Colors of Spring Appear

MARCH

Vincent van Gogh March 30, 1853
1	Oskar Kokoschka, 1886
2	Ito Jakuchu, 1716
3	Melissa Miller, 1951
4	Kano Tanyu, 1602
5	Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1696
6	Michelangelo, 1475
7	Piet Mondrian, 1872
7	Milton Avery, 1893
9	David Smith, 1906
12	Elaine De Kooning, 1918
13	Georges de La Tour, 1593
13	William Glackens, 1870
13	John Rhoden, 1918
14	Reginald Marsh, 1898
14	Diane Arbus, 1923
14	Jennifer Bartlett, 1941
15	Emilio Cruz, 1938
16	Rosa Bonheur, 1822
18	William Henry Johnson, 1901
19	Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1847
19	Josef Albers, 1888
20	George Caleb Bingham, 1811
21	Hans Hofmann, 1880
22	Anthonie van Dyck, 1599
22	Randolph Caldecott, 1846
23	Juan Gris, 1887
24	William Morris, 1834
27	Edward Steichen, 1879
27	Mies van der Rohe, 1886
28	Grace Hartigan, 1922
30	Francisco José de Goya, 1746
30	Vincent van Gogh, 1853
31	William Morris Hunt, 1824 Many major artists who loved color have their birthdays in March, look up any who intrique you. Remember that paint colors in tubes did not appear on the market until the 1860s. It is interesting to see how colors in paintings changed because of the new innovation of colors available. Signs of spring, daffodils, flowering quince, and Robins, have appeared in our area. The  dreary colors of winter are giving way to vivid colors. Keep your eyes open for the yellows, pinks, and chartreuses in your neighborhoods. This collage at the top of the page shows the many brilliant colors of foliage available in heucheras, the new hosta. For more information ngb.org: This website has 60 color photos of various heucheras and offers a “paint-by-number” section in which it lists heucheras by their various colors so you can plan your garden. Looking for a new plant for your shade garden? Heucheras add a jolt of color. Check out the new varieties of heucheras, whose foliage has been bred to produce a wide burst of colors, from amber, gold and orange to lime-yellow, red, purple, brown and even black. The little stalks of flowers that give the plant its common name of coral bells are still there, but it’s the leaves that are prized. Although traditional coral bells had only green leaves with tiny pink flowers that bloomed once per season, the new types not only have more colorful leaves, but the leaves of some varieties also change color from spring to fall and the plants bloom on and off all summer. It is for those qualities and more that the National Garden Bureau, the marketing arm of the gardening industry based in Downers Grove, Ill., has declared 2012 “the year of the heuchera,” a plant native to the United States that is still underused. Not only are heucheras attractive, but they also have become stronger, fuller and more disease-resistant, have few pests and are adaptable to containers. - Uses — In a shade garden, heucheras provide colors that are not possible with hostas. In front of a border planting, they mound nicely to 8-12 inches. Under trees where grass doesn’t grow, they are an alternative to doing the hosta-doughnut thing. They are good for containers, too, since they don’t “bully” the other plants. - Care — “Heucheras are an easy plant as long as you don’t overwater, if you do, they rot.That is one of the reasons they need to be planted in well-drained soil, not clay, which holds moisture. In containers, allow heucheras to dry out between waterings. In winter, heucheras tend to heave out of the ground. This is easy to remedyby lightly stepping on them. The leaves do not need to be cut back since new leaves will push out over the old. Then the old leaves will provide a cover for the roots, keeping them moist. (But not too moist!) Read more: http://www.qctimes.com/lifestyles/home-and-garden/heucheras-bring-burst-of-color-to-shady-areas/article_d909a638-5f1a-11e1-847e-001871e3ce6c.html#ixzz1nXIUUTnY   23 1 3 4 5 6 7 7 9 12 13 13 13 14 14 14 15 16 18   19 19 20 21 22 22 23 24

Flowers & Chocolate

Symbols of love have varied over cultures. In the 21st century, the most stereotypical are roses and chocolate. Both are thoughtful presents for our beloveds. I salute you with two of the same in the form of a recipe for a Chocolate Gateau served at Claude Oscar Monet's home, Giverny. And, the flowers are from his personally designed, colorfilled garden. The warm colors of the tulips bespeak love. Happy Valentine's Day.

