’s career, anatomical illustration was in its infancy, and so the artist had to develop a range of new illustrative techniques to convey the three-dimensional moving form of the body on a static sheet of paper.
 He used skills that he had acquired through other work; from architecture, he employed the principles of elevation, plan and section; and from engineering, he took the ‘exploded view’ to portray structure and movement, pulling elements apart to show how they fit together. For example in c.1510-11, using these techniques, Leonardo produced the first accurate depiction of the spine in history. This is replicated in the exhibition by modern computer modelling. 
On one masterful sheet, Leonardo demonstrates the layered structure of the hand through four dissections, beginning with the bones before adding the deep muscles of the palm, and then applying the first and second layers of tendons. Today, an animated computer simulation replicates the artist’s layering technique and reveals that modern-day anatomists, when trying to understand the intricacies of this structure, use exactly the same sequence of images as Leonardo did 500 years earlier. 
On a pair of sheets Leonardo recorded the muscles of the shoulder and arm in eight views through 180 degrees, rotating the body to capture the full three-dimensional complexity of the structure in a two-dimensional drawing. Leonardo was fascinated by the shoulder and studied it at different levels of dissection, in different poses and from different angles. A 3D film in the exhibition shows a dissected shoulder in rotation, revealing the incredible accuracy of Leonardo’s studies.
 Other exhibition highlights include Leonardo’s notes from his post-mortem dissection of a 100-year-old man (conducted c.1508), in which he gives the first accurate descriptions of cirrhosis of the liver and narrowing of the arteries in the history of medicine. 
His beautiful study of a child in the womb (c.1511) is displayed alongside a 3D ultrasound scan of a fetus. Although Leonardo’s drawing was ultimately based on the dissection of a pregnant cow, it is clear from the ultrasound that his intuitions about the posture of the child in the uterus were correct.
Leonardo’s last and greatest anatomical campaign was an investigation of the heart. Dissecting the hearts of oxen, he recorded the form of the chambers, valves and coronary vessels. He made a glass model of the aortic valve to study the flow of blood, but it was not until the 1980s that the pulsing image of a real-time MRI scan allowed anatomists to confirm that Leonardo’s description of the heart’s action had been almost entirely correct. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to compare an MRI scan of a beating heart with Leonardo’s work. Leonardo came very close to discovering the circulation of the blood, a century before William Harvey – but it was with the heart that his anatomical investigations came to an end.

 All of Leonardo’s surviving anatomical studies arrived in England in the 17th century, bound into a single album as part of a group of almost 600 drawings by the artist. The album was probably acquired later that century by Charles II and has been in the Royal Collection since at least 1690. The drawings were removed from the album for conservation reasons, but visitors can see the original 16th-century binding in the exhibition. Exhibition curator Martin Clayton of Royal Collection Trust said, ‘This is the first time that Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical drawings have been displayed alongside their modern-day counterparts. It’s incredibly exciting to discover how Leonardo’s investigations 500 years ago foreshadowed the work of today’s leading anatomists to an astonishing degree.’ Exhibition collaborator Peter Abrahams, Professor of Clinical Anatomy, Warwick Medical School UK said, ‘In many ways Leonardo predicted the 20th-century revolution in various medical imaging techniques. His use of cross sections and slices to show deep internal structures within the body foreshadowed the modern techniques of CT and MRI scanning. The anatomical accuracy of Leonardo’s drawings has rarely ever been surpassed, and I still use them to teach surgeons and medical students today.’

 Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, Jonathan Mills, said, ‘The Festival is delighted to be working with Royal Collection Trust on this special exhibition. In a year when the Edinburgh International Festival is focusing on the myriad of ways in which technology seizes and shifts the imaginations of artists, there is no better example of that than the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and his sophisticated and poetic understanding of the human condition.’ 


The article has more illustrations from the exhibition. artdaily.com is a wonderful publication. You can subscribe to for free and continue to be informed about exhibitions around the world. I highly recommend it. BBL
More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64146/Exhibition-in-Edinburgh-sheds-new-light-on-Leonardo-da-Vinci-s-anatomical-drawings#.Ufzrw5KG2u8[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

Characters' Color Cues

A new BBC series, Luther, about a detective, may grace our televisions later this year. Meanwhile, we get a glimpse into James Keast's reasons to use wardrobe colors for characters. While in an interview with the costume designer, reporter Jacqueline Cutler learns about the designer's thoughts on color to enhance a character's role.



