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Exploring Ombres & the Variances of Color

3/21/2013

7 Comments

 
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Lime Mojito by The Painted Tiger - Click for Image Source
Ombre, if you're in the fashion and style industry you see this a lot as it becomes popular, fades a bit, then comes back (yes that was a color pun).  But that's not me, I'm a yarnie so terms of fashion only become relevant to me when the involve my love of fibers...

Ombre is a term that many times gets applied to types of yarn, those that may be variegated with all of the colors being of a similar hue and merely differing in shade.  But perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.  These are all artistic terms that refer to color so let's start there...
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Not the greatest picture...but an accidental ombre I created when bleaching my hair - golden yellow to red to dark brown to black at the very tips
While I'm sure before I could recognize ombre if I saw it, if you asked me to describe it to you I certainly wouldn't have been able to give you a clear answer, gotta love context.  So first off I looked it up this morning because I've been thinking about a pair of house slippers that I think would be simply fabulous in an ombre gray.

Merriam Webster defines an ombre as such:

having colors or tones that shade into each other - used especially of fabrics in which the color is graduated from light to dark.

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An example of an ombre green made from scrap yarn
Now a brief foray into language for a moment, notice that it's an adjective, so it's being used to describe the quality of something, rather than being something in its own right.  Perhaps even more interesting, which made perfect sense to me being a language geek, that the modern use is French in origin, the verb ombrer means to shade, and of course that comes from the Latin umbra which means shadow.  So while the word sounds a little funny to the ear you can see where it came from.  An aside, this led to me starting to read about shadows in a scientific sense this morning which was also fascinating as an artist.

Meandering back to the point.  Hue essentially is color, the world of science defines it based on light reflected and references that a hue is in lay terms a basic color - like blue, red, green, etc.  Light blue, medium blue, and dark blue would all be of the same hue - eg blue.  Then there are shades - made with the addition of black and tints - made with the addition of white.  But that gets into an artistic defining of hue.  For the artistic a hue is still a color, but one that neither involves a shade or tint.

So in considering creating an ombre pattern within a project you would want to stay within the same hue, and use varying shades.  I do suppose you could use varying tints as well but the whole effect is by using varying degrees of darkness (or lightness) of the same color.  Then all of this had me thinking way back to a painting I did in high school (unfortunately long since destroyed) wherein we did a gridded drawing, painted with acrylics on a large bit of panel canvas in four different styles - true color (to the picture), warm colors, cool colors, and a monochromatic one of any color.  I chose blue and while it's been forever since I did it I can still rather clearly see the varying tints and shades of blue.  A monochromatic pattern mimics the ombre affect to a point.
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Colors & Emotions - Click Image for Source Credit
Funny how something so simple seeming as color has so much life and variance to it.  Then again color is so integral in our lives in so many other ways.  We use color to describe how we are feeling - red with anger, green with envy, blue when we're sad.  Color can play a major importance in our health, certainly that cold that has you coughing up yellow-white ick isn't as alarming as if it were green, black, or red.  Then there's the proverbial traffic light where red causes us to halt, and green sends us off again with yellowing doing a big of encouraging and discouraging.

They bring us other feelings too, some psychological others less so.  For instance a small room painted a dark color only appears smaller than were it painted a lighter color.  We have colors we are familiar with around certain holidays which help bring those feelings to mind - the red, green, silver, gold, and white of Christmas reminds us of the snow, bells, tinsel, trees, and bright decorations.  Whereas the red, pink, and white of Valentine's Day has us thinking amorous (or anti-amorous) thoughts.

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What colors do you see? Click Image for Source Credit
Color is by no means created equal either.  We all vary slightly in our reaction to colors, though within our individual cultures there are trends in feeling.  (Imagine that a trend in feeling, but trust me there's no doubt, just pay attention and you'll see it.)  What one may call magenta another insists is fuschia.  Still another says it's just pink.  Scientifically speaking where it falls on the light spectrum is what it is, but how we interpret and describe the color and then how we react to it can be entirely different.  Blood red has a bit of a sinister feel to it - but cherry & fire engine red not so much.  But are they so far off from blood red?  Or the bright red of arterial (and highly oxygenated blood) not really.  But they certainly don't inspire the same shudder in some people.

Then there is the tradition within culture, in some such as Chinese, white is associated with death and mourning.  In others its associated with purity and innocence.  Red-haired people in several cultures were regarded as evil - then again it wasn't genetically the norm to see children with that hair color so they were regarded entirely differently.
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A scrap project made of leftovers of yarn isn't so attractive when the colors are all over the place
In my work, as with any visually-oriented artist, color is very important.  The same garment in a solid color may seem flat and boring, giving it several colors or a progressing pattern of colors can breathe life into a piece.  The "wrong" colors can bring down even the most beautiful design to some less than appealing to look at.  In the healing & spiritual work I do color's importance takes on and whole other importance.  It can be used to heal us and affect us psychologically.  Colors relate, very similarly to the rainbow, to the chakras and certain colors when seen in the aura can hold meanings.  Healing light is often seen as white, pink, or violet.

