Category Archives: color

Immerse yourself in color!


My friend Gabe is planning to build an exciting – real world – interactive demonstration of the relativity of color for an art festival on Maui in February. You’ll be able to to go into a room and change the color of the walls, based on where you point.

See his blog for a more complete explanation, and be sure to try out the demo! Play around with changing the colors (mouse over the colored matrix). I love the “light switch” by the “door”! Click on the video floor mat to see and hear his description, and click on the “Donate” button if you feel moved to support this project!

Film and veil


Films and veils are two visual phenomena that Dick Nelson teaches about in his Interactions of Color class. We learned to recognize them, how they behave, and how to recreate the phenomena. This photo, taken yesterday by my husband, has an example of both.

Unlike solid objects, which are opaque, films and veils are both translucent, allowing us to partially see through them. Common examples of films are sunglasses, tinted glass in windows, and bright or dark colored tissue paper. Shadows also behave as films. Films make everything behind them appear darker. Veils make everything behind them appear lighter. Examples are bridal veils, white tissue paper, and atmospheric mist.

In the photo above, both sails have portions that are opaque, and portions that behave as veils. In addition, the dark top of the sail on the right acts as a film. The spray raised by the sailors’ boards is a veil.

Our eyes and brains automatically take in all this information as we make sense of our world. Artists learn to see these details to create the effects they want.

Show and Tell


Dick Nelson hosted a “Show and Tell” this week, where a handful of artists shared some recent work. Sue’s quilt miniature was set off nicely by her top and Donnette-Gene’s!

I showed a mind map summary of color class concepts:

Art & science


In Dick’s color class Tuesday we were exploring colored light, and talking about the difference in colors between sunset and sunrise. Kit Gentry proposed a theory about more color at sunset due to more moisture and particulates in the air. I confirmed this later in The Nature of Light and Colour in the Open Air, by Marcel Minnaert. I was reminded again of the common drives shared by artists and scientists, curiosity and exploration, and their common disciplines of observation and experimentation.

I love this quote from Edward Tufte, because it helps me make sense of my parallel interests:

“Science and art have in common intense seeing, the wide-eyed observing that generates empirical information.”

(from Beautiful Evidence, 2006, p. 9)

Artists and scientists used to be the same person – daVinci, Goethe – the modern gulf between them is artificial and detrimental. This is one of the ideas of Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind: We need to unite these world views. Dick’s class does. It teaches artists to see more carefully and scientifically, and shows how this rational approach can enhance their creativity.

This is why I’m so excited about visual thinking and visual communication – it is consistent with more of who we are.

(Photo by Kit Gentry)