Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Throughout all 3 phases, I’ve learned to look at colors in greater depths I never knew were possible to reach. Like any muscle, the eye can be trained as well. I’m glad I have learned this skill and will continue to develop it into various layers that will open doors for my creativity and bring great success when I’m out in the graphic design world. Thank you professor!

Article:

                        Through my reading I have found Josef Albers to be a man of wonder and mystery with profound understanding and an ever-lasting fascination towards color.

• Albers not only made numerous contributions to graphic design but gave the world perspective on how to view colors in depth.

• According to a piece written on brain pickings , Alber’s book, Interaction of Color  provides “illuminating visual exercises and mind-bending optical illusions and remains an indispensable blueprint to the art of seeing.” 

• What I found really fascinating was the fact that Albers didn’t have much interest in giving his students the rules of color, but rather provide them with tools to see colors with vision they never knew they had.

• I found a couple of quotes from Albers, that I deeply resonated with which allowed me to connect with him on another level. 

• “Easy to know that diamonds are precious. Good to learn that rubies have depth, but more to see that pebbles are miraculous.”  

• “A thing is never seen as it really is.“

                             Both quotes hold truths regarding the capability of our vision and how Albers used his to the greatest of his ability, especially when dealing with color.

Video :

                             In the video, Anoka Faruqee gives an excellent presentation on color interaction. She proceeds to comparing a myriad of colors, ultimately deceiving her audience (and myself included).

• At one point, there were two boxes of the same shade of pink (or so I thought), that are both surrounded with different colored backgrounds.

• The removal of each background diminished the illusion, revealing that while one box was indeed pink, the other was actually blue.
  

• Later in the video, Faruqee mentions Alber’s teachings of optical color mixture, explaining that when bits of color are small enough and closer together our eyes will optically mix the two (or more) colors.

• In this instance there were two brick walls made of the same shade of red but the black mortar made the red seem darker while the white mortar on the opposing wall makes the overall picture seem lighter.
• I also learned that color can change in accordance to lighting conditions, i.e., low light which rids a painting of contrast while harsh lighting highlights it. 

• Other painters before Alber’s time were mentioned for their use of color interaction in their works as well. One painter, Edward Degas defined painting with the following quote:

•              “Painting is the ability to surround a Venetian red so it looks like a Vermilion“.

During this project, i’ve truly understood the logic of color and how they interact with each other when standing next to one another. Phase 2 was the phase that helped learn the most in this topic, i’ve always come across those optical illusions where the relativity of color is shown. And now that I got to experience how to make one of those, it helped me learn a lot about color.

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/spevackcomd1100fa2017/2017/12/16/color-interaction-pairings-phase-1-5/

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/spevackcomd1100fa2017/2017/12/07/color-interaction-pairings-phase-2-3/

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/spevackcomd1100fa2017/2017/12/14/color-interaction-pairings-phase-3-5/