Fleurs Series: PURPLE
The Gift of Compliments
The Gift of Compliments
Today we are celebrating the complimentary pair, yellow and purple, which shows up in nature, architecture and signage, but can always take our breath away.
Opposite each other on the color wheel…the pair creates both harmony and drama, the contrast of which can be softened by the hues of their surroundings.
If complimentary colors are mixed together, they “neutralize” each other’s color “properties (akin to mixing black and white ), and can create beautiful grays and rich browns.
Juxtaposing yellow and purple can create instant associations: royalty (royal purple and gold), springtime (purple crocuses with yellow centers), and holidays (I will let You figure that one out…).
But most often, I feel, our reaction is simply that of pure joy.
Color…is energetic…so… EnJoy!
Book Brights: The Moment in Purple and Pink
Book Brights: The Moment in Purple and Pink
Girl gifts…brightness, pinkness, joy, beauty, birthday wishes…in the pink.
She just turned two…
Fan pages.
A theatrical feel…
Purple accordion spine…and pink covers. Purple and pink.
Butterfly. She turned seven. Fly!
Flag book.
Flag pages attached to pink accordion spine.
Back cover. Purple and pink. Bird. Fly!
ColorFULL of Meaning: PURPLE
ColorFULL of Meaning: PURPLE
This series of posts delves into the meanings, associations, and symbolism of color…starting with the color wheel above. We have explored the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Colors…let’s go deeper with those now, and learn a bit about color psychology. Now that’s a horse of a different color…but not necessarily a dark horse. Off to the colorFULL races. Today let’s play with magical, mystical, provocative PURPLE!
PURPLE associates with internalization, depth of feeling, dignity, wealth, exclusivity, mysticism, and magic. No wonder we are provoked by it.
Lighter, and containing more red, PURPLE can become sensual, seductive, secretive, sweet, cosmetic, intimate, and can associate with love. Closer to blue, it can associate with nobility, borne out by its association with royalty, and use in royal garments. It is the color most associated with royalty. perhaps because Tyrian purple was expensive. PURPLE is also associated with piety, and is religious color worn by priests.
According to Max Lüscher /the Lüscher color test, PURPLE (technically violet, a lighter shade of PURPLE) can also express magic and romance, as expressed above, as well as perception.
Child of blue and red, PURPLE suggests blue’s integrity, and red’s strength. PURPLE can also give lonely, mournful and pompous effect, hence its use in Victorian times as a color to be worn after the first year following the loss of a loved one. Certain PURPLE hues can appear, or “feel” unsettling, degenerate, morbid, and narcotic. When very dark in value, PURPLE can appear “strict”.
As regards to Synesthesia, or associations with other senses, PURPLE (technically violet) associates this way: Sound: sad, deep, minor key/light PURPLE – weak and restrained. Temperature: depends on the ratio of red to blue in the hue. Taste/Odor: narcotic, heavy, sweet/light PURPLE – sweetly tangy. Tactile: velvety. Weight: heavy/light PURPLE – light
On an energetic level, PURPLE (technically violet) corresponds to the vertex chakra, symbolizing wisdom and spiritual energy, and influencing the pituitary gland.
How do YOU respond to PURPLE? Do You see it as passionate, provocative, pensive or playful? Does it express mourning , morbidity or money to You? Are You attracted to its magic and mysticism, or penitence and piety?
Kings and Cardinals have worn PURPLE. It can express vanity, dignity, strictness and sensuality. PURPLE can seduce, exclude, unsettle and sedate. How do YOU weigh in on this bewitching and complex color which changes its meaning, feel and effect so drastically depending on its hue? What does PURPLE mean to YOU?
Secondary Colors are Primary Too
Secondary Colors are Primary Too
After posting last week about the Primary Colors (in the paint, print, dye sense…as opposed to the “light” sense)…I had to give some color time to those marvelous combos of primary colors…the ever-loving, and equally important secondaries!
Purple = Red + Blue
Green= Blue + Yellow
Orange = Yellow + Red
Interestingly…the complimentary colors are comprised of colors that are directly opposite, or across from each other on the color wheel. They are diametrically opposed…complete opposites. These dramatic duets are composed of the pairing of one primary color, and one secondary. Since each secondary is composed of two primaries, complimentary pairs contain all three primaries between them, and effectually “cancel out” each other’s color properties (I.E.- “neutralize” each other), when mixed.
On the contrary, when placed next or in proximity to each other, secondaries can create brilliant, arresting, and “can’t get enough of it’ color palettes. Seeing Green, orange and purple all together, adding brightness to a house exterior, well, it just wakes up your senses, ready or not!
Purple and orange share a red “parent” color in common. The other two primaries, blue and yellow, are expressed within them as their other color “parents”. That brilliant, hot orange packs the proverbial palette punch as an unexpected accent and frame to the softer purple house body color.
Here we have a pale orange (salmon), with a teal green, punctuated by bright purple flowers. Without the exuberant purple blooms nestled amongst their own green leaves, this exterior color palette might descend into the realm of the ho-hum.
Orange (here with a rosy glow) and green share yellow as one half of each of their wholes. It is almost impossible for yellow not to add warmth, relating, as it does, to the radiance and heat of the sun. The palette here is integrated with the green leaves of the foliage, which makes the warm rosy orange stand out all the more.
Have You designed solely with secondaries? What have You come up with? Working with secondaries, which express, but indirectly, the primaries they contain within them, can create strong, edgy color designs. Perhaps not for the faint of color heart, but guaranteed to move your blood. A powerful way to tell a color story.
Color Blossoms: Pink
Color Blossoms: Pink
Well, strike me…pink!
Putting the blossom back in blossom,,,these rich blooms run from red to pink to purple.
This blushing beauty is the essence of the pale pink rose. Wedding, anyone?
Mysterious pink, verging on the purple.
Struck dumb by this pink beauty…
Almost red.
Deep pink, fading to the center…beautiful markings.
Well, by rights, pink is “light” red. A tint of red…or, red with white added.
Our blushing beauty further on in her life cycle.
The joy of lushness.
What does “pink” mean to You?
What does pink “taste” like?
What is Your favorite hue of pink?
May You always be…”in the pink”!
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