Color Theory Last Project: Due Finals Week (same meeting time as our regular class)

A Folio or Series of Paintings On The Social History and Symbolism Of A Single Chosen Color

Colors to choose from: red, blue, pink, purple, yellow, orange, brown, white or black.

Requirements: THREE of the four composed pages or canvases. They can be collage, mixed media,

digital (video or still) or paintings. A printed bibliography with at least four sources.

*THIS BIBLIOGRAPY MUST INCLUDE ONE SOURCE THAT IS AN E-BOOK OR REGULAR BOOK. LIBRARIANS ARE LONELY; VISIT THEM. I will give you ½ GRADE BUMP IF YOU INCLUDE A VERIFIABLE PHOTO OF YOURSELF WITH A CCBC LIBRARIAN OR PRINTED EVIDENCE OF A LIBRARY SEARCH. Bring your materials to class next week. We will be working on this project in class

Your first step is to do some research on your chosen color. Then comes the creative part – choosing three of the following four pages/paintings

1. The first page/painting: history of pigments and historical sources for the chosen color. You can illustrate, paint, overlay, or collage images related to research into the artistic pigments. This includes: sources and historical facts about the acquisition of these color sources. Strange trivia about trade wars, supply and demand, and the poisonous effects of some materials can provide interesting subject matter. Experiment with various compositions before you commit to a final ordering of images. All images should relate to the history of the materials. I am not looking for a high schoolesque information board, but a work of art, in which you compose an exciting composition (overlap, pattern) generated by your research.

Places to begin:For Page/Painting #1 (materials /social history of their acquisition and use):http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/colors.html

2. Second page/painting: “symbolic messages.” This page can address cultural or historical symbolic understandings of your color. Juxtapose two differing cultural symbolic interpretations of your color OR juxtapose two differing historical associations of your color from the same culture. Green as fertility and green as the devil in western painting would be an example of two different historical associations within the same culture.. Take into account each different culture’s preference for mixtures, tints, shades, and tones of your color.

3. Third page: gender, race, age, status, and/or class. Color is often tied to social division. How does your color relate to one or more of these divisions? Do some research!! Was your color only to be worn by some people (in a certain culture or period)? Did/does it differentiate the sexes? Is it sometimes seen as limited to an age? Is it a color of liberation for a group? Color can also be used to signal royalty or undesirables, prisoners and outcasts. Can a color be “re-claimed?” (Black, pink). See what you can communicate about the divisive or exclusive side of color.

4. Fourth Page – Psychology, spirituality, mood. I want you to choose some shades/tones/tints of your chosen color and really slip into the mood, be it a “Purple Haze” ,“Mood Indigo” or “Drunk Tank Pink.” This composition should envelope us, for better or worse. It is the crescendo of the series.

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/past/exhibit/4819

5. Printed bibliography to accompany paintings or folio pages.

6. Extra Credit Bump: Photo of yourself with a CCBC librarian and printed search results.

More help getting started, some good websites:For Page/Painting #2:http://www.tangible-development.com/wp-content/uploads/COLORChart.pdfHinduism: http://www.wou.edu/provost/library/exhibits/exhibits2004-05/color/Images/hinduism.pdfhttp://suite101.com/article/meaning-of-yellow-pink-teeshirts-in-thailand-a74775#.UWzI0rQrefchttp://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/Chinese_Customs/colours.htmCatholic Colors: http://www.catholictradition.org/Saints/signs6.htm

Help for specific colors:Red: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7366503http://www.gamblincolors.com/artists.grade.oils/reds/index.html

Green: http://www.textilemuseum.org/green/Works to look at: Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride by Jan Van Eyck The Last Judgment fresco, Cathedral at Orvieto by Luca Signorelli

Blue: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/science/blue-through-the-centuries-sacred-and-sought-after.html?_r=0

Yellow: http://www.inspectorinsight.com/semiotics/the-meaning-of-yellow-the-colour-of-the-golden-sun/

Purple: http://www.colormatters.com/purple, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkO9qo46BSM

Pink http://www.colormatters.com/pinkhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7120561.stmhttp://www.colormatters.com/color-and-the-body/drunk-tank-pink

Brown http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/color-brown.html

Black: http://www.artnews.com/2011/11/24/the-color-that-wasn’t-a-color/

White http://modernartasia.com/shionoiri-yoshihiro-suda-2/