{"id":11139,"date":"2016-03-18T18:13:17","date_gmt":"2016-03-19T01:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=11139"},"modified":"2016-03-20T09:11:51","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T16:11:51","slug":"color-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/18\/color-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"Color Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My first semester in art school (San Jose State, if you&#8217;re wondering), I had to take a color theory class. It was a big seminar thing taught by an artist named Tony May. I hated the class, the projects were tedious and I thought the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bauhaus.de\/en\/das_bauhaus\/48_1919_1933\/\">Bauhaus artists<\/a> to which my instructor was devoted were a bore. I rolled my eyes through the relative color exercises where we&#8217;d have to create studies that showed how a color appears completely different depending on what it&#8217;s surrounded by. (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_dress_%28viral_phenomenon%29\">What color is that dress<\/a>? Shut up, that&#8217;s what color it is.) And I gnashed my teeth while painting immaculate little grids of gray scales and the transition steps between complementary colors and, oh, any number of time consuming activities that did not feel creative in the least.<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a title=\"I've started a chromatic hunt. Today was red, tomorrow is yellow. Going the whole ROYGBIV.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/25592098825\/in\/datetaken\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1594\/25592098825_cc54574c26_q.jpg\" alt=\"I've started a chromatic hunt. Today was red, tomorrow is yellow. Going the whole ROYGBIV.\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/td>\n<td><a title=\"Today's chromatic hunt, the O in rOygbiv. tomorrow, yellow.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/25253094739\/in\/datetaken\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1525\/25253094739_4d5f9666fb_q.jpg\" alt=\"Today's chromatic hunt, the O in rOygbiv. tomorrow, yellow.\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/td>\n<td><a title=\"Photo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/25553144371\/in\/datetaken\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1706\/25553144371_d97c2cd69f_q.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/td>\n<td><a title=\"Today in royGbiv, green, and yes, I know this is ridiculous.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/25051207644\/in\/datetaken\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1580\/25051207644_24985524c4_q.jpg\" alt=\"Today in royGbiv, green, and yes, I know this is ridiculous.\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/td>\n<td><a title=\"roygBiv, Westcrest Park. Tomorrow, indigo, which I think could be hard.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/25082471993\/in\/datetaken\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1576\/25082471993_ac132f20a6_q.jpg\" alt=\"roygBiv, Westcrest Park. Tomorrow, indigo, which I think could be hard.\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/td>\n<td><a title=\"Today in roygbIv, indigo was really hard to find, this is the closest I could get.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/25611866262\/in\/datetaken\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1555\/25611866262_9943e5fa79_q.jpg\" alt=\"Today in roygbIv, indigo was really hard to find, this is the closest I could get.\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/td>\n<td><a title=\"roygbiV last day, violet.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/25460615500\/in\/datetaken\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1672\/25460615500_1df9991265_q.jpg\" alt=\"roygbiV last day, violet.\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>The thing I did not realize at the time was that this class would lay the foundation for what sometimes feels like a cellular understanding of color and how it works. I felt &#8212; still feel &#8212; an enormous sense of satisfaction with the color in my house, the way I can lie in bed and see through from my pale lavender bedroom to my orange kitchen through my green living room, the way, the way the orange on the floor is the perfect match for that on the walls even though I didn&#8217;t have a sample with me when I picked out the paint. There are things I just, well, <em>know<\/em> about color now that I would not have known before that slog of a course, and Bauhaus painters don&#8217;t bore me anymore.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t make much art by hand these days, but over a series of recent morning walks I gathered the spectrum of the rainbow. It pleased me to go out looking for yellow, or to try to figure out the shift between blue and indigo, and then, to stack all the photos together. Each day I&#8217;d head out and think, today, today is whatever that color was for the day. And I&#8217;d notice all the green, for example, and think about the blue that followed and how that was not what I needed today, or if only I had seen that yellow yesterday. (Actually, there was no shortage of yellow, actually, as the daffodils have been in full bloom here in Seattle.)<\/p>\n<p>An innate sense of color is not, perhaps, a particularly useful attribute for a person who does not work in design in any capacity, but the pleasure it gave me to seek all those colors out and then, to stack them in sequence, was not unlike what I feel when the light is just right coming into my house and I can see that the reason the color works so well is that everything is the same value, the same saturation. I&#8217;m now sorry I ditched my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0442240384\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0442240384&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=neseyvi-20&amp;linkId=TMRI55A5ENJAAO6M\">Itten text<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mchxszpwkgwrxlncohzi gfjzmhtavrwiotvpmtlr wovfhxxibedwzxfszgdd\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=neseyvi-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0442240384\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/>, who knew I&#8217;d ever wish I had kept it? Who knew I&#8217;d think fondly of Albers &#8212; who&#8217;s work you can now get as a <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/interaction-color-by-josef\/id664296461?mt=8\">free app<\/a>. At any rate, it feels good to notice all that color, to enjoy it, and thanks to that semester of fussy homework, to understand why it all works so well.<\/p>\n<p>Also you should totally ROY-G-BIV your Instagram feed. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/nerdseyeview\/\">I did<\/a> and it was fun. I might do <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Complementary_colors\">complements <\/a>next.<\/p>\n<p>Tony, you won&#8217;t remember me, but thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the time, that term of color theory seemed like a tedious slog, but I have come to appreciate how deeply those lessons affected how I see the world. <\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s an Instagram exercise for you, too, if you play that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":11162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lookit","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11139"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11161,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11139\/revisions\/11161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}