One of my many obsessive traits is Colour. I love it! I love looking at it, thinking about it, photographing it..Among my suitcases of photos is stacks of photographs of colour. The picture of the flower might be out of focus, but the colour scheme is fantastic. I particularly like rusty old metal..but that's another story...
As I said before, I am slowly going through a large doodle box, and I found this scribbled note. And it is because of said note, I ventured into a real deeper interest in Colour.

"NCS - Natural Color System®© is a logical colourr notation system which builds on how the human being sees colour. A notation represents a specific colour precept and describes the colour visually, it is not depending on limitations caused by pigments, light rays or nerve signals that have given rise to this perception".
Verbal descriptions of colour are not accurate, when I say this shade you see that tone. So, if you are a decorator, interior designer, etc, you use this system to tell another professional what colour you are really talking about.
Its kinda hard to describe but here is an example:
Perfect orange would be Y50R; yellow50red, or 50% of each
So, you want to describe an orangy red, it could be 20Y80R; 20% yellow, 80% red
This colour system is used in fashion forecasting, so when they say this particular colour, you can instantly find the exact nuance of colour they are talking about. If you are serious about getting your colour lingo right, check out their website.
I have recently come across Kular by Adobe. Its amazing. They call it a free"web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project", I call it Manna from Heaven!
Got a dodgy shade of yarn you're not sure what to do with? You can upload a picture of it from your computer or Flickr, extract the colour, then start making swatches of colour combinations to see what will go with it.. The Wonders of Modern Technology! Seriously, a great resourse for anyone, from humble crafter to serios designer..
Need more?
Websites
Colour Matters
Colour Theory
Books:
Interaction of Colour - Joseph Albers
Colour and Culture - John Gage
1 comment:
Colour is indeed a great thing. It's a real talent being able to put colours together well.
Thanks for the link!
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