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RETHINKING THE TEACHING OF “COLOR” IN Jewelry DESIGN
or,
HOW JEWELRY DESIGNERS SHOULD APPROACH COLOR
by Warren Feld, Jewelry Designer
Abstract
Color is the single most important Design Element, whether used alone, or in combination with other Design Elements. Yet, the bead, and its use in jewelry, – its very being – creates a series of dilemmas for the colorist. And each dilemma is only overcome through strategically making choices about color and design. This article reviews the basic concepts in color theory and suggests how to adapt each of these to the special requirements of beads and jewelry. This paper seeks to answer how the bead (and its use in jewelry) asserts its need for color. Special attention is paid to differentiating those aspects of color use we can consider as objective and universal from those which are not. The fluent designer is one who can maneuver between universality and individuality when selecting and implementing colors, color combinations and color blends.
RETHINKING THE TEACHING OF “COLOR” IN JEWELRY DESIGN
Color is the single most important Design Element. Color concepts and theories form a language about how to best make choices about picking and using colors for universally attracting and involving both the wearer and the viewer. The artist who is fluent in design will be very aware of how the bead and other materials assert their needs for color, and how to strategically compose, construct and manipulate them.
I’m always thrilled when someone tells me “I never thought of using those colors before, …But they work!” I like to push the envelop with color, and incorporate some subtle tricks such as the use of “grays”, the selection of tertiary or “just-off” colors, the strategic use of color proportions, and the combinations of finishes and effects which often don’t get combined, but, from a color-theorist’s perspective, can be made to work, and made to work quite well. As my friend Vera always tells me, “You have a way of using a lot of “pukey” colors, and making something spectacularly beautiful with them.”
But I also have this tendency, that I keep having to fight, to want to “paint” with the beads. Painting with beads doesn’t work. The colors don’t blend, don’t merge, don’t spill over, don’t integrate. You can’t create the millions of subtle color variations that you can with paint. Plus the beads are curved or faceted or otherwise shaped, and the shape and texture and dimensionality affects the color, its variation and its placement and movement on the beads surface. They affect how light reflects and refracts, so depending on the angle at which you are standing, and how you are looking at the bead, you get some unexpected, unanticipated, sometimes unwanted colors in your piece of jewelry. There are many gaps of light between each pair of beads, and you can’t paint these in.
So, when I plan a piece or visualize it in my mind, I have to fight this tendency to see things as a painter, or approach design from a painterly way. It doesn’t work well. You need to bring an understanding of both color and beads, not just color, to the project. You need to understand how the bead asserts its need for color. Contemplate. You need to approach the subject of color as a jewelry designer who uses beads, not a painter who uses paints. Additionally, you need to anticipate how the bead, when worn, can alter its color, depending on the source of light, the type and pace of movement of the wearer, and how the eye interacts with the bead at any point of time or positioning.
Beaders should not be afraid of colors, but should embrace them. They should learn insights into understanding colors. They should be inspired by colors. They should express their artistic and creative selves through color. They should use color palettes to their fullest.
In some sense, however, the approaches of most bead artists and jewelry designers are still somewhat painterly – too routed in the Art Model. The Art Model ignores things about functionality and context. It diminishes the individuality of the designer, and the subjective responses of the wearer and viewer. As a result, color theories get oversimplified for the jewelry artist. “Value” is barely differentiated from “Intensity”. Color selection focuses too much on harmony, and too little on edginess. It too often steers jewelry designers towards a step-by-step, paint-by-number sort of approach to color selection and application. The co-dependent relationship between Color and other Design Elements is downplayed and glossed over. This is a major disservice.
So, I’ve tried to re-think how we could and should teach “color” to jewelry artists. Not easy. Art and Design Theory suggests that, in order to teach designers to make good choices, we need to break down color concepts and theories into teachable and digestible groups of skills. And then show how the next set of skills builds upon the first. We need to show jewelry artists what kinds of choices they will be making as they create pieces of jewelry, and then put them in situations where they are forced to make these kinds of choices. We need to think of colors as “building blocks”, and the process of using colors, as one of creative construction.
