G R O W I N G   C O L O U R S

This project consisted on the feelings associated with colours, and the growth and decay of this feelings during a whole human life. The main idea was to portray using natural objects the emotional development of human beings through colours.


Before starting any sketches on how the work would look like, I researched in depth what emotions where associated to each colour and why.

C O L O U R   M E A N I N G 

  Red

Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.

Red is a very emotionally intense color. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure. It has very high visibility, which is why stop signs, stoplights, and fire equipment are usually painted red. In heraldry, red is used to indicate courage. It is a color found in many national flags.

Red brings text and images to the foreground. Use it as an accent color to stimulate people to make quick decisions; it is a perfect color for 'Buy Now' or 'Click Here' buttons on Internet banners and websites. In advertising, red is often used to evoke erotic feelings (red lips, red nails, red-light districts, 'Lady in Red', etc). Red is widely used to indicate danger (high voltage signs, traffic lights). This color is also commonly associated with energy, so you can use it when promoting energy drinks, games, cars, items related to sports and high physical activity.

Light red represents joy, sexuality, passion, sensitivity, and love.
Pink signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.
Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.
Brown suggests stability and denotes masculine qualities.
Reddish-brown is associated with harvest and fall.

  Orange

Orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.

To the human eye, orange is a very hot color, so it gives the sensation of heat. Nevertheless, orange is not as aggressive as red. Orange increases oxygen supply to the brain, produces an invigorating effect, and stimulates mental activity. It is highly accepted among young people. As a citrus color, orange is associated with healthy food and stimulates appetite. Orange is the color of fall and harvest. In heraldry, orange is symbolic of strength and endurance.

Orange has very high visibility, so you can use it to catch attention and highlight the most important elements of your design. Orange is very effective for promoting food products and toys.

Dark orange can mean deceit and distrust.
Red-orange corresponds to desire, sexual passion, pleasure, domination, aggression, and thirst for action.
Gold evokes the feeling of prestige. The meaning of gold is illumination, wisdom, and wealth. Gold often symbolizes high quality.

  Yellow

Yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.

Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy. Yellow is often associated with food. Bright, pure yellow is an attention getter, which is the reason taxicabs are painted this color. When overused, yellow may have a disturbing effect; it is known that babies cry more in yellow rooms. Yellow is seen before other colors when placed against black; this combination is often used to issue a warning. In heraldry, yellow indicates honor and loyalty. Later the meaning of yellow was connected with cowardice.

Use yellow to evoke pleasant, cheerful feelings. You can choose yellow to promote children's products and items related to leisure. Yellow is very effective for attracting attention, so use it to highlight the most important elements of your design. Men usually perceive yellow as a very lighthearted, 'childish' color, so it is not recommended to use yellow when selling prestigious, expensive products to men – nobody will buy a yellow business suit or a yellow Mercedes. Yellow is an unstable and spontaneous color, so avoid using yellow if you want to suggest stability and safety. Light yellow tends to disappear into white, so it usually needs a dark color to highlight it. Shades of yellow are visually unappealing because they loose cheerfulness and become dingy.

Dull (dingy) yellow represents caution, decay, sickness, and jealousy.
Light yellow is associated with intellect, freshness, and joy.

  Green

Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Dark green is also commonly associated with money.

Green has great healing power. It is the most restful color for the human eye; it can improve vision. Green suggests stability and endurance. Sometimes green denotes lack of experience; for example, a 'greenhorn' is a novice. In heraldry, green indicates growth and hope. Green, as opposed to red, means safety; it is the color of free passage in road traffic.

Use green to indicate safety when advertising drugs and medical products. Green is directly related to nature, so you can use it to promote 'green' products. Dull, darker green is commonly associated with money, the financial world, banking, and Wall Street.

Dark green is associated with ambition, greed, and jealousy.
Yellow-green can indicate sickness, cowardice, discord, and jealousy.
Aqua is associated with emotional healing and protection.
Olive green is the traditional color of peace.

  Blue

Blue is the color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.

Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect. Blue is strongly associated with tranquility and calmness. In heraldry, blue is used to symbolize piety and sincerity.

You can use blue to promote products and services related to cleanliness (water purification filters, cleaning liquids, vodka), air and sky (airlines, airports, air conditioners), water and sea (sea voyages, mineral water). As opposed to emotionally warm colors like red, orange, and yellow; blue is linked to consciousness and intellect. Use blue to suggest precision when promoting high-tech products.

Blue is a masculine color; according to studies, it is highly accepted among males. Dark blue is associated with depth, expertise, and stability; it is a preferred color for corporate America.