In the early days of "Luther," BBC America's miniseries returning for four nights beginning Tuesday, Sept. 3, those responsible for creating the show's look gathered.

James Keast, the costume designer, recalls the director telling them, "Go off and find something relevant to the series."

The director wanted "shades of gray with flashes of color, lots of bits of pink, purple or red, and everything else is colorless," Keast tells Zap2it.

Tasked with this assignment, Keast turned to a fantastic Ukrainian photographer "who wanders the streets of Moscow photographing people who have no hope - a lot of kids, prostitutes and alcoholics," he says. He calls the shades and textures "no hope colors." (That means shades of grey/gray-BBL)

With those cheery thoughts, Keast built the wardrobe for "Luther." Though most detectives in Great Britain wear a suit on the job, John Luther (Idris Elba) does not.

Idris Elba

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"He is a maverick and pushes the limit of what he can get away with," Keast says. Though Luther looks slightly rumpled -- still sharper than most real detectives -- he wears fine clothing. In his most famous look, Luther wears a Paul Smith coat, a Nicole Farhi jacket, Ralph Lauren trousers and Grenson shoes. His shirts are from Marks & Spencer.

Keast started with gray shirts, which he washed with brown dye to give them a richer hue. Luther's ties are from charity shops. The red tie came out because "it was kind of relevant, a sign of danger -- red," Keast says. "He was pushing things to the limit so much."

It may seem as if Luther wears one red tie all the time, but Keast actually has a bunch of red ties for him because they tend to get coated in blood and other nasty substances.

"She is an academic when we first meet her," Keast says of Alice (Ruth Wilson). "To make her look stylish, we use the red hair and very simple shapes because we were not sure where the character would go."

As the series evolved, so did Alice. Here she has a 1940s Lauren Bacall siren vibe.

"We make her look a bit more film star," Keast says. "The makeup is stronger, and I used the colors to show off her hair."

The tight Zara skirt and Jigsaw blouse reminds the designer of Rita Hayworth.

Luther's look, however, doesn't  change much. Unaware that the series would continue, Keast had gotten rid of most of the clothes.

He replaced the coat with Harris Tweed from Aubin & Wills, and Keast is holding onto the coat in case there are future films or additional installments.

"I try to keep the look as much the same as possible," Keast says. "I made it more tired looking. The character has gone through a lot. The shirts he wears are slightly different, much grayer instead of browner. A lot of the stuff was washed but never ironed. It's not just manic-depressive - this man has been through the mills."

Pantone Color Palette for Fall 2013

Happy Friday the 13th! It will be a good day to notice color.

Emerald green will be seen in many places this season. Note the other luscious colors on the palette for this fall.



Don't you love the creative names on some of them?

Color-Blocking Bookshelves

y Sawyer Erickson, TSB Staff

Color Blocking a Bookshelf -Color is a natural tool for bookshelf organization.  At first it may not seem as functional as the oh-so-typical Dewey Decimal System style of organizing by author last name and then first name, but let me be the first to tell you that the aesthetic of coordinating by color is difficult to beat. This how-to is intended for those of you willing to take a risk into the depths of unconventional yet idealist world of simple design. 

How to color block (organize by color) your bookshelves:

First decide the scale that you're working with. It's always easier to start small rather than take on your entire collection of literature at one time. Next you'll need to take all of your chosen book and organize them into piles, based on relative color, on a shelf or even piles on the floor. You'll probably have many different variations of shades within each color range. Remember that you're looking at the color of the spines of the book rather that the covers, since you'll only see the spines once they are on the shelf. 

Once you have your book collection roughly sorted, decide on the shading of colors within each group. Do you want to go from light to dark, or from dark to light? After you've decided these things you can simply and easily place your volumes on the shelves of your bookcase in specific groups. 

This method will give your bookcase a simple, clean and calm feeling. Not only is this particular style pleasing to those of us that have a hint of OCD, but it also lends itself to an organized household. 

- See more at: http://townsquarebuzz.com/ams/53879/tsbs-weekly-pin-color-blocking-bookshelf-how/19981/ams/53879#sthash.NGgr04hg.dpuf

Dear Colorfilled blog readers,

If you try this idea and find it useful, please let us know. I am moving and will try to organize this way, especially in my painting studio. It seems like a workable idea. At least the shelves will be pretty! Memorizing which color spine your sought book has will be good exercise for gray cells! Happy sorting.