Giverny’s Chocolate Gateau

This recipe uses equal quantities by weight of eggs, butter, chocolate and sugar, so these ingredients will have to be weighed to find the exact amount to use.

Serves 8

2 eggs, separated

About 4 tablespoons unsalted butter

About 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate

About ½ cup confectioner’s sugar

2 tablespoons flour

Weigh the eggs then weigh out an equal amount of butter, chocolate and confectioner’s sugar.

Melt the chocolate in a double-boiler with 2 tablespoons water. After it is melted, remove from the heat and beat in the butter. When the mixture is smooth let it cool.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Beat the egg yolks well then stir them into the chocolate mixture. Add the confectioner’s sugar and the flour.

Beat the egg whites into stiff peaks (I add ¼ teaspoon Cream of Tartar) and fold them into the mixture. Pour into a well-greased cake pan, round or square, and bake for 20 minutes.

I found this recipe  in Monet’s Table: The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet by Claire Joyes. I like to imagine Monet and Renoir, Pissaro, Sisley, Degas, Cezanne, Rodin, and Whistler, all illustrious artists of the 19^th century, enjoying this cake after lunch or at tea in the gardens of Giverny, Monet’s colorful home.

A friend recently advised me to add a copper penny inside each tulip to help them stand upright longer.

color wheel-free chart

The Color of Love Through the Artistic Eye

Posted: 03 Feb 2012 08:02 AM PST

Love is most often associated with the color red. Be that by conditioning of incessant advertising or that we are drawn to it by nature. Secondary to red is of course pink, in almost any level of saturation.

Red is one of those colors that possesses the strongest Ying and Yang of its theoretical definitions. Between love and hate, rebirth and death, the human relationship in any combination, could literally be summed up in the meaning of the color Red. Pink has what I would describe as a temperamental scale, more based on softness versus loudness than the extreme left or right end of the spectrum.

"Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love." - paper-leaf.com // COLOR THEORY poster freebie

Click  on the magenta address above to print out a color wheel for yourself. Meanings and terms will be useful in choosing colors for your home or clothes. Passive/receding colors versus active/advancing colors are shown as well.

Application: If you are about to choose a wall color for a room which has north light, choose a warmer color to cheer up the space. If you have a warm, south facing room, choose from the cooler side of the spectrum.

Psychology of Color

The following article came to my attention this morning. It is so well done that I have included it in toto. It will help us recognize how certain firms and designers use the colorwheel to brand their colors into our memories. As I have written previously, colors are not to be underestimated for their emotional influence. Enjoy! Knowledge is power!

The Psychology of Color

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Color is not as simple as it seems. According to this infographic from CertaPro Painters of Louisville, it evokes emotion and triggers your senses. With this in mind, the infographic beautifully explores colors that should and should not be used in interior decorating, as well as why certain colors are used in advertising.
[Click here for full size image]

Source: CertaPro Painters of Louisville

About the Author

Brian Wallace is the President of NowSourcing, Inc., a premier social media firm specializing in infographic design, development and content marketing promotion. The company is based in Louisville, KY and works with companies that range from small business to Fortune 500.

Artist of the Month, RENOIR

February
Pierre-Auguste Renoir February 25, 1841
1	Thomas Cole, 1801
2	William E. Artis, 1914
3	Norman Rockwell, 1894
4	Fernand Léger, 1881
5	Alison Saar, 1956
8	John Ruskin, 1819
8	Franz Marc, 1880
9	Robert Morris, 1931
10	Mary Lovelace O’Neill, 1942
11	William Henry Fox Talbot, 1800
12	Max Beckmann, 1884
12	Joan Mitchell, 1925
12	William Wegman, 1943
13	Grant Wood, 1892
15	Charles-François Daubigny, 1817
17	Raphaelle Peale, 1774
17	Hung Liu, 1948
18	Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1848
18	Max Klinger, 1857
19	Constantin Brancusi, 1876
20	Ansel Adams, 1902
22	Rembrandt Peale, 1778
22	Horace Pippin, 1888
23	Tom Wesselmann, 1931
24	Charles LeBrun, 1619
24	Winslow Homer, 1836
25	Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1841
26	Honoré Victorin Daumier, 1808
29	Augusta Savage, 1892 Renoir began painting flowers on porcelain to help his family survive financially when he was thirteen years old. He enrolled in night painting classes to refine his techniques when he could afford it. Eventually, he banded with classmates Monet, Sisley, Bazille and other Impressionists. They rebelled against the Salon painting styles which harked back to classical themes. The Impressionists were more interested in capturing everyday scenes and the shifting effects of light. At first the Impressionists were derided, but eventually achieved recognition and success. After exploring Impressionism for several years, Renoir visited Italy and was swept away by the art of Raphael, a famous Renaissance painter. After he returned to France, he began to paint people, especially beautiful women!  He painted into his 80's, never letting crippling arthritis stop him. His assistants used to tie his paint brushes to his hands so he could continue painting. I admire his enthusiasm and perseverance. We should raise a glass of (French) wine to salute this fantastic painter on his birthday.

