Color Theory

My latest experiment has been with photography; in taking images and pixelating them until you get large blocks of color. 

I started doing this to try and deduce the color spectrum of each picture; to use each block as a swatch of color. My thinking was that by making bigger pixels, you forced the image to generalize the colors, and create interesting harmonies.

After some experimenting; I started to apply these color harmonies to simple graphics I made to see what came of it. This is in a sense my own variation of websites like ColourLovers, and Kuler; it's basically a way of seeing colors that exist in your photographs. I started to take these colors and apply them to a see if I could arrange interesting harmonies:

1. Orange and Purple Canyons

  2. Beige Skyline

3. Glowing Sunset 

4. Beach Blues

What I found is that these colors do create a nice harmony. Generally speaking; I have found that landscapes work best for this technique. They provide gradients that are naturally occurring, and have a certain visceral appeal. 

But why; why do these colors work?

 From a scientific standpoint, my theory is that landscape photographs allow colors to 'blend' in the atmosphere. Another possible theory is that these harmonies work not because of scientific analysis of the color spectrum,  but because of an aesthetic 'preconditioning'. Our brains may be hardwired to understand these arrangements as harmonious; as the landscape color palettes have been the background of our lives, and our ancestors lives.

To understand more, I used a color spectrum tool to see where these colors sit on a color wheel, and see if there was any logic I could deduce:

 1. Orange and Purple Canyons:
Whats interesting about this color spectrum is that originally I had thought that they were going to be a complimentary color set (as suggested from my title for the picture). Instead, they were a sort of broad spectrum analogous. When you see the colors I ended up using in the composition (to the right) one might think that these colors were chosen at random. It is not until you see the full pictures palette (to the left) that you see that these are in some way colors that are associated.

2. Beige Skyline:  

The general trend is that these colors fit in one quadrant of the color wheel, making them analogous colors. 

3. Glowing Sunset-

Initially I thought I had made an error, that there were 2 'outliers' to the analogous colors spectrum, but when I did a mapping of the whole picture I found that there were 2 distinct groups of color; and indeed one outlier (it was a grey i used for a small detail, accidentally brought over from the previous comp)

4. Beach Blues-

Again, the initial color selection did not fully demonstrate what was happening. After seeing the whole color spectrum of the original picture (right) you can see that the colors selected make a general line of complimentary colors, varying from muted tones to more saturated. 

In conclusion:

My color spectrum test has shown that colors of a relative spectrum in Analogous and complimentary colors provide a good basis for a color palette, but more interestingly that these colors lie on a line of saturated to desaturated tones. While I can not scientifically conclude my theory of colors feeling right based on our preconditioned experience seeing them, I do feel that this does have some basis. 

I have enjoyed this little experiment of mine, and I will continue to do color comps to see what else I find. In the meantime, here are some other thoughts on applications for this project beyond color comps:

Backdrop- I have put these as my desktop, cycling through the images is soothing. They aren't busy enough to distract you, but they do have a certain visceral appeal. The arrangements allow us to 'fill in the blank' a little, the way a book makes you imagine what is there in your minds eye. I could see these being used on a larger scale, say as an advertisement; or as a mood setting element in a public space (I like the idea of wrapping  public transport vehicles in them, or a tube station in London.