Revolutionary Art Works

In Art History, artists' works that were revolutionary for their time were often called revolutionary in unflattering ways. Today, we accept revolution in the art world more readily, because something new shakes up our notions about art. A recently published art book has some examples of revolutionary works. Below are just fourteen. If these intrigue you, the book might be something special to put on our Wish List for Christmas or your birthday, anniversary, because its Friday, or whatever. 

The Paintings That Revolutionized Art Book, Arts News

From Gustav Klimt's gilded aesthetic to Hieronymus Bosch's devilish landscapes, the realm of art history has seen its fair share of radical painters. Today we accept the work of these artists as part of the canon, but at the time of their debut, masterpieces like "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" and "The Garden of Earthly Delights" were unprecedented in their boundary-pushing style and subject matter.

A new book titled The Paintings That Revolutionized Art brings together works by Hokusai, Cezanne, Munch, Vermeer and more, attempting to craft an art world list to trump all other lists. Consisting of 100 iconic paintings spanning over a millennium, the pantheon of artworks tips its hat to a diverse range of genres and movements.

We've compiled just 14 of the 100 paintings below (with brief quotes from the book). While the catalog is -- like most other surveys of the male-dominated art historical record -- mostly a compilation of dead white guys, the trip down art memory lane is nonetheless worth checking out.

1. Gustav Klimt's "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" (1907)

"Egyptian eye motifs, and sharp triangles. In this kind of mosaic-like painting, it is striking how well the realistic portrait is anchored into the gold background."

2. Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (1500-1505)

"Their nakedness is so shameless and casual that the effect is childlike rather than erotic. We are looking at a kind of human being that is unknown to us."

3. John Singer Sargent's "Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau)" (1884)

"Originally, Sargent painted the strap on her right shoulder hanging down. This was seen as sexually suggestive and considered outrageous."

4. Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" 1665)

"Certainly the way Vermeer captured subtle changes of light and focus seems to anticipate photography: some features appear in focus, while others seem out of focus, and objects are depicted with a foreshortening that resembles that seen in photographs -- this is perhaps one reason why he appeals to us today."

5. Jan van Eyck's "The Arnolfini Portrait" (1434)

"From the fabrics and the fur trimming of the clothes to the wooden window frame and the bull's eye windowpanes -- everything is depicted using a degree of detailed realism that makes objects seem almost tangible."

6. Artemisia Gentileschi's "Judith Beheading Holofernes" (1620)

"The brutality of the scene, which has been attributed by some art historians to an experience of abuse, can be understood as Gentileschi asserting herself in a male-dominated world."

7. Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" (1510)

"What we see here is not the physical creation of the first human being, but rather the metaphysical moment when the spark of life is transferred to Adam... Michelangelo created a new kind of dynamic composition whose focus is the highly expressive language of hands reaching out towards one other."

8. Joseph Mallord William Turner's "Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway" (1844)

"The subjects in the painting cannot be unambiguously identified as such, but rather they blur together, only becoming vaguely recognizable when the painting is viewed from a distance."

9. Édouard Manet "Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe" (1863)

"Through its unconventional style of representation and its unashamed subject matter, 'Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe' became one of the most famous scandals in art history."

10. Paul Cézanne's "Montagne Sainte-Victoire" (1887)

"[Cezanne] was the first artist to dissect objects into simple geometric shapes and to treat nature 'by means of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone.'"

11. Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (1893)

"The garish colors and the swirling lines, which seem to dissolve the figures, create a strong impression of intense paint and anguish -- even nature itself seems affected."

12. Giotto's "Frescoes in the Arena Chapel (Capella Degli Scrovegni)" (1305)

"Giotto's unfussy backgrounds heighten the intensity of the human activities that take place in his scenes -- activities that the painter captures with unprecedented realism"

13. Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa (La Gioconda)" (1503-1506)

"Leonardo's skill in creating the ambiguous expression, the subtle modeling of the forms, and the illusion of atmosphere are qualities that make the figure seem more alive."

14. Ludwig Kirchner's "Potsdamer Platz" (1914)

"His restless, jagged brushstrokes and the harsh colors emphasize the hectic, nervous rhythm of the metropolis, creating an alienating effect."

Is your favorite painting missing? Check out the whole book over at Prestel, which pays tribute to more modern icons like Lucien Freud, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and many more.

Coloring Outside the Lines

School has begun in most areas. If you wish you, too, could be a little student once again, check out the info below for inspiration. Coloring Outside the Lines can be inspirational! The most creative students/artists do it.

