Seeing Colors And Making Shapes
This is an old, old piece. It is pastels on black paper…about 10″ x 14″. It is just basically something I did fast one day to do something in a short time frame. One thing I have found interesting is the feather shape. I often want to make this shape for not any known reason. Do you have a particular shape which comes naturally to your hand?
Yesterday I talked about seeing colors when I dream and yes, today I found a quote from Audrey Flack about color perception. In her book “Art & Soul: Notes on Creating” which I pick up from time to time, found this:
Perceiving Colors
We see colors differently. I see blue hues with one eye, my right, and warm yellow tones with my left. I’ve found that many artist see this way. I believe this is a function of a highly developed color sense.
Now I am not so sure this is the way it works for me, but you can be sure I am going to be testing myself to see if Audrey’s theory holds true for me. One thing I have noticed, though, is how two people with different eye colors see a hue differently. I attribute this to the reflection of the light as it is perceived by the eye. But I am not talking about colors in different locations, but people actually looking at the same color at the same time in the same place. And the other thing I have said to you before is how I am able to create and see various colors in different places where we live. I pointed to the example of the blues being so different for me when we were living in England. And the colors I worked with when we lived in the western part of the US were different from the ones I work with now here in the Eastern part of the US.
Have you ever noticed any of these subtle differences in how colors are perceived or how you work with them? Clearly both Audrey and I assume it is the eye which makes the difference, but maybe it is the brain which is translating them differently. What do you think?
I hope the day is sunny and delightful where you are today.
