Article: Spring Color Theory
Spring Color Theory
For this spring my mother and I looked to the art of Joseph Albers and our background in color study for inspiration. Albers was a famous abstract painter, teacher, color theorist, best known for his iconic color square painting series called the Homage to the Square. These works along with his writings are considered critical contributions to the evolution of color theory. Albers used color to show optical phenomenon through color juxtapositions.
My mother and I both took various color theory classes during our art education where Albers played an important part. We learned through him and other artists how to analyze color and color relationships. We would ask questions like, “Do these colors vibrate? Do these colors harmonize? Is this a high value contrast?” I know super meta…. However, it got us looking at color in a new light or new hue...
For this season of Lovard, we used methods inspired by Joseph Albers to draw out new and interesting neutrals using only “in-between colors” that challenge the eye to decide where it lands. We didn’t do conventional coral, we did a blended-out version of salmon which we created by blending out our base color of curry.
Each color in the new collection was found this way. We challenged ourselves each time to find new harmonies and ask those same age-old questions. Are we vibrating? Contrasting, or harmonizing? You decide.
During this time of WFH- if you would like to test your color theory skills there is an awesome app called Same Same or Different. It uses tests similar to those that my mother and I had to do back in the day. Give it a try!