Artists’ Illustrations to Fuel Young Imaginations

By Stephanie Murg on September 3, 2013 1:36 PM

Inside Outside. From left, ready-to-color versions of “Oath of the Pond” by Koichiro Takagi and “Pizza Face” by Ohara Hale. (Photo: UnBeige)

It’s that time of year again, when even those who haven’t stepped inside a classroom for decades feel the unbearable urge to stock up on school supplies. Break out that fresh box of Crayolas—or Prismacolors or Copics—for Outside the Lines, out today from Perigee. This “artists’ coloring book for giant imaginations” is the brainchild of Souris Hong-Porretta, who gathered line drawings (most commissioned especially for this book) by the likes of Shepard Fairey, Exene Cervenka, Gary Baseman, Ryan McGinness, Jen Corace, and 100 other creative masterminds ranging from animators to video game artists. We asked Hong-Porretta, a self-desciribed “art enthusiast, idea enabler, and yay-maker” to tell us more about the colorful project.

What led you to create Outside the Lines?
My daughter, Lulu! She has lots and lots of coloring books and I noticed that she had a preference for coloring books with illustrations by established artists such as Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. After watching her scribble outside the lines of a Moebius coloring book, I thought it’d be cool if she could color artwork by our creative cabal so I wrote a list of folks I knew and one by one asked them if they would contribute work for a coloring book. I had several dozen yeses in a short amount of time—enough to motivate me to write a book proposal. The rest came together rather quickly.

How did you select the artists whose work you wanted to include?
Nearly all the artists included in the book are personal friends. Some very old, some newer. A few are friends of friends. But nearly every artist in the book has a relationship with me by way of previous projects or a social tie. Also, because I had once worked for a lifestyle magazine called,Tokion, I was able to call upon friends I had made from the ’90s, before they were rockstar photographers, illustrators, fine artists, graffiti artists, musicians, and much more.

And what were their responses like?
The responses came in quickly and were overwhelming positive. Many of the artists have children of their own and were stoked to participate. IMEUS, an illustrator and poster artist from the UK let me know, “I have made my kids really proud!” while other artists were happily reminded of coloring from their own childhoods and happy to hop aboard.

Do you have a favorite of the contributions you received?
While I’m grateful to all the artists who contributed artwork, I’m sentimental about the Keith Haring piece I received from the Keith Haring Foundation. I have one tattoo on my body and its one of his angel babies. It’s nearly two decades old and I still love it. The Haring Foundation has funded many children’s programs, and I plan to donate a percentage of any proceeds I make from Outside the Lines to a children’s art organization.

Lulu loves the profile her artist-dad [Silvio Porretta] drew of her for the book because she recognizes herself. And she loves the artwork that doesn’t look like artwork. You’ll know what that means when you pop open the book and start coloring!

Lost Painting

LONDON.- A rare early colour image of Vincent van Gogh’s Six Sunflowers has been tracked down in Japan. It reveals that Van Gogh designed a bold orange frame for his still life. The framed painting, once in a private Japanese collection, was destroyed in an American bombing raid during the Second World War.

 This newly discovered image is from a very scarce portfolio produced in Tokyo in 1921, which has escaped the attention of art historians. It is reproduced in The Sunflowers are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece, by Martin Bailey, to be published by Frances Lincoln on 5 September. 

Van Gogh’s narrow wooden frame was painted in orange, producing a dramatic effect when set against the blue background of the still life. This reflects Van Gogh’s love of complementary colours (such as orange and blue), which have a vibrant effect when placed next to each other. Van Gogh has also varied the orange, so that it is a deep orange where it is next to the blue background and a lighter orange next to the lilac table.(varying color within color is what the best painters do! BBL)

 We can now see how Van Gogh wanted to present his Six Sunflowers: the yellow-ochre sunflowers were set against a rich royal blue background and then framed in orange. This framing would have been revolutionary in 1888, when pictures were traditionally hung in gilt frames or, for very modern works, in white frames Vincent was always ahead of his time, another hallmark of a great painter-BBL)

There is also a second “unknown” Sunflowers painting which has always been hidden away in private collections. This is Van Gogh’s Three Sunflowers (see illustration above-BBL), with a bright turquoise background. It has never been exhibited in living memory and its whereabouts have been a mystery. 

Bailey reveals that Three Sunflowers was acquired by the Swiss-based Greek shipping tycoon George Embiricos, who sold it in the late 1990s. It was then bought by the present owner, a very discreet collector with a taste for Van Gogh. Altogether Van Gogh painted four pictures of Sunflowers in 1888, with three, six, fourteen and fifteen blooms. The last two are among the world’s most well known paintings - Fourteen Sunflowers (Neue Pinakothek, Munich) and Fifteen Sunflowers (National Gallery, London). 