Avoid using blue when promoting food and cooking, because blue suppresses appetite. When used together with warm colors like yellow or red, blue can create high-impact, vibrant designs; for example, blue-yellow-red is a perfect color scheme for a superhero.

Light blue is associated with health, healing, tranquility, understanding, and softness.
Dark blue represents knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness.

  Purple

Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Purple is associated with royalty. It symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition. It conveys wealth and extravagance. Purple is associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic.

According to surveys, almost 75 percent of pre-adolescent children prefer purple to all other colors. Purple is a very rare color in nature; some people consider it to be artificial.

Light purple is a good choice for a feminine design. You can use bright purple when promoting children's products.

Light purple evokes romantic and nostalgic feelings.
Dark purple evokes gloom and sad feelings. It can cause frustration.

  White

White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity. It is considered to be the color of perfection.

White means safety, purity, and cleanliness. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. White can represent a successful beginning. In heraldry, white depicts faith and purity.

In advertising, white is associated with coolness and cleanliness because it's the color of snow. You can use white to suggest simplicity in high-tech products. White is an appropriate color for charitable organizations; angels are usually imagined wearing white clothes. White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and sterility, so you can use white to suggest safety when promoting medical products. White is often associated with low weight, low-fat food, and dairy products.

  Black

Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery.

Black is a mysterious color associated with fear and the unknown (black holes). It usually has a negative connotation (blacklist, black humor, 'black death'). Black denotes strength and authority; it is considered to be a very formal, elegant, and prestigious color (black tie, black Mercedes). In heraldry, black is the symbol of grief.

Black gives the feeling of perspective and depth, but a black background diminishes readability. A black suit or dress can make you look thinner. When designing for a gallery of art or photography, you can use a black or gray background to make the other colors stand out. Black contrasts well with bright colors. Combined with red or orange – other very powerful colors – black gives a very aggressive color scheme.

After encountering this explanations, I tested and asked my colleagues what several colours made them feel, or what emotions they related to each colour.

These where the results:

B l u e :  Sky, Ocean, Cold

B l  a c k : Warmth, Sadness, Peace, Tragic

G r e e n : New, Fresh, Evil, Tragic, Growth.

Y e l l o w : Light, Sun, Holiday

O r a n g e : Excitement, Heat, Prison

R e d : Anger, Love, Passion, Sex 

W h i t e : Pure, Cold Numb, No feelings, Plain

P u r p l e : Roya, Angry

P i n k : Girls, Flirty, Sexy, Childish, Sex

I had been able to comply primary research, as well as, secondary research which drove me to the conclusion that every human being had their own meanings and feelings related to a colour. There was no norm stating what they could feel when looking at the colour.

Y V E S   K L E I N 

I then started to sketch the first ideas on how the work could be represented. I decided I could use branches found in nature (natural objects) that could be related to human beings.

The sketches developed into the final idea of painting in blue 3 branches dividing life into 3 emotional phases that developed differently in each human being. I decided to stick these branches to an abstract painting that had different colours represented in different shapes, meaning that colours/feelings do not grow perfectly within us, but there is sometimes moments of emotional chaos and uncertainty. I had no restriction on what viewers could relate to the colour B L U E, but I wanted to expose this natural cycle of life and feelings.

F A K E   W O O D  V I N Y L

For this project each of us were given a pound shop object which we had to include in our process or idea.

I was given a fake wood vinyl (pack of three squares) size: 305x305x1 mm, coverage: 45sq. ft.

My strating point was the analysis of the object, what it was made of, and what it was used for. What I concluded from studying the vinyl, is that it is bought to cover broken tiles on the floor, or either wholes in the flooring of a house. The vinyl is used to hide imperfections on the floor, however, this does not mean it does this properly, aesthetically it dos not look right, the floor is unlevelled causing disturbances to the eye.





Further on, I started sketching some ideas on how I could use the object in my work, the first concept was to create a stump from the fake vinyl recreating the global situation with the decay of the planet. Would we have to create fake trees from vinyl in the future? would nature be turned into produced product by human beings?

During the research I came across a term I had very little knowledge on, C O N C E P T U A L I S M.
I then decided to study what it meant and the artists that created conceptual works. Conceptualists asserted that their art works were essentially ideas rather than items - material objects were no more than conduits for concepts. Conceptual art radically redefined the artwork. The objects presented by conceptualists were asserted in terms of how successfully they communicated ideas rather than by any aesthetic consideration.

                                           J O S E P H   B E U Y S

                                                                                                      J O S E P H   K O S U T H

                                                                                                     M A R C E L   B R O O A T H E R S

"Receivers rather than viewers"

Le Witt " The idea becomes the machine that makes the art", meaning that the ability en identity of the maker was less important than the concept.

