Color Punch

using color in design

Sometimes I want drink color. Or eat it. My eyes get stuck on patches of it and can't move on because color has grabbed my retina. When I was sixteen I started painting with oil on canvas using that citrus scented turpentine substitute. Although I worked to improve my brush strokes and shadowing, the truth is, I mostly sat in front of my work day after day to smell the chemical solvent and play with the tubes of color; mixing them, diluting them, or applying them in big thick swathes. I began to understand why some modern artists, eschewing the more traditional representational art made paintings with giant blocks of thick color. They wanted to cover themselves in the paint but settled for the canvas. They wanted to share their hunger for the glossy pigment.

I feel that way sometimes with design. Sometimes design is more about the color of a project than it is about the shape or cut. I see a trim in lime green and it makes me summer-thirsty and a design begins to evolve from the pool of acidic refreshing punch of green. Shapes begin to emerge after the initial hunger that the color evoked. A hunger for more of it. Trim an apron in it. Or perhaps curtains. Something you'll see often so your eyes will eventually become satiated with it. Though the truth is, they never really do. A good color will make you want it forever.

Not everyone understands the emotional nature of color. Many years ago I visited the Musee D'Orsay in Paris and they happened to have a showing of Theo Van Gogh's collection of art, including a lot of work by his brother Vincent. For the first time I saw Vincent Van Gogh's work in person: right in front of me I could take in the wonderful azure color of his painting "Almond Branches In Bloom" which is the only painting of his I truly love.

Right next to this colorful beautiful painting were some still-lifes of Vincent's done in ochres, muted greens, and dirty browns. The word that came to mind was "pish" which was my family's euphemism for baby poop. These studies in brown were of vases of flowers and arrangements of fruit, things I associate with opulent color. It struck me as such a crime to use all ochres and browns to describe them with. What was he thinking? What was he trying to do to me?! Jesus!! Why would someone make something so hideous?!!

I felt anger well up from my spleen. I was angry the way I feel when seeing photographs of sea birds covered with oil spill. Angry at senseless injustices.

Then I felt stupid for being so angry about color. It felt like a punch in the gut and I reacted on instinct. When I started examining how I felt and why it should be so offensive to me I thought that maybe Vincent used only those dull, spiritless, dark colors because he couldn't afford the prettier ones. Maybe he was making do with what he had. Who am I to judge him for it? Yet I did. In doing more reading, later, I found out that his early paintings were done in somber colors by choice.

This is why the colors you use in designing anything are so important. You could make the most wonderful dress in the world but if you neglect to employ the power of color to evoke an emotional response in people, your design may fall flat. This doesn't mean you have to use bright colors or "cheery" ones. It just means you need to understand what color will say for your design and use it to your advantage. Use color to say what you mean.

Nothing that is lime green is going to say "elegant", for example. Not even Christian Dior could make a garment in lime green that says "elegance". Finding the right color voice for a design means learning to see the subtle differences in shades, tints, and hues.

You don't have to take color theory classes to learn how to work with color, though it wouldn't hurt. Practice is good. Playing around with pigments on a canvas is a good way to see what happens when hues are mixed with other hues, versus what happens when you mix white or black with colors. You can see how different combinations make you feel when you look at them. You can test combinations out on friends and family to find out why they like certain color combinations and not others. Look around you, what colors make you happy? Calm? Depressed? Ask yourself what it is about the colors that evoke different responses.

The best advice I received while I owned my brick and mortar retail store was from Bethany of Bitter Betty Industries who was, for many years, a merchandising manager for Nordstrom. I was trying to figure out how to make better window displays and she said "Always start with your color story and work outwards from there." I followed her advice and like magic my window displays pulled together, started looking more professional.

I'm going to give that same advice to all of you and entreat you to apply it not just to your designs, but to your whole life.

Start with your color story first.

Color Theory

White is a sterile field in which my brain is stunned into cold suspension. In white it shivers and tries to remember what it was like when the sun shone in golden sheaves of light. It struggles to make something out of nothing like a drugged magician. White is empty depression in which all impulses to create and percolate thought is suppressed.

White is a noise like an insidious ringing in the ears blocking out the other more joyful noises in life. Sometimes I see the beauty of white like when it blinds you on a Mediterranean hillside reflecting the overbearing Greek sun. But there it is mixed with saturated blue doorways and windows. There it is doing battle with a hotter light.

I need color. I've missed it too. I've never had orange like this. In our first house we painted one of the walls in the kitchen a melon color. I miss being surrounded by colorful walls. I find it soothing and restful while at the very same time energizing and alive. The first coat is completely done and now I'm working on the second coat of paint (it needs it). When I walked in that studio this morning I wasn't walking into a 1970's brown nightmare, I walked into a glowing room with sunlight splashing the bright walls. I can't wait to get the flooring in and move into the room. It's wonderful!