Very exceptionally, the National Gallery recently lent Fifteen Sunflowers to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Later this week it will be on show again at the National Gallery. Martin Bailey, The Sunflowers are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece, 240 pages, 100 illustrations, is published on 5 September by Frances Lincoln, £25

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64789/Van-Gogh-s--unknown--Sunflowers-revealed-in-new-book--Early-image-shows-lost-picture-in-artist-s-own-frame#.UihszTZOOAQ[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

Conjure Up Color

 Conjure up color to create yard magic

MAUREEN GILMER - Scripps Howard News Service 

AAA

Color is a great equalizer. It's a disguise for things not quite beautiful. For some creative souls, color is a sacrament. For those unwilling to think outside the box, it is a necessary evil. When it comes to your backyard, you can make magic with color. Adding accent color to doors, trim, walls, sheds and fences can turn drab to dynamic in a single weekend. — Color can make spaces feel larger or smaller, warmer or cooler. Paint your back door, and it goes from dull and worn to something fresh and new. Spread that hue around the window trim to give it more interest. Be bold, be inventive, but above all, make sure that color works.

Here's a tip from pro designers: Light colors make a structure seem larger by advancing in space. To play down that element so it's less oppressive, use darker colors that make the structure visually retreat farther into the background. This is how color can solve spatial problems if you think things out ahead of time.
Light is vital to how the human eye perceives color, so evaluate color in natural light before you make the final choice. Architects favor testing paint color on a sunny wall to determine how much natural light influences its ultimate appearance. The pros select a few very similar candidates, then paint a square of each one on the wall to study how subtle differences are affected by variable light during the course of a day. In the late afternoon, warm hues will literally glow while neutrals will remain flat. Blues that might otherwise be bleached in direct sun prove their most iridescent under high overcast.

Try to play off your interior color palette. Because the backyard landscape is often viewed from indoors through windows and glass doors, the exterior becomes part of the interior and vice versa. You don't want a sudden change as you pass through a door to the patio. Instead, aim for similar colors to transition easily, so muted interior colors match stronger hues reserved for outdoors. Remember, it's not essential that the interior and exterior colors be identical; they simply must be harmonious.

Many well-known architectural styles favor a well-established color palette. These hues are the result of centuries of architecture and building materials in the regions where the style originated. To obtain the same look and feel, it's essential to thoroughly understand the color palette. For example, if you have a Spanish-style home and want those coveted hot Mexi-colors, you must have a good feel for this palette.
 Mediterranean architecture likes sunset hues. Likewise, the cool palette of saltbox homes along the New England coast is quite uniform. Failing to choose the right palette for your style will leave you with a vague sense of unease.

In regions of intense UV exposure, colors should be bright and bold, because all of them inevitably fade with time. Beware colors used in the shade. Whether it's natural forest or old shade trees, your color will not appear as bright in shade as it will on a fully exposed site. The good news is it won't fade as quickly, either.

Color also can save energy dollars. When painted with lighter colors, a wall or structure will reflect heat. Dark colors absorb heat and hold it.

Color is so powerful that a single paint job in your yard can substantially change the way spaces feel there. Be creative, experiment and take risks, because paint is forgiving. If you're not happy with the result, just paint it another color next weekend.
(Maureen Gilmer is an author, horticulturist and landscape designer. Learn more at http://www.MoPlants.com. Contact her at mogilmer@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 891, Morongo Valley, CA 92256.

This article had such spot on color advice for painters of houses or canvases! BBL

Grey Replaced

Most people love color. The following proves my point.

ISTANBUL.- A woman takes a picture of rainbow-colored stairs on August 31, 2013 in Istanbul. Stairs in the Cihangir and Findikli neighborhoods, which attracted attention after being painted in rainbow colors by a local man on August 27, were all painted grey on the night of August 29, and following comments on social media, the municipality of Beyoglu immediately painted them again in rainbow colors. AFP PHOTO/OZAN KOSE.

More Information: http://www.artdaily.com/?date=09/03/2013&bfd=8[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

"Color Is Like Sex"

 Explore some ways we can benefit from our use of color around the house.

Jude Stewart

I'm a journalist specializing in design, color and visual culture.