We need to add a sense of realism and practicality to what we teach. I doubt most beaders and jewelry makers start with the Color Wheel or Color Schemes when they pick their colors. They start with colors they like, and then keep tweaking them until they feel the mix of colors are right. So we should add some behavioral reality to how we teach about color and how we teach how/when/why to use the Color Wheel and Color Schemes.
So, that’s where we’ll begin with color: Delineating the types of choices that the jewelry artist needs to make, starting with choices about picking colors.
Picking Colors
There are many different kinds of choices involved, when using Color:
Choices about colors based on our understanding of…
– Personal strategies for picking colors or finding inspirations for colors
– Color theories and concepts
– How the bead asserts its needs for color
– How color affects the viewers of color
– Designing jewelry with color
– The situation or context within which the jewelry is to be worn
How do you actually go about picking your colors, and then deciding on your final colors for your piece? What kinds of things influence you in choosing colors? What inspires you? Where do you look for inspiration? Do you have favorite colors and color combinations? Or colors and color combinations that you detest?
Most people pick colors a little like they pick lottery tickets – they rely on a random numbers generator, OR, choose the same numbers like birth dates over and over again, OR use some kind of mystical “system”, the logical basis of which is never quite fully known and seems too good to be true.
Picking colors is about making strategic choices. And picking Bead Colors is about understanding how the bead (and other materials) asserts its needs for color.
[If you are in your bead or jewelry making room, you might pause a few minutes, and go pick out three colors of beads that you feel go together well. Try to be very conscious of why you picked them.
Then pick a fourth color that you think goes with the first three.
Take away one of the four colors, and see if you like a combination of 3 better than that of 4, or better than any other combination of 3. Re-arrange the order of the cords. Make a difference in how you like them?
Try to think about why you prefer one combination or arrangement over another.]
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Recently, I asked three of my students to pick 3 colors, and then a fourth. One student picked pink and light purple colors. She explained that these colors were bright and matched everything she wore. Her mom had made her wear dark navy clothes, and only dark navy clothes, when she was a girl, so as an adult, she picked colors as different from navy as she could get.
Another student had been up all the previous night making Easter-themed gifts for the customers of a store she worked at. At class, she picked pastel pink, pastel purple and pastel green, as her first 3 colors. At first, she said these were colors she liked, and they were very spring-like. But after thinking how she had lived with these colors for the past 24 hours, she remarked that these were the colors on her brain, and that’s probably why she picked them.
The third student picked colors with high contrast, and, searched for a fourth color that would tone them down or balance them off. One color was Capri silver lined, and a 2nd was a metallic hot coral pink. Her additional colors were gold and brown. She did a lot of ballroom dancing and made her own costumes. Her choice of colors anticipated what she felt she needed for these costumes. She discussed at length how the costumes moved as she danced, and what her goals for color and bead embellishment were, given the movement.
I know I like to pick one or two colors to begin with, and then tweak them. Based on my knowledge of the Color Wheel and Color Schemes, I might pull another 5 or 6 colors. Then I narrow my choices. I play with different shades and tones of these colors. I rearrange the order of them. I reposition their orientation – horizontal, vertical, diagonal. I test whether an AB-effect (or other effects or finishes) works with or against my developing ideas. As I settle in with a more limited number of colors, I try to play with proportions. At this point, I start to lay out the beads into some kind of design and arrangement.
About Yellow
The great colorist debates about yellow in the latter part of the 19th century were whether urine could be a component, and if so, who’s. People do have a lot of time on their hands.
Tales from Pakistan and India told of secret animal urine added to the spice turmeric to create the basis of yellow pigment. This was difficult to duplicate. Camel or Cow or, Please-Don’t-Say-Human? One scientist happened upon a farm in India that made this “puree of India”. Here the cows were fed mangos, and their urine was very yellow. But there were not enough cows to account for all the yellow pigment available in India at the time. Whatever the recipe, production ceased around 1908, in favor of other methods.
