{"id":3814,"date":"2015-04-03T18:14:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T22:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dsavannah.com\/blog\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2015-04-03T18:14:34","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T22:14:34","slug":"2015-c-is-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dsavannah.com\/blog\/index.php\/2015-c-is-for\/","title":{"rendered":"C is for…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…Color<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\"C\"I know y’all have been waiting breathlessly all day for my next installment in this here #AtoZChallenge2015. Unfortunately, last night I couldn’t sleep because of extra pain due to extra physical activity yesterday (darn insomnia! darn fibromyalgia!) and so my brain is in a big fog today. I even tried napping, and that didn’t help… and neither did a long hot shower or a cold iced tea… But I shan’t let the fog beat me, so here I write. I hope you’ll forgive me if it’s not the best post I’ve ever written.<\/p>\n

My faithful friend Brandi<\/a> gave me some ideas for this post: “Clean. Contrite. Curly. Cross-eyes. Couches. Crimson. Clumsy. Colors. Church. Cumberpatch. Canada. Clarity. Cousins. Cold. Climbing. Crystals. Clothes.” Which are all great, but I settled on c<\/span>o<\/span>l<\/span>o<\/span>r<\/span><\/strong> because… well…<\/p>\n

I’m a big fan of color.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"One<\/a>

One of my “Cat-a-tude” paintings. This was for the Arts Center of the Ozarks<\/a> 2008 5×5 show<\/a>. (PS click the image if you want to see it bigger.) (PPS I also love texture, if you can’t tell.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Anyone who has ever been in my house, or looked at my paintings<\/a> or photographs<\/a>, or seen how I dress and my jewelry<\/a> (boy, do I luurrrve accessories!) will know this about me.<\/p>\n

When I was teaching graphic design, I loved doing the lessons on color. I especially loved saying “Do you know what ‘PMS’ means…”, then pausing dramatically while my students stared at me, then saying “…as it relates to color?” And they’d laugh. And they’d have no idea. So I’d tell them, as I’m telling you now.<\/p>\n

PMS stands for Pantone Matching System<\/a>, which is a way for companies to pick a specific color and have it be consistent across all platforms.\u00a0 For instance, my logo up there is PMS 513, not just a random purple-ish-blue-ish color.\u00a0 You probably don’t realize it, but the company Pantone is involved in looking at colors from Fashion Week<\/a> to help designers know what’s “in” and pick color trends<\/a> for interior designers.<\/p>\n

They also choose the Color of the Year (for 2015, it’s “Marsala<\/a>“, PMS 18-1438… just go look at the website to figure it out!) and they even have a Color of the Day (today it’s “Cherry Tomato<\/a>“, PMS 17-1563).<\/p>\n

A number of years ago, I bought a series of the Pantone Books, which have chips kinda like from a paint store. I got it off ebay for $35, and thought I had won the lottery. (Yeah, they were old. But they still work!)<\/p>\n

Adobe, the makers of software such as InDesign (for print design) and Dreamweaver (for web design) and a number of other programs, has an online tool called Adobe Color<\/a>.\u00a0 It gives you a color wheel to play around with to see what colors look good together, like in the first picture.<\/p>\n

You can even upload your own image, like I’ve done with this shot of my dog, Maggie, and see what colors look good with it! (Click these images to see them larger, too.)<\/p>\n