 

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Jude Stewart is a journalist and author, specializing in design, color and visual culture. She lives in Chicago, Illinois, and her first book, ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color will be released September 17, 2013.
How exactly do the colors in a room act upon us emotionally? It’s a riddle whose answer variously depends on the expert you ask, from cognitive psychologists to cultural anthropologists (and, of course, color consultants).

As a writer about visual culture, my approach to color starts with a question my readers — graphic designers — face with every new project: Since nobody is inventing new colors, how to reach back into that same finite universe of shades and create a brand-new, dynamite color palette? How can you really see color afresh again?

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by Amy Hopkins Designs

“The eye has to travel,” says fashion icon Diana Vreeland (incidentally providing the title to the documentary about her life). Whether in clothes, logos or interior design, color strings along the magical thread that pulls the eye, tugs on your feelings and catalyzes thoughts, actions and mental states. But how on earth does color do that?

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Tackling that question requires a bit of willful estrangement. I love this quote about color from Stephen Drucker (pictured here in an illustration by Oliver Munday) His point: Reawakening the eye to color first requires reawakening the brain.

Add to ideabook by Elad Gonen & Zeev Beech

Red and blue Let’s start with an age-old color pairing, red versus blue, and these colors' potential atmospheric effects in a home office. Cognitive psychologists think red rooms make people working in them more accurate and cautious, while blue rooms turn their inhabitants more creatively loose — so claims a 2009 study in the journal Science, not for the first time.

Add to ideabook by Entasis Group

Red and blue cast their opposing spells in other contexts, too. The same New York Times article recounting the Science study points out earlier studies in which Olympic teams wearing red uniforms enjoy a statistically significant edge over those clad in blue. Red answer-booklet covers on IQ tests can make us antsy enough to drag down our scores.

Add to ideabook by Susan Diana Harris Interior Design

The takeaway for interior designers: Try playing both angles at once, as in this Mountain View, California, home office. With contrasting blue-ish and red walls, occupants can swivel from a laser-focused mindset at work (red) to sweating it out after-hours on the treadmill, letting the imagination romp while gazing at blue walls.

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by WA design

Colors for rest

What bedroom color promotes restfulness? ATravelodge survey of 2,000 U.K. homes looked into how the color of bedrooms impacts quality and duration of sleep. Blue was the clear winner: blue-drenched sleepers clock in an average of seven hours and 52 minutes of nightly shut-eye.

Those exhausted denizens of purple bedrooms owe the bruise-colored circles under their eyes to their wall color: purple supposedly affords sleepers a measly five hours and 56 minutes of sleep nightly. The lesson for interior design buffs seems clear: if your heart beats faster at the thought of violet, keep those sleep-estranging dabs of purple concentrated into accent pieces, not wrapping entire walls.

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by Shirley Meisels

Pink power

Can the color pink actually weaken us? I love the story of Baker-Miller Pink — more colloquially known as “Drunk Tank Pink” — because it’s one of those pseudo-scientific “facts” about color in which proving its validity feels beside the point; the most intriguing part lies in our all-too-human enthusiasm to spin plausible stories around the idea.

Recently I interviewed Adam Alter, author ofDrunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel and Behave. He summarizes the color’s irresistible reputation best. Alter’s book’s title stems from a 1979 psychiatric study in which 150 young men gazed at a card colored either blue or pink, then took a strength test. These results were compared with a baseline strength test they had taken without colored cards. The blue-gazing group apparently amplified their strength, while the pink-starers seemed weakened just by looking at pink.

Pink’s tranquilizing effect gained currency among psychologists in the ensuing decade, inspiring two corrections officers, Gene Baker and Ron Miller, to paint holding cells in their respective facilities a bubble-gum shade.

When both reported a calming effect on rowdy inmates, Baker-Miller Pink, aka Drunk Tank Pink, became a prison industry brainwave. If Drunk Tank Pink mollified those who needed subduing, it electrified those who wielded the color’s supposed power: charity workers wore pink and reported increased donations as a result, while football coaches in Iowa and Texas painted the competition’s locker room pink, hopefully debilitating the enemy team.

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by Lullaby Baby Concierge

There are often contradictory or surprising stories lurking within the colors we think we know so well. Pink is a fantastic case in point.

As I’ll explain in the next part in this two-part series, pink’s firm association with girls is actually a recent phenomenon, a deeply ironic one in fact. (It’s also likely a self-fulfilling effect at play in Drunk Tank Pink’s story.) In fact, history argues against the strict blue-pink rule, and pink has a decidedly butch side.