PicsArt Monthly April Issue 2014 | Page 8

COLOR By Lou Jones Paraphrasing, someone once wrote, “There are seven seas, seven deadly sins, seven chakras, seven days of the week, Seven Wonders of the World…and then there are seven colors.” Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet... I like red. Always have. But everything I know about color I learned from that box of crayons I was given as a kid. The sum total is what was written on the Crayola paper wrapper: green, violet, and burnt sienna. Unfortunately that is all most of us know about the subject. People take color for granted. What exactly is color? Newton, Einstein, Rembrandt and Freud, frequencies, particles, pigments and foibles, each has a different answer to that question. BLUE Originally the color pigment was manufactured from indigo and woad. One of the most popular colors for many people. Most preferred by men. It is attributed with feelings of calm or serenity. One of the most prevalent in nature because of the sky and the seas. Cold. Colors can be combined to complement or cancel each other. But in practical terms, none of the science matters. We do not need to know its speed or wavelength or theory to make it work. 8| PicsArt Monthly