Standing Color Books

Lying Flat, (opened normally and covers pulled apart)

This is a variation on an accordion book as the cards are attached to an accordion structure, with the top and bottom cards going in one direction and those in the middle going the other. I was teaching Color Theory at the time so that became the topic of my book.

Sketch Books

Happy Halloween!

Our studio is coming along—the semester is almost over—my students drive me nuts sometimes and I’m sure I do them! Actually they are great and keep me on my toes—the future is in good hands!

It’s raining but tomorrow we are going to dinner with friends, known as the Rude People—all the women went to Moore College of Art and Design. This is a different group than the women from Moore with whom I go on Flower Hoaxes but some are the same and all enrich my life.

We feel that it is most important to understand the first bit, what color is,  in order to master the last, how colors influence each other. Not what paint is, or what dyes are, but what actual color is and how humans perceive it.

Color is Light and Light is Energy!
It is the small part of the electromagnetic spectrum of wave lengths that the human eye sees. When this Visual Spectrum is present we see white light. When individual wave lengths are viewed we see them as individual colors.

Prism

In the 1600’s Sir Isaac Newton proved the physical properties of color when he passed a light beam through a prism, refracting the white light into its separate wave lengths. (If you have a prism, look through it at a light source and notice what happens.)

I’ll discuss more on color in future posts.

If you are interested in having us speak to your organization, (or conduct workshops) contact me at beth@emmott.com or at 700 S. 10th St., Phila, PA, 19147

In the mean time—GO PHILLIES!!!

I can talk about all those things another time but right now I wanted to talk about color. I thought it might be a good idea to talk about color here as it is a little like a garden. To understand and create with both color and plants it helps to know something about their physical qualities and to be able to use the correct terminology but the enjoying is in the marveling.

Recently my friend and colleague, Prof. Jane Likens, and I were asked to give a talk on color to the Heartstring Quilters in Wynnewood, PA, a guild of very interesting women (I think they are all women as I didn’t see any men but they may have some male members). Jane’s background is in fashion, she is an instructor at Philadelphia University in the Fashion Design Dept while I teach in the Graphic/Digital Design Depts. We’ve been friends for years, having met our freshmen year at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia and have marveled at many things.

I’ve given talks on color before – I taught color theory for a number of years, but I’d never done so in tandem. We had a great time hauling out all our color information; books, samples, student work, slides and power point presentations, etc we’ve accumulated along the way. The trick was to narrow it down to a less than one hour talk in a room where we weren’t sure of the size, equipment or even the light source. (The light source does effect color perception.—Since it would be held in a hospital meeting room at night we figured on fluorescence lights.) We had no idea of the level of knowledge of the audience but figured it was a wide range from novice to professional—we also figured that anyone who liked any fiber arts would enjoy anything on color whatever the level. We decided to just have fun. I would do the intro, giving the physical and communication side of the talk and Jane would follow up with her wonderful fabric samples.

So—this has me thinking about color a lot and I thought I’d make a new category for color and start some color blogging. My first entry—after this, I will talk about our color talk. Right now I going home for supper on a very rainy night.
Bye—