What color are you today?
An essay…
In graduate school, my thesis advisor told me I had a knack for color. I did not think and still don’t think is that I have a knack for it. What I do have however, is a fearlessness about using color. If it does not work, I try other colors. This is partly why I love watercolors. They are easy to use and yet, delicate. But they allow you to experiment without much mixing. Acrylics have to be mixed so much that it robs me from playing.
However; not often or ever I had to think about teaching color itself. In my design classes, we play with color combinations. In the digital realm, playing with colors is easy and it should be. When we talk about color, we discuss the differences between CMYK and RGB. CMYK is for the commercial press and RGB is for digital spaces. Moving between both modes often creates color shifts and printing is sometimes a small nightmare because every printer, like monitors, displays colors slightly different.
For my Art Appreciation class the last thing I wanted to do was to talk about the technical aspects of color. The color chapter from the textbook has cool and interesting examples of color use in both the digital and analog spaces. It also goes into great length discussing the color wheel, primary, secondary, analogous, complementary, and monochromatic color as well as the key terms regarding color: hue, value, chroma, and tone. But that is in the textbook and they were quizzed on it.
The truth is that there is so much to discuss and teach about color. Much more than the book covers. I did not want to drown students who are taking a GenEd with technical terms that may not be relevant in their fields. I had to think and consider, what does a GenEd student really should know about color to appreciate art? If they decided to do a minor in Art, the technical terms will be covered in their foundational and concentration classes. If they switch their major to Art, then their exposure will be greater and the theory will be reinforced with the practice.
To appreciate art, yes, they need to know a bit about why the colors behave the way they do in both the digital and analog spaces. And the book, as I said covers that. From me however, what would they need to know from my experience? That is when it hit me. The discussion about color and cultural psychology is discussed often and there are books on it as well as plenty of blogs and sites that discuss it. But the book does not go into great detail about it. I thought that is something we should discuss in class. That is the beauty of a lecture. As the professor, I can bring my experience and knowledge into the mix. As a bilingual speaker and being a walking, living, breathing Venn diagram (two languages, two cultures), I can offer something the book does not: my insight.
As I started researching for ideas on how to teach color, personal perception, and culture, I came a tad empty. A lot of entries are about the color wheel. Other entries are providing answers to the questions. But I wanted the search results to provide me with questions, not answers. Have you ever spent the day looking for questions instead of answers? It requires patience.
Engaging students is a skill that I am discovering I need to get better at. One thing is to engage students in a studio where everyone is an art or design major. It is quite another to engage students from all types of majors with a dim interest in the arts. That is quite a task and I feel challenged to make this class matter.
In my day or weekend looking for ways to provoke a discussion, I came to the simple solution of showing the colors of the rainbow in the screen—Tyson suggested I actually went to paint the gallery but current shows limit me. Each slide is flooded with color followed by a tv gray slide in between to cleanse the palate. I have titled this lecture or presentation: What color are you today? Hopefully this will create space to discuss several things:
Why are there only seven colors on the rainbow? Something I had not thought about until today, in spite of studying art all my life.
The relationship between the rainbow, Newton, and Pythagoras.
The spectrum of color.
How does color make one feel?
How culture affects color in branding? For example McDonald’s in the US versus in Europe.
I don’t know if this is going to work so I will keep you posted. But I do hope so. The presentation ends with dividing the students in groups of three by color. They will research the cultural meanings of the assigned color in other cultures and their relationship to history, activism, and politics even.
I would like a discussion where we go beyond the obvious and we go deep in this conversation. Wish me luck?
Love,
Alma
I love this, especially the psychology of colour across the different cultures. So important to be aware of this.