Summary

All that we’ve talked about regarding the importance of the dark light flow in a composition is overridden by color. Once color is introduced to an image, the arrangement of color defines the composition. Like dark and light, the relationship of colors is more crucial to the expression than the objects in the image.

For this class, You were asked to limit your color palette because we don’t see as much color as we think. Too much color actually overloads the system so that an image where everything is bright colors will often seem less colorful than an image where neutrals separate color and give it room to breathe.

FVan Gogh’s color rich paintings, when analyzed, have so much grey. For every color he would intersperse brush strokes of a grey of the same value between the saturated strokes. What you’ve probably already learned about color has to do with warm colors coming forward and cool colors falling back. This is because long wavelengths don’t travel as far, and deteriorate with distance. The short wavelengths can travel much farther.

Color has a very powerful effect on the body and what might surprise you is that you experience those effects whether you’re seeing the color or not. Color vibration is absorbed by the skin and muscles and affects your physiological processes.

In the visible spectrum, the color red has been most studied. It’s been found to increase all vital signs, temperature, blood pressure, pulse and rate of breathing. This happened even when the subject was blindfolded. Even body positioning is affected with the arms moving slightly away from the body. It affects balance and it was discovered that people wearing red would be more likely to trip or fall or lose their balance. Basically red acts as a stimulant, and there have even been studies that used red for depression with some success. It’s also used for dizziness, which is often associated with a drop in blood pressure.

Blue has the opposite of all these effects. Blue light bulbs have been used to treat migraine. Whereas red speeds up chemical reactions, with blue overall chemical reactions slow. Wrestlers have known this for some time and flip a coin to see who wears red jerseys since statistics show that red jerseys win more often than blue.

Green falls right in the middle of the visible spectrum and we have more receptors for green than any other color. It’s a comforting color because it’s the easiest to see and seems to be associated with a sense of knowing. One unusual study treated people with facial tics by having them wear green tinted glasses.

The specific shade is very important in some cases. Bubblegum pink is known to be calming and the research has been around long enough and proven itself to the degree that pink rooms have been used in mental hospitals and prisons to calm people down. Though most operating rooms use blue and green scrubs, which are reassuring colors, shock trauma units use pink, probably primarily to calm the people that find themselves in that bad of shape.

Color also affects intelligence. A very interesting group of studies on color and intelligence was done in Munich in the 70’s. They painted entire rooms one color and had people live in them for a month to see how it affected IQ. Light blue was most powerful in stimulating intelligence as much as 12 IQ points. Light green and yellow were close behind. Neutrals had no affect and dark neutrals could actually make IQ go down. This is also not surprising if you consider that stimulation grows the brain and cool colors calm the body. Orange was found to improve social behavior and lessen hostility.

Art teachers often advise students not to use so much local color (that being the color we know something to be). Part of that is to get away from what we know and the other is because of the powerful effects of emotions on how we see color, particularly when they deviate from the norm.