*I realize that not everyone is going to appreciate an orange room as I do. I realize that orange can actually make some people kind of angry. Also, this picture makes the orange look truly bright orange when in reality it's a little softer than it appears here. But it really is orange. Think of orange Julius' in the summertime, that will take your mind off the fact that I just painted my creative lair ORANGE.

The Walking Pocket

(and more insecure talk from the Dustpan Alley)

I can't tell you about this project because it might need to be secret. I realize how lame it is to not actually know if something you're working on needs to be secret or not. Either it does or it doesn't. The great thing about being so clueless is that it gives me the chance to be mysterious, which is very hard for full disclosure gals like me to achieve.

This pocket has walked away. The main question in your mind, I'm sure, is "why would a pocket walk away?" and while that is certainly a great question, the one I keep asking myself is "how?". It was right there one moment, looking bright with potential, then when there were no more customers to chat with, I turned around to work on this project and the pocket was gone. I searched the entire store. There are only so many places a pocket can hide, and I checked them all.

Now that the store is closing I must turn my mind to figuring out how on earth I will arrange my "studio" in our house. The "studio" is a very small bedroom with dark wood '70's paneling covering every wall surface, a built in desk in dark wood (possibly veneer, suddenly I can't remember), and gross oatmeal colored carpet. I can tell your mind is racing to figure out how you too can have such a wonderfully inspiring studio space.

As you all know, I've gotten used to the spacious area I currently refer to as the studio in the back part of the store. So if any of you were envious, now is your time to feel the glee. Bitter Betty works in a small space and so do many other genius crafters and artisans. A big space is not necessary. But a space with adequate light, an inspiring atmosphere, and good organization are very important. I didn't do any decorating the last time I had my base of operations in that little back bedroom.

I'm going to get all Martha on my ass.

That could sound really dirty if you weren't a non-lesbian prude like I am.

I will take lots of before pictures, during pictures, and just when I get as insufferable as a new parent with four rolls of film of the baby's first day of life, I will then bombard anyone who's left standing with a million after pictures.

I was thinking of doing the room in turquoise and red which are my store colors. However, it occurs to me that if Alicia Paulson were ever to see my studio, she would assume that I worship her and copied her. She's all over the turquoise and red combo. But if I do a robin's egg blue with pale serene green, I could never invite Martha Stewart over to my house because she would cease to respect me for stealing her signature color story and then she wouldn't get to discover what an excellent cook I am. (I would need to hide photographic evidence of the garden potage soup which turned out a khaki color, not the prettiest version of itself). So then I was thinking about doing a kind of spring green, orange, and pink color story. But I'll be damned if it doesn't make me think of Heather Baily.

So I'm going to go over to her studio right now to see what colors she's got going on there. Care to join me? Oh crap. I should not have done that. I really shouldn't have. What I really need is to see another designer who looks like a movie star, has patents pending, and is photographed in magazines and knows famous people.

My grandiose bubble is popped for the day.

How old are Heather and Alicia anyway? Is it too late for me to get thin, fresh*, and become a design genius? (I did have a great idea last night that I'm not going to share here because it was so exciting I want to savor it and feel as though I have patent pending too. Though it isn't actually something I could patent. But obviously I'm already a design genius, it's just that no one influential knows it yet.)

You know what I have going for me that none of those wonderful ladies has going for them? I'm funny. Totally funny. Except for when I'm talking about child suicide, cutting, depression, anxiety, death, necessary medication, being fat, self loathing, or my childish insecurities. Other than that, I'm hilarious.

Ah, hopefully I will be going to a craft fair today in Portland. I'm kind of excited about it. I might get to go with my friend Lisa E. Now that I don't have the store I might be able to do a couple of craft fairs with Lisa in addition to all the canning and farm fun we generally have. How cool would that be? (The answer is: totally cool!) Lisa doesn't know this, but I feel super lucky to be such good friends with her (actually, she may already know that). She's an exceptional knitter, a total cool babe, and yes-she has some of the best teeth I have ever seen. I will certainly report on the fair later if I end up getting to go.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!


On a happy note, my guys came in to the shop yesterday and apologized for their crazed meanness yesterday morning. I also apologized for having carelessly removed their memory card (which was found in the lawn later, in tact) and promised to learn how to reset the screen so we don't run into this problem again. Philip also bought one of the remote controls that Capello mentioned and so all is smoothed over. Except for the part where I start looking for a child psychologist. I ordered a book that Violet Crumble recommended that may help too.




*Did you see Heather's dewy skin? Shit, you almost can't look at people that pretty.