Charles V of Spain

Heraldic symbol of Charles V

Charles V of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor  1519-1556 dressed for battle.

Gold and Wars

The Golden Apple Affair Hera, wife of the god Zeus, Aphrodite the goddess of love, and Athena, goddess of wisdom all were involved in the Golden Apple Affair. Eris, the goddess of strife, not invited to a wedding atop Mount Olympus, the home of the gods and goddesses, threw a golden apple into the wedding party and the quarrel began among the three goddesses. The apple was inscribed, FOR THE FAIREST, and of course each goddess assumed she was it. Zeus, afraid to rule in the squabble, sought an impartial judge and chose Paris, son of King Priam of Troy. Attempting to bias Paris, Athena promised that she would make him a renowned warrior if she received the apple. Queen Hera assured him she would make him a very wealthy and powerful man. Last, more cunning than the other two, Aprodite lured Paris with her promise of rewarding him with the most beautiful woman in the world. The Trojan War was the result after Paris accepted Aphrodite's gift and escaped with Helen, the beautiful wife of King Menelaus. They sailed to his home, the city of Troy. The rest of the story, you probably know, Homer told in the Illiad and the Odessey. "Gold. The word itself is as malleable as the metal it names---an explosion of sound, or a long, drawn-out song of ambition and greed. It resonates in a way that few others words that describe precious things do. Gold is, in large part, what initiated the conquest of the Western Hemisphere by inhabitants from the East, as Spanish conquistadors roamed Central and South America in search of a place they called 'El Dorado,' a city made of gold. They believed such a place existed because they were continually finding inhabitants of these lands bedecked with objects that seemed to capture and hold the very light of the sun. Jeffrey Quilter, a senior lecturer in anthropology at Harvard University and director of Yale's Peabody Museum, writes on the sophistication of metalwork in pre-Columbian America. He states: 'The attribution of vanue to gold is a fiction, a social construct. The metal has very little essential or practical use in sustaining human life. In contemporary societies, gold bestows social status through its monetary value. In ancient societies, status derived from gold jewelry came from its association with the sacred, with the light of the sun. John Hoopes, director of the Global Indigenous Nations Studies Program at the University of Kansas, writes that the search for gold in the Americas not only left indelible marks on the Western Hemisphere, but also affected the history of Europe. Gold from the New World obtained through plunder, looting and forced labor, would be transported to Europe to help pay off ever-increasing debts by such entities as Charles V*, who found ways to finance the creation of an army through the promise to his lenders of a continued flow of precious metal from the New World. Hernan Cortes is quoted as saying that money was "made of air," as the treasure-laden ships from the New World would be quickly emptied of their stores which were then sent to pay off various national debts. Goldwork from the New World played a glittering role in events unfolding in the first decade of the Modern Age, from Christian Europe's struggle to avoid Ottoman control of the emergence of the modern banking industry of the 16th century whose legacy is still very much with us today." This wonderful recap of humans' fascination with gold is from an article written by James D. Watts Jr. for the Tulsa World recently. His comments were based from the publication To Capture the Sun: Gold of Ancient Panama, published by Gilcrease/University of Oklahoma Press.   *Charles V of Spain was the grandson of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, Columbus' patrons for his trips to the New World. Charles served as the Holy Roman Emperor 1516-1556. He abdicated and eventually spent the remainder of his life in a monastery.

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