Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? No.
—Pablo Picasso
Not everyone agrees with Picasso. People have devoted huge chunks of their lives trying to understand color theory, and they’ve written a potful of books on the subject. Two of my favorites right now are Making Color Sing and Playing With Color.
There are also others in my library, and I’ll read a little in one of them, then spend hours experimenting with my oil pastels. Some combinations work all right, some don’t, and some make my spirits soar. I can well understand the fellow teaching color theory when one of his students said,
You could spend your whole life learning this stuff.
The teacher answered,
Can you think of a better way of spending a life?
I probably won’t spend the rest of my life doing this, but at the moment it’s definitely the best use of my time. Do you feel that way about any of your activities?
May 21, 2014
Crossword puzzles.
Yes. It’s great being retired!
thanks to you monk i’m also enjoying playing around with color right now.
i’m currently doing ‘birds on a wire.’ and such birds you’ve never seen! LOLOL.
hard to believe i didn’t enjoy the ‘color theory’ course when i studied interior design.
i think it all has to do with ‘teachers.’ they can bring their own enthusiasm and delight to any subject or they can make it so dry and dull they ruin it for you.
let’s face it. it’s hard to ruin color. but she managed to try to do it! LOLOL.
Teachers make a huge difference. I used to love playing in water but the first swimming class I took in college was a misery because of the teacher. I took it again, and the second teacher was a gem. Glad you can enjoy colors now!
I have always loved colour, even before I put it on thread or on paper. The more they clash I love, because you will always stand out in a crowd.
When I left my marriage a friend, I won’t say particularly good friend, decided I need to be bought into colour matching and although it was nice to able to blend it in, it wasn’t me.
Then a very good friend said “we have lost you. You always made me smile and gave me a lift to the day, and what you did I could never achieve”
It has taken me years to return to clashing colours and I’m still not there, but maybe I could if I went back to how in those days I washed and ironed my colourful things and then put them in heaps on a large table. I was so busy with things then – even more than now that in the morning I selected what on each pile and piled them on! Never really considering what was clashing or matching…
Yay for your good friend! I love the idea of heaps on the table, grab whatever is convenient. My outfits almost always look the same — when I like something I buy several so I don’t have to waste time thinking about what to wear.
At the moment being at a Writers’ Festival with my wife.
COLOR is my thing. If you got a new car, never mind what kind. I’d ask WHAT COLOR?
btw I don’t go in for colorful cars. Ours is grey.
LOLOL!!!