The moment I realized I've been pairing blues with warms all wrong for 5 years

Saw a sunset pic with a muted orange sky reflected on a teal lake and it finally clicked that my palettes needed actual real world contrast not just what looked good on a swatch card