Reinventing the (Color) Wheel

I did my version of a color wheel based on a pinwheel! (and also to make it easier for me to put it together) Quite proud of my work, despite starting out too ambitious (24 colors even though we were only requested to do 12).

The color theorist and model I selected for my presentation this week was Faber Birren. The guy was responsible for the red you see in stop signs, the yellow you run over (in humps and yields), and the orange in the cones you steal off the highways (and in danger signs). Who knew that a guy who studies color would have the Army and the Navy for its clients? Very impressive.

You know, he started out looking to emulate his father in becoming a landscape painter himself? He soon realized that his expertise in that regard fell short. It's comforting to know that sometimes the things you're not good at actually lead you to be the best person you can be somewhere else.

I love his triangles. I love that he made it easy to understand how we can expand color from the basic ones you find in your Crayola box of 8, to the mega-Crayola bleacher type of box (you know that kind? I always wanted one of those when I was a kid but never really got it)! It's all about the tints, tones and shades, baby. And I'm not talking about the tints in one's car that makes two people get away with something. Or the shades cool people wear in clubs at night. I'm talking pure hue + white = tint. Pure hue + black = shade. Pure hue + mixture of black and white = tone.

My analogy for describing his color model is a billiard table. The circles are the balls, and you know they have to set it up within a triangular thing before you start hitting the ball with the stick... Anyway, before I go too pool-talk-savvy (not really), the main thing is to realize that colors are harmonious when they follow the connections of the straight lines that Birren made, which is just like when you strike a ball and you make an imaginary line from that to the ball you really want to put in the hole. I'll stop before I hurt the ears of someone who knows billiard talk.