In the comments below I'd love to hear about your experience with color!  Do you ever notice how it makes you feel?  Do you find yourself gravitating towards certain colors and shying away from some others?  Have you ever seen something you loved but didn't buy because you hated the color?  If you're new to my blog make sure you join the newsletter and check me out on social media so we can connect!
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7 Comments
Kelly link
3/21/2013 07:04:28 am

Thanks, this was really interesting! I've been thinking a lot about color lately, too. I find that the older I get, the more attracted I am to bold, bright colors. Blue has always been my favorite, but I find myself drawn to shades of purple now.

It's also one of the frustrations of starting an online business. The colors I use are important to me, and it bothers me that I can't make them look on-screen the way they do in real life.

Reply
Aradia link
3/22/2013 01:19:23 am

Kelly, I'm glad you liked it! An aside: I know with taste as we get older we need flavorful things because our sense of taste dulls a bit. I'm not sure that that relates to colors, but our figurative tastes definitely seem to change as we get older! :) I'm not typically the conservative type but I have a lot of appreciation for some more conservative things more than I used to. Although I don't dislike anything I previously liked.

I think one of the best ways to combat the color issue with business is to use natural light. When we take pictures with incandescent and flourescent lighting (the type of lighting typically used in homes) it casts a bit of a 'pall' over the color. Often yellowing or washing the color out a bit. I can say that most of the colors I shoot are very representative of their actual versions. However lighting very much affects how we perceive color. In lower lighting colors will appear duller, and contrast is also very important, as the bright or darkness of a color appears to change visually relative to the colors around it.

What in particular do you have trouble with? Were these considerations helpful?

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Starlene link
3/22/2013 11:05:54 pm

See, its so funny how we all do define color differently. I personally love the color red. I have painted two of the walls in my office a deep red, almost wine color and the opposite walls a light shade of pink (my own unintentional ombre maybe) I feel that it helps me to feel energized and it is also the love gua of my home. (In feng shui we call section of our homes dedicated to certain aspects of our lives) and I love my business, it is a HUGE part of my life and who I am. Now I wouldn't want my bedroom painted red, I think I wouldn't sleep that well in a red room, because red activates me, motivates me and makes me feel energized. I painted the bedroom a light lavender and I sleep like a baby in it...

I also wanted to mention what you say about the mix matched colors --- and I know this is not the "norm" but then again I am not the normal type of person. I actually really love the mix matched colors, there is something to it, but at the same time there is a method to that madness. For instance my "art gallery" that I also paint in, in my home has dark grape purple walls and I wanted to brighten it up so I bought a beautiful bright green painting of an angel to be the center-point in that room. Typically people wouldn't match grape purple with bright with an ALMOST neon-ish green colored painting, but I get compliments on it all the time. It works, and its really up the the person looking at the particular color/thing to feel that emotion you were speaking of.

In my jewelry making I purposely put colors together to make them stand out, I cant tell you how I do it - it is more of an intuitive thing and sometimes its the ombre sort og way with a graduation from bold to light and sometimes the best pieces are just completely random.

I guess it just goes to show you that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder!

Much love my sweet Aradia, thanks for sharing this article, it was great! <3 ~~~Starlene

Reply
Aradia link
3/23/2013 02:52:18 am

Thank you dearest for sharing your thoughts! I know a little about Feng Shui but I rarely use the color side of it! I love that you were able to activate certain energy in your home and I think that's a wonderful idea, even if one didn't paint walls but just add other decorations - like your green angel to achieve the presence of the color.

I understand about the color matching together. I have the oddest sense of style and I'd say it's a little gypsy/bohemian-ish. I like to put colors together that one might not be attracted to, or a sort of ombred affect then add something that completely contrasts - like dark muted colors (black, brown) then add a bit of Bright blue (in face my favorite pair of pants are those colors :p!)

And I think what would be interesting to consider would be how color and our reactions work with our astrological & numerological energies too. I could see someone, for example, who has their Sun in a Fire sign liking bold colors, or a statement with what they wear. But if their Moon or Venus were in an Earth sign they might prefer calmer, more muted colors in the areas of their life affected by those placements. Or even the other way around, how we might attract certain colors into our life because we needed their energy to balance out. :D

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Novelty Lighting link
9/30/2013 06:34:54 pm

Excellent. Please keep up the good work for the concise and informative articles. This is more informative than other media, I really like following your blog as the articles are so simple to read..

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Christine Boles link
2/26/2014 02:45:13 pm

I always thought it was interesting that makeup artists teach you to highlight something to bring it out and apply darker shades to things you want to contour or recede~ but in painting, "chiaroscuro" is the exact opposite! On canvas, we paint things dark to pull them forward and paint them light to push them back, visually.
As a teen learning about both arts, this was confusing to me~ till I finally decided that it's because one object is 3D, while the other is flat/2D. The face reacts differently from a painting because it's 3D, while a painting is flat.
But we have found by experience, in our family of artists, that walls painted a SLIGHTLY darker color tend to push back visually more than a light color, making a small room appear bigger than the paler color made it look. Intriguing.
Color and light are rather wild, untamed things....!
Gahh, I'm a huge ColorGeek!

Reply
Aradia link
3/1/2014 04:27:18 am

Thanks Christine for sharing your insight about color and how its used in various art forms! Its always wonderful to learn new and different things about color theory for sure!

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