Someone at Converse has been through 2d Fundamentals

I just saw these today and immediately thought of 2d fundamentals and color theory... Just sort of funny.

Color in 17th Century Popular Culture

As I was listening to some music today, I noticed something pretty interesting in the lyrics. I have a CD of English stage jigs- jigs were sort of like funny musical skits that followed major play performances in 16th and 17th century England. Shakespeare's plays certainly would have had them. In one of the jigs, titled "The Cheaters Cheated" from around the time of the English Civil War (1642-1651), two con-artists are trying to figure out how to distract a country bumpkin so they can rob him. One of them happens to have purchased a glass prism for that very purpose. Here are some selected lines about the prism and what it does...

Filch: Stay, prethee who comes here?
Nim: A gaping Country Clown.
Filch: Look how the slave doth stare;
Nim: He’s newly come to town
Filch: He gazeth in the air as if
The sky was full of rockets
Let’s fleece him.
Nim: But how shall we get
His hands out of his pockets?

Filch:Let me alone for that:
I lately bought a glass,
Wherein all several colours may
Be seen that ever was,
If held up thus with both hands.
Nim: A pretty new design,
This trick will fetch his fingers out—
Filch: And hey, then in go mine!

...

Filch: The rainbow never knew
Such colours as are here
Nim: Here’s purple, green and blew—
Wat: Zooks, what have they got there?
Good morrow Master, what d’ye cal’t?
Filch: Good morrow, good man Clot!
Wat: Nay vaith, vine gallant, there y’are out—
My neame is honest Wat.

Filch: I’le shew thee such a sight that
Thou ne’re saw’st, honest Wat,
Neither by day nor night yet.
Wat: Yvaith ch’ud laugh at that!
Filch: Here, take this glass into thy hand
And hold it to thy eyes,
Thou there shalt see more colours than
A dyer can devise.

Wat: I cannot zee a colour yet,
Nim: Thou dost not hold it high,
Wat: Che hav’t, che hav’t, che’ve got it now!
Nim: (steals Wat’s purse) I’faith, and so have I!
Wat: Here’s black and blew & gray & green,
And orange-tauny, white;
And now ich ave lost all again …
Filch: (steals Wat’s other purse) In troth y’are in the right!


So it's kind of nerdy, but I'm ok with that.

Color Journal #7- Extended Palette and Optical Blending

The low-intensity yellow threads build up to form a more saturated yellow.



From a distance, we assign a single color to describe the pumpkin stem. Up close, wee can see that it's made up varying oranges, greens, browns, and neutrals of different shades and hues.




The color on the right side of a tissue box is created up as the streaks and swirls of red build on top of each other



We tend to see grass as being a uniformly green expanse, but up close it is made up of a great many hues, tints, and shades of green, as well as other plants of varying chroma.



The layers of translucent cloth build up to form different variations of the same brown.



From a distance, this plant blends out so as to appear to be more of a neutralized green thanks to the low intensity red parts.

Color Journal #6

In line with some of the topics I discussed in my study into pre-Newtonian systems for ordering color, I wanted to analyze how bright colors could be in centuries past. To do this, I dug through photos I've taken (with a few from friends) at reenactments and living history events over the past year or two. All but one of the images are from close-ups of clothing based on/informed by extant garments, contemporary artwork, written sources, and more, and appeal to an aesthetic similar to what we are used to. Prominent use of primary colors butted up against each other in 18th century British uniforms and a blue coat with orange cuffs and collar might signal a late 17th century Bears fan. I'm fascinated by color and the way it has been appreciated and used throughout time. Why would anyone dress in drab colors when so many beautiful ones were and are available?

Texts From Last Night Meets Color Theory

(262): We're learning about the color wheel. Hello college. http://tfl.nu/yagx

A Nugget of Purest Green

A clip from the old BBC TV show Blackadder set in the 16th century. It stars Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean), Hugh Laurie (House, M.D.), Stephen Fry, Miranda Richardson, and several more well-known actors and actresses.

In this clip, Percy tries his hand at alchemy and creates "Green."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkZFuKHXa7w

Color All Around Us/Me

As I look around the living room and kitchen of my apartment, I can't help but wonder about why manufacturers choose the colors they do for their products.

We have two Lazy Boy armchairs; both are of different fabrics but both are a sort of disgusting shade of something unrecognizable. They are neither a neutral, nor a brown, nor a gray, nor a green. They must be the very color (and I'm generous in using that word)of some kind of sludge one might have found underneath a prehistoric rock. I'm no home decorator, but I can't imagine a place where such drab monsters would ever fit.

The couch too has this problem. It's certainly by a different manufacturer, but it is equally sickly-looking. A pale jaundice-yellow overlaid with almost neutral blue, the bastard child of brown and "maroon," and a khaki green-gray that even the army would refuse.

Who designs this stuff?