Do you choose colours according to your mood?
Do colours affect your mood?
Here's a little primer on colour and why it plays such a large role in our lives.
Here is a colour wheel which is an organization of colour hues around a circle, showing relationships between colours considered to be primary colours, secondary colours, complementary colours, etc...
Primary colours are red, yellow and blue.
Secondary colours are achieved by mixing the primary colours. These colours are green (mixing blue and yellow), purple (mixing red and and blue) and orange (mixing red and yellow).
Tertiary colours are the result of blending primary and secondary colours, for example ~ red-orange, orange-yellow, yellow-green, green-blue, blue-violet, violet-red.
Analogous colours are a palette of compatible colour combinations that blend well together. They are neighbors on the colour wheel. They tend to live harmoniously because they are relatives to each other.
These colours are less vivid, bright and saturated. They have less contrast and vibrational energy then complementary colours. Think of purple, blue, and, magenta colours in a twilight sky or the yellows, golds, and oranges in an Arizona desert. A pine forest has light greens to blues and purples within its depths.
Complementary colours are colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel. They contrast, enhance and intensify each other. An example of complementary colours would be red and green.
Monochromatic colours are all the hues (tints and shades) of a single colour. As a result, the energy is more subtle and peaceful due to a lack of colour contrast.
Triadic colours are high-energy colours that are found by choosing three colours that are separated by 120 degrees on the colour wheel. The primary (red, blue, and yellow) and secondary (purple, orange, green) colours are examples of triadic colours.
Colour, without our realizing it, can have a profound effect on how we feel both mentally and physically. Dr. Morton Walker, in his book The Power of Color, suggested that the ancient Egyptians as well as the Native American Indians used colour and coloured light to heal.
Blue can "slow the pulse rate, lower body temperature, and reduce appetite.
Green soothes, calms, and has great healing powers. It is often worn in operating rooms by surgeons.
Orange symbolizes balance, warmth, enthusiasm, vibrancy, flamboyancy, and is demanding of attention.
Purple represents royalty, spirituality, nobility, ceremony, mystery, transformation, wisdom, enlightenment, cruelty, arrogance, mourning. Purple is considered an exotic colour.
Red is associated with love, valentines, danger, desire, speed, strength, violence, anger and can evoke a fight-or-flight response, raise blood pressure and make the heart beat faster.
Yellow represents joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, gold, philosophy, dishonesty, cowardice, betrayal, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard, spirituality and inspiration.
Did you know that colour is light and energy and the fact that it has a physical effect on us has been proven in experiments? When blind people were asked to identify colours with their fingertips they were all able to do so easily. The shorter the wavelength, the stronger the underlying physical effect.
Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated that light travels in waves, when he shone white light through a triangular prism and, when the different wavelengths of light refracted at different angles, he was able to demonstrate that the colours of the rainbow (the spectrum) are the component parts of light.
So now that we've completed our lesson on colour theory, let's get back to my original question ~ is your mood affected by colour?
Most definitely .... When yellow daffodils, bluebells and colourful crocuses appear, we immediately begin to feel livelier, all symptoms of SAD seem to disappear ~ when grey skies and rain or snow surround us we instinctively draw in and tend to hibernate.
We choose colours to surround ourselves with according to our mood. We wear colours choosen according to our personality type.
For example ~ a very confident person will wear many, varied bright colours. A person with a lower self confidence may choose darker colours in an effort to blend into the background and not draw attention to themselves.
From my own experience I find that I am uplifted when I choose to wear brighter colours like yellow, orange, coral and turquoise. After enjoying cashmere's, denim and wool in shades of grey, brown, navy and black through the winter my spirit is uplifted as I anticipate the arrival of the warmer weather when I enjoy all the colours of the rainbow making me feel as glorious as my garden in bloom.
This morning the sky was many shades of lavenders, reds, corals and pinks set in a beautiful silvery blue morning sky. A few wispy clouds were sprinkled here and there across the sky.
"Red sky in morning ~ sailors warning .... red sky at night ~ sailors delight."
This gorgeous sky I was treated to this morning is, according to the old adage, my warning that bad weather is on the way.
Hope it holds out until tonight, Don is planning on barbecuing steaks for my thirty-twenty fifth.
Here is a colour wheel which is an organization of colour hues around a circle, showing relationships between colours considered to be primary colours, secondary colours, complementary colours, etc...
Primary colours are red, yellow and blue.
Secondary colours are achieved by mixing the primary colours. These colours are green (mixing blue and yellow), purple (mixing red and and blue) and orange (mixing red and yellow).
