Week #3

1. Describe Color and it's effects on emotions. Use the appropriate vocabulary of color in your posting.

• The effects of color on emotion is really interesting. In a world where globalization is so prevalent, it intrigues me that such different cultures with so few shared historic and social experiences can have some of the same association with color. Admittedly many emotional response are social and even individual, based on a person's experience, for example the Western practice of red for stop and green for go, or the traditional use of pink for girl and blue for boy. Other examples of individual response to color would be the personal experiences good or bad that a person has and can associate with color. These can be from childhood, maybe a bully always wore a green shirt or from adulthood, the colors of walls in a maternity room. Because of the huge variation of association that a color can have on a person, it is impossible for an artist to know how the color will be perceived. However, as  I mentioned earlier, there are some colors that have underlying universal associations because humans, no matter how different, have shared experiences around warm and cool colors just by living on planet earth. Warm is day, sun, light, yellow, red, and orange, and cool is night, water, dark, blue, purple, and green.

2. What is a theoretical aspect of color that most intrigues/fascinates you? Why?

• This might be a little specific for the question, but I would be re missed if I did not mention it. As a future dietitian the slide of blue spaghetti from the Art Studio interactive web site, was totally fascinating to me. Not because blue spaghetti is weird, but because I had no idea that the color blue could be associated with appetite suppression. The implications of that psychological and physiological response could have many applications in weight loss.  Interestingly, blue is also the color of the Weight Watchers Logo.

3. In the Color video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and it's effects on emotions?

• In the color video, something that I found profound was the understanding of why artist paint on white canvases. It never occurred to me that the physiology behind it, is that the white reflects light in the human eye making the colors bright. Additionally, I find it fascinating that colors inspire so much emotion regardless of the painting and the context they are used in. Lastly the way the artists painting seemed to take on her frustration, with the use of dark color.

4. In the Feelings video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and it's effects on emotions?

• In the feelings video it was striking how different I felt looking at the dark colored verses the light colored work. It was interesting to see the difference between the artist and their use of color, but it was more interesting to see the difference from in effect from the same artist in the paintings where he used light versus when he used dark color. I recognize that with the color change often the subject changed but I  wonder what the effect would be on the perception of a painting if the exact same subject was used one light one dark.  How much differently would people feel about the exact same piece?