Yellow is an attention getter. It is often used to signal “caution”, as in a yield sign, or as in the “yellow” in yellow fever. People lose their tempers more often in yellow rooms, and babies cry more.
I know I’m yellow-phobic, and, am not alone. I can only use it in small doses.
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Color Choices
Choosing Colors is an involved exercise. Most people avoid this kind of exercise, and settle for a set of colors that match. But, in design terms, Colors are used by the designer to clarify and intensify the effects she or he wants to achieve.
What does it mean to “clarify and intensify” the effects you might want to achieve? For example, the artist may use color to clarify and/or intensify any of these kinds of things…
– delineation of segments, forms, themes, areas
– expressions of naturalism or abstraction
– enhancing the sense of structure or physicality (forward/recede; emphasize mass or lines or surfaces or points)
– playing with light (surprise, distort, challenge, contradict, provoke)
– altering the natural relationship between the jewelry and the situation it is worn in (context, clothing, setting)
Color is the primary Design Element designers choose to express their intent, establish unity, create rhythm, set movement and dimensionality in place, enhance shape, make points, lines and planes come alive, and the like. Alas, too few people apply this kind of thinking and make this kind of effort when choosing colors.
One designer I know – Jenna – spends an agonizingly amount of time trying to match colors within her pieces, but never tries to clarify and intensify her jewelry. Her necklaces and bracelets are strings of matched colors. Anyone could have strung them. Anyone can wear them. No one wearing them should expect to attract the kinds of compliments, interest and attention a well-designed piece should command. These are pieces of jewelry best viewed through cataract’d eyes. Acceptable, yet not appealing. Wearable, but not exciting. Matching, yet not wowing.
We refer to her jewelry, with some sarcastic bite, as “Old Lady” jewelry – jewelry for older ladies who were used to having someone else make the decisions about color and design for them. Older ladies who settled for blander necklaces which were not threatening, and jewelry which did not enhance or detract from their identities and places in the social scheme of things. Adornment without emotion. Art without intent.
Jenna could have done lots of things with color, though she didn’t. She could have delineated segments within the piece and establish a rhythm. She could have selected colors which emphasize a naturalism, or conversely an abstraction. Colors recede, project forward, have warmth, are cold, have tensions between mass, line and point, surprise, distort, challenge, contradict, provoke. Colors intentionally designed can even alter the natural relationship between jewelry and the situation it’s worn in.
Jenna did none of this.
Annisette was a slave to fashion colors. On her web-blog, she bookmarked every reference she could find to the current fashion colors for Spring, then for Summer, then for Autumn, then for Winter, and once again for Spring. She was determined to make and sell jewelry that was up-to-date and current. Never mind that different fashion magazines and other fashion sources often disagreed on what were the “IT” colors of the moment. Annisette would usually pick one, just because.
In reality, while some people follow color trends, most do not. Most people wear similar colors from year to year. They don’t change much. And while fashion excitement might originate in New York and Los Angeles, it doesn’t necessarily trickle down to anywhere else.
For myself, I know that as I start to play with my design arrangements, I also begin to identify potential color issues. Designs are imperfect. Beads are imperfect. Colors are imperfect. With each issue, I try to figure out solutions – other things I can do with colors to make everything work. My choices begin with scientifically proven color theories – shared universals that virtually everyone has about picking colors. In literacy terminology, this is called decoding. Then I begin to personalize my choices so that my results show more of my individuality as an artist. Some of these latter choices do not necessarily reflect shared universal understandings about color and its use. In literacy terminology, my ability to move back and forth between the objective and subjective is called fluency.
About Red
Red is emotionally intense, full of itself, causing the heart to beat faster and the lungs to breathe faster, as well. Red can be an extreme color.
The ancient Egyptians wrote their curse-words in red ink. I guess now we know that ancient Egyptians had curse-words.
Red can evoke love, and anger. Red can indicate a person (or people) is in control, and challenge others to question that control.
Red can be destructive, as well as signify re-birth. Red stimulates appetite. Red does a lot – a lot of extreme things.