Parting from the concepts of Conceptualism, I decided to challenge myself and create a work which integrated the main ideas of Conceptualism. At the beginning it was very hard, because the work was not meant to be aesthetically intriguing, but it had to express a concept, and idea.

Using the first idea's concept, which was to create something fake made out of the fake wood vinyls, I decided to use as a main inspiration Joseph Kosuth. His works consisted of many different works, meaning that there was not only one piece in the work of art, but three. This idea drove me to considerate a work created by more than one piece. I used the fake stump as an initial piece, which would be followed by two others questioning the environmental situation of the planet.

I wanted to add to the work, a real tree, however due to the circumstances, I had to restrain myself and take a picture of  tree in the city, which was followed by a half fake, half real stump created with the vinyl, and finally, I decided to use as a third piece of the work on of the vinyls, with no alterations.

The work questioned the processes we use in the human planet and critiqued the environmental situation. We are accustomed to create from a starting point from real to fake. However, I wanted to expose the question of what would happen in the future if we kept on behaving with nature the way we are doing. Would we have to create real from fake? Would we have to create "real trees" from fake?

I was very pleased with the final idea, of these three pieces placed in line, touching each other and exposing the problem. However, I was let down by the fact that I could not create the real work. Due to certain restrictions I had to photoshop and create an image of how the final work would look like. This was not as effective as the real work would have been, this is why, reflecting upon this project I set myself the goal to create a physical work of art in my next project that I could expose and get feedback on reactions by the viewers.

L O R C A ' S   P A V I L I O N


The initial requirement for this project was to create structures made from different materials, experimenting with processes of creation, and shapes, not thinking about the use or meaning.

The following task was to write down ideas on what the structures could be turned to as well as ideas and feelings they could evoke.

Sea

Wind

Deconstruction

Abandon

Caos

Nature against building

Tornado

Open pavilion

Open gallery

Walk in book

Statement

Literature

Weather

Caos vs Order

Water

Melancholy

Past, Present, Future

Nostalgia

Beauty

Perfection vs Imperfection

Philosophy

Mind

Cultures

Maze

Suffer

Pain

Tranquility

Peace

Confusion

Ode

Urbanism

Poetry

Forgiveness

Maturity

Landscapes

Home

Parting from these words, I created the main idea for the project. I would use one of my structure to create an Ode to Federico Garcia Lorca (Spanish poet) by building an open pavilion which would recreate an open poem about the sea he wrote. 

T H E   B A L L A D   O F   T H E   S E A 

Federico García Lorca

El mar sonríe a lo lejos. Dientes de espuma, labios de cielo. ¿Qué vendes, oh joven turbia con los senos al aire? Vendo, señor, el agua de los mares. ¿Qué llevas, oh negro joven, mezclado con tu sangre? Llevo, señor, el agua de los mares. Esas lágrimas salobres ¿de dónde vienen, madre? Lloro, señor, el agua de los mares. Corazón, y esta amargura seria, ¿de dónde nace? ¡Amarga mucho el agua de los mares! El mar sonríe a lo lejos. Dientes de espuma, labios de cielo.

The structure chosen was the following one, which I used as a base and rough idea on how the final pavilion would look like, and the words chosen where; Sea, Nature, Open pavilion, Literature, Poetry, Ode, Culture and Beauty.

From this point, I started sketching some ideas and researching in depth about the poet.

The pavilion would have the poem written on the inside walls, moreover, it would have a structure  metal as a roof resembling the waves that would make the viewers feel like in the sea while reading the poem, creating a deep feeling of empathy for the poet and the sea.

The location chosen comes from the relationship the Spanish poet had with the artist Salvador Dalí. Baring in mind that it was Dalí who encouraged Lorca to draw and illustrate his poems, their friendship lasted for year until the death of the poet. Therefore the location is to be set in Salvador Dalí's house in Cadaqués, which has been turned into a museum nowadays. Something I wanted to introduce into this project was the actual political situation in Spain, Catalunya (where Cadaqués is) wanting the independence dividing this county into two ideological and political sides. What I was looking for was a location that the Sevillian poet could be related to and at the same time create a feeling of what Spain is as a country.

The final outcome was  not personally satisfying, having researched deeply and created a strong idea, I was not able to create the final model/outcome I desired. The pavilion was the first project in the 3D pathway, and I struggled to adapt to the new process of creation, which had drastically changed form rotation weeks. Project where now set and executed within a week including research. Although I struggled to get it all done, if was the first attempt to create something from scratch, form a rough structure, so I was pleased with my idea generation.