Tertiary colours are the result of blending primary and secondary colours, for example ~ red-orange, orange-yellow, yellow-green, green-blue, blue-violet, violet-red.
Analogous colours are a palette of compatible colour combinations that blend well together. They are neighbors on the colour wheel. They tend to live harmoniously because they are relatives to each other.
These colours are less vivid, bright and saturated. They have less contrast and vibrational energy then complementary colours. Think of purple, blue, and, magenta colours in a twilight sky or the yellows, golds, and oranges in an Arizona desert. A pine forest has light greens to blues and purples within its depths.
Complementary colours are colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel. They contrast, enhance and intensify each other. An example of complementary colours would be red and green.
Monochromatic colours are all the hues (tints and shades) of a single colour. As a result, the energy is more subtle and peaceful due to a lack of colour contrast.
Triadic colours are high-energy colours that are found by choosing three colours that are separated by 120 degrees on the colour wheel. The primary (red, blue, and yellow) and secondary (purple, orange, green) colours are examples of triadic colours.
Colour, without our realizing it, can have a profound effect on how we feel both mentally and physically. Dr. Morton Walker, in his book The Power of Color, suggested that the ancient Egyptians as well as the Native American Indians used colour and coloured light to heal.
Blue can "slow the pulse rate, lower body temperature, and reduce appetite.
Green soothes, calms, and has great healing powers. It is often worn in operating rooms by surgeons.
Orange symbolizes balance, warmth, enthusiasm, vibrancy, flamboyancy, and is demanding of attention.
Purple represents royalty, spirituality, nobility, ceremony, mystery, transformation, wisdom, enlightenment, cruelty, arrogance, mourning. Purple is considered an exotic colour.
Red is associated with love, valentines, danger, desire, speed, strength, violence, anger and can evoke a fight-or-flight response, raise blood pressure and make the heart beat faster.
Yellow represents joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, gold, philosophy, dishonesty, cowardice, betrayal, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard, spirituality and inspiration.
Did you know that colour is light and energy and the fact that it has a physical effect on us has been proven in experiments? When blind people were asked to identify colours with their fingertips they were all able to do so easily. The shorter the wavelength, the stronger the underlying physical effect.
Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated that light travels in waves, when he shone white light through a triangular prism and, when the different wavelengths of light refracted at different angles, he was able to demonstrate that the colours of the rainbow (the spectrum) are the component parts of light.
So now that we've completed our lesson on colour theory, let's get back to my original question ~ is your mood affected by colour?
Most definitely .... When yellow daffodils, bluebells and colourful crocuses appear, we immediately begin to feel livelier, all symptoms of SAD seem to disappear ~ when grey skies and rain or snow surround us we instinctively draw in and tend to hibernate.
We choose colours to surround ourselves with according to our mood. We wear colours choosen according to our personality type.
For example ~ a very confident person will wear many, varied bright colours. A person with a lower self confidence may choose darker colours in an effort to blend into the background and not draw attention to themselves.
From my own experience I find that I am uplifted when I choose to wear brighter colours like yellow, orange, coral and turquoise. After enjoying cashmere's, denim and wool in shades of grey, brown, navy and black through the winter my spirit is uplifted as I anticipate the arrival of the warmer weather when I enjoy all the colours of the rainbow making me feel as glorious as my garden in bloom.
This morning the sky was many shades of lavenders, reds, corals and pinks set in a beautiful silvery blue morning sky. A few wispy clouds were sprinkled here and there across the sky.
"Red sky in morning ~ sailors warning .... red sky at night ~ sailors delight."
This gorgeous sky I was treated to this morning is, according to the old adage, my warning that bad weather is on the way.
Hope it holds out until tonight, Don is planning on barbecuing steaks for my thirty-twenty fifth.
5 comments:
Lovely post and very interesting about the different colors.
I've already commented on Sebrina's post but I will say it here - Happy Birthday to you my dear. For some reason I thought it was tomorrow :-)Good thing Sebrina posted about it.
Do we have to do the math - thirty+twenty_fifth :-) or it's that you forgot if you're thirty or twenty-five... you're the best-est !!!!!
Happy Birthday, Barb!
haze - your daughter's blog friend.
"Red sky in morning ~ sailors warning .... red sky at night ~ sailors delight." I saw the sky this morning and I was trying to remember that saying.. weird :-)
Happy Birthday!!!
so interesting about the colours. i have been looking more closely at colours too for the past few years especially in regards to healing with colour.
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