I like working with red to a point. But I’m uncomfortable sitting in an entirely red room.
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Bead Choices
The bead – its very being – creates as series of dilemmas for the colorist. And each dilemma is only overcome through strategically making choices about color and design.
Such dilemmas include things like…
- Beads are not the same as using paints
- Can’t blend beads
- Boundary issues
- Issues associated with shapes, faceting, edges, crevices
- Limits in the range of colors (and color tones) you can pick from
- Issues associated with the fact that jewelry as worn, takes many shapes/positions, as the person moves, and the color appearance may change or vary
- Beads are parts in whole compositions, and juxtaposition of 2 or more beads may change or vary the colors’ appearance
- Jumping from bead to bead within the composition, means the viewer’s mind has to fill in where there are gaps of color to give the illusion there is a continuance of color throughout the composition
Yet most people do not recognize or anticipate these kinds of dilemmas. They ignore the bead, instead of contemplating it. The bead is a spiritual void, without much impact or consequence. They look at color wheels, read color guides, and rely on a Pantone’d world – “from Pantone [1], the world-renowned authority on colour and provider of colour systems and leading technology for the selection and accurate communication…”. Each season’s fashion colors are reduced to Pantone codes, and beads are forced to conform to Pantone. But this never works out well.
The bead is reduced to a flat circle in a diagram or in a photo. It’s colored in with Crayola pencils or jet-dry inks. It is static on the page. Lifeless. It makes no shifts. The spaces between beads are white and show no shadows. The threads are shown as lines at the beginning and end of the piece, and maybe a dotted line, if any, through the beads as they line up and progress along. The bead is a monolith. It’s trapped in a spatial odyssey, computer-designed, and reduced to a 1 and 0, Yes and No, black and white.
So, when someone like Esther, always chooses blue, she does the bead a disservice, almost a put-down. Blue, for Esther, is a safe choice, but it’s not necessarily a designed choice. And it’s not a choice about beads.
Beads are not paints. They are not inks, or colored pencils or magic markers. You can blend paints, and inks and stains. You can’t blend beads. Beads do not come in every color. Bead colors do not necessarily coordinate with similar palettes and in tones, shades or tints.
Beads have boundaries. They have curvatures, other shaping, faceting, edges, crevices.
Beads reflect and refract light, and this reflection and refraction changes as the wearer moves from space to space, lighting to lighting, shade to shadow, angle and perspective to another angle and perspective.
Beads are parts in whole compositions. The sum of the parts may not add up to the value of the whole.
Jumping from bead to bead within the composition – almost like your mind/eye jumping off a cliff — means the viewer’s mind has to fill in where there are gaps of color and light. This requires some work. It is effort. What color choices – selections, combinations, arrangements — would motivate the person to be actually willing to jump off a cliff? How many people will have the necessary energy it will take to intellectually work their way through a composition of beads, so that they can make sense of it and appreciate it? That means filling in the gaps of light with color. That means responding to all the myriad color choices – good, bad, incomplete, redundant or indifferent — in the composition. Jewelry has to be really special to have this kind of motivating power.
And jewelry must be appreciated as it is worn. That means the colors must be appreciated as well – as the person moves up and down, and side to side, and back and forth, and cattycorner to cattycorner. The jewelry and its associated colors have to maintain their “power and appeal”, no matter what. No matter if the person is working at a desk. No matter if the person is dancing on the dance floor. No matter if the person is negotiating a contract. No matter if the person slips on a banana peel.
About Blue
It’s always disturbed me that there are virtually no blue fruits and vegetables. Blue is so calming. Did Nature not want us to be calm when we ate fruits and vegetables? Blue is so In Nature, but seems so out of it as well. The contradiction is disturbing. The skies are blue, the ocean is blue, some flowers are blue. Yet when we hear of a blue lobster or blue spider monkey, we are somehow surprised and taken aback by their “blue-ness”. Don’t they have a right to be blue? Shouldn’t we be calm about it?
Blue is the most popular color for fashion. It shows loyalty, honesty, calmness, reliability. It should come as no surprise – although it did to me – that people are most productive in rooms that are painted blue. Even weight lifters can lift heavier weights in blue settings, than in non-blue settings. Have you checked the color of the walls at your local gym lately?
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Emotions, Moods and Choices
The emotional and psychological effects of color are undeniable. These effects are usually felt through processes of color comparisons and contrasts. The better designer anticipates the goals of the wearer, and what emotions and moods the wearer wants to evoke in all that see the jewelry as worn. This might be appeal, beauty, trust, power, wealth, intelligence, and the list goes on.
About Green
Green was once the preferred color choice for wedding gowns and veils. I wonder at what point brides-to-be decided that looking like a tree was no longer a positive thing. They jumped ship and went to white.
Green has so many good feelings going for it. It brings you closer to nature. It refreshes you. It has a sense of renewal. So it always seems so out of place to go from saying someone has a Green Thumb, to saying someone is Green With Envy or Green With Jealousy.
Did you know that people in green rooms experience fewer stomach aches than people not in green rooms? Or that if you lay a green transparent piece of plastic over a page in a book, you can read more attentively, and retain more of what you read?
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Designing With Color – Many Choices
The jewelry designer must be strategic with color, which comes down to..
- Selection
- Placement
- Distribution
- Transition
- Proportion
Designers must be intentional, not only with the selection of colors, but in the placement of color within the piece, as well. The designer achieves balance and harmony, partly through the placement of colors. The designer determines how colors are distributed within the piece, and how colors transition from one color to the next. And the designer determines what proportions of each color are used, where in the piece, and how. These kinds of choices affect movement and rhythm, dimensionality, and resonance.
About Orange
Orange is another color, like Yellow, that is difficult for me to work with. I like burnt oranges and hyacinths, but a simple bright orange is not usually my thing. I hear that I am not alone. Orange, it appears, is the least favorite color on earth.
The Sumptuary Laws in Elizabethan England dictated who could wear orange in their clothing, how much, and in what areas of the clothing. This inclusion and placement of orange signaled to others the social status of the wearer in terms of wealth, social status, and religious conviction. The Laws applied to the lower classes, as well as the upper classes.
It seems fascinating that the dye used to make orange at the time was very cheap and bled out and faded over time. I guess this allowed for a little bit of democracy in action, ups and downs in class status, and some avoidance of class warfare, as well. But I’m glad we get to pick our own colors to wear, and no longer have any limits proscribed by law.
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Subjective or Objective Choices?
Can choices about color(s) ever be objective? Or are they primarily subjective?
If there are no objective, scientific, universally accepted understandings about color, can you ever teach jewelry artists to be better users of colors, that is, to clarify and intensify the effects the artist is trying to achieve?
Much of choosing colors is very subjective. Different people prefer different colors and combinations of colors. There are socio-cultural, preset expectations about colors, as well, where some colors are used to reaffirm membership in a larger group, or exclude others. Some people like certain colors when part of a vertical positioning and arrangement, but may dislike those same colors when organized horizontally. Some people gravitate to pristine colors, with little shading, and sharp boundaries, where others prefer shading and tinting, and blurred boundaries. Some people prefer very rhythmic arrangements of colors where others are more satisfied with pieces which are more subdued and measured.
However, if we are to teach the use of color, and give students tools toward that end, we want some things which can be seen as objective and universally understood. There has to be a set of objective, grammatical rules, for using and combining colors that have been proven over time, are workable, and good rules of thumb to use when selecting colors for any design.
Here we can turn to some research history on color and universals about how people recognize color and satisfying color combinations. We can begin to know that there is an “Objective, Grammar of Color” by exploring some of the research on our reactions to color. Understanding how viewers react to color helps us make choices. Research shows us Universals – how everyone seems to be pre-wired to experience color and relationships between and among colors. We find that there are certain universally agreed upon ways that people decode color, its selection and its expressive use in art and jewelry. As teachers, we can think aloud and demonstrate for our students how to decode and become more fluent with design and color.
SOME TOOLS FROM ART THEORY
Many people are often skeptical that you can choose colors with any basis of rationality. Choosing colors is intuitive, subjective, personal. You can’t teach people to be better users of colors, because you’re either born with a sense of color, or you are not.
People seem to have cultural or social expectations about the meanings of some colors. When Vanderbilt students see gold, they associate it with school colors. When others see gold, they associate it with something else. The same goes for University of Tennessee Orange, and so forth school to school.
I remember when I was a kid, I worked in my father’s pharmacy. His pharmacy was in an old-world Italian community in central New Jersey. One of the things I did was manage the Hallmark cards section. I noticed that in the general cards, as well as the seasonal ones, we seemed to always be stuck with brown cards. These old-world Italians did not like brown. No brown. No way.
To save us from ending up with all brown cards in every general card slot, and in every seasonal card slot, I frantically called Hallmark. How can I bypass your system, so I can weed out brown cards? I asked. They told me how I could alter the computer codes. I did. And success. In about a year’s time, I had weeded out all the unsalable brown cards.
And I got rid of brown wherever it predominated, (and wherever I could) – no brown earring cards, no brown cosmetic packaging, no brown displays, no brown bags, no brown stationery or stationery ink. Again, big success.
But this doesn’t mean that all people, or even all Italians, have a distaste for brown.
If we are to be able to teach jewelry makers and beaders to be more scientific in their choices of colors, and be able to anticipate how their various audiences respond to colors, then we would need to have some objective rules, rules that refer universally to just about everyone. Rules that inform people what colors are best. What colors go together, which ones do not. Rules that show how to manipulate color and its expression in perfect and predictable ways. But everything seems so subjective.
About Purple
Purple has always been the color of royalty. This was probably because purple dyes were very expensive. One source was mollusk shells, and it took something like 10,000 crushed shells to produce enough purple dye to make a simple scarf.
The color purple is associated with spirituality, psychic powers, and healing.
I love the poem by Jenny Joseph called Warning, in which she writes, “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple, with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.” Later this line in the poem was used to expand on a collection of writings about growing older.
There are many famous purple stories in literature. There is the story of the two Japanese girls who went to Australia to see the purple kangaroos, only to be told that they were just two people, and that “two” people was not enough to warrant the opening of the zoo’s gates.
There is the little girl whose parents told her to go to the forest to wait for the purple wood. The girl is still waiting.
And there is the story of purple friends who look green. Too gory to go into the details.
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When people see colors on the vertical, they may respond very differently than when they see these same colors on the horizontal.
Look at flags of countries around the world. Many flag colors are red, white and blue. If you look at France’s flag, you have red/white/blue on the vertical.
French Flag
Russia’s flag has red/white/blue on the horizontal.
Russian Flag
Do French people turn their head to the side when viewing the Russian flag? Do French think Russians are gloomy and do not know how to have fun, because the rhythm on their flag, as suggested by the horizontal layout, is so much less energetic than the vertically organized colors on the French flag.
Or do Russians, because of the color layout on the flags, have a great deal of suspicion about the French, when they see their flag? Are the French too indecisive and too ready to change their minds?
You frequently find that people might like a color arrangement in a vertical organization, but feel very uncomfortable, or have much disdain for those same colors, when found in the horizontal.
The same might be said of objects. People often tend towards themes when buying jewelry, and collect jewelry which are all Native American, or all Wicca, or all Horses, or all Wolves, or all something. The Fish people are especially interesting. Some Fish people prefer to wear Dead Fish (hanging vertically), and others Live Fish (swimming horizontally).
Debby was a student of mine. She related to colors as if they were notes in a marching band’s score. Sharp cacophony! Sharp boundaries. No color shall begin before the next color ends. Each color’s note should be pure and clear. COLOR A, COLOR B, COLOR A, COLOR B, COLOR A, COLOR B, Left, Right, Left Right. Debby, in fact, goes ballistic over blurring, and shading, and tinting. Any color pattern that isn’t the One-Two variety, is very disconcerting. She doesn’t like it.
Again, the world and all its people seemed so preset to be biased in viewing colors, opinionated in understanding colors, and subjective in choosing colors. Is there no place for Art Theory, Science, and the Objective Way?
Color Research suggests that there is.
About Black
Some fashion experts say a woman wearing black implies submission to men. I’d don’t know about that. A lot of women wear black. Dracula wears black. Villains and bad cowboys and mobsters wear black. Priests and nuns wear black.
Wearing black with another color can enhance that color’s energy, just like wearing black can enhance your body’s energy. Black can convey an inner strength and control.
I like to use black a lot. I use it to create shadows, to frame things, to back up things, to create borders, to create a sense of negative spaces. Black is a great non-color color.
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Some Research History on Color
Color research over the past 100 years or so suggests that there are many universals in how people perceive, understand and respond to colors. My favorite book on this research is by Johannes Itten [2] called
The Elements of Color. The most important color universals for jewelry designers, I feel, include,
- After Images
- Simultaneity Effects
- Color Proportions
- Color Schemes
- Use of the Color Wheel
(1) After Images
The first research had to do with After Images. If you stare at a particular color long enough, and close your eyes, you’ll begin to see the color on the opposite side of the color wheel. So, if you stare at red, close your eyes, and you’ll see green.
I know you want to do this, so stare away:
Everyone seems to see after images and see the same after images. It seems that the eye/brain wants somehow to neutralize the energy in color to achieve some balance or 0.0 point. The brain always seeks a balanced energy in light and color. The human eye is only “satisfied” when the complementary color is established. [This is the basis underlying the various color schemes below.]
If red had an energy of 10 (I’m making up this scale), and the eye/brain then convinced your psyche to see green, then I would suppose that green would have an energy of -10. Hence, we reach a 0.0 point. Again, the brain wants balance, harmony, beauty, non-threatening situations. The brain does not want anxiety, feel, ugliness.
And we can continue to speculate that your eye/brain does Not want you the designer to overly clarify and intensify, should this result in a more resonant, perhaps edgy, composition. This takes you too far away from 0.0 energy, and starts to become threatening. It might excite you. It might revolt you. In either case you would react, feel, sense the power of color.
Your eye/brain does Not want you to push yourself and your jewelry to the edge with color. The eye/brain wants balance, harmony, monotony. Red and green can seem so much fun at Christmas time. But if you put your red and green necklace on a copy machine, and took a photocopy of it, it would all look like one color of black. Red and green will always copy as the same color black.
And that is how we perceive them. And cognate them. We see red and green as the same. As the same color black. And if we assign red a 10 score, and green a -10 score, the eye/brain is happy to end up with a 0.0 score. This combination can be boring and monotonous. If, in reality, something doesn’t balance off the color red, in this case, the brain will create its own after image to force that balance. The brain wants to feel safe. Everyone’s brain seems to operate similarly so that this aspect of perceiving color is universally employed.
How far the jewelry designer should fight this universal tendency is up for debate. However, when initially picking colors to combine in a piece, we might try to achieve this 0.0 balance score, and then, by clarifying and intensifying, deviate from it a little bit, but always with an eye on that 0.0 – what anyone’s eye/brain is driving it to do. We want the eye/brain to feel satisfied and “safe”, but as a designer, we also want to give the jewelry a punch, a wow, and edge. There are many color tricks and techniques that the designer can apply here.
(2) Simultaneity Effects
A second line of research dealt with Simultaneity Effects. Colors can be affected by other colors around them. Colors in the presence of other colors get perceived differently, depending on the color combination.
Simultaneity effects are a boon to the jewelry designer. They are great tools for such things as…
- Filling in the gaps of light between beads
- Assisting in the blending of colors or the sense of movement of colors along a line or plane
- Assisting in establishing dimensionality in a piece that otherwise would appear flat
- Harmonizing 2 or more colors which, on as a set, don’t quite match up on the color wheel
For example, a White Square on a Black background looks bigger than a Black Square on a white background. White reaches out and overflows the boundary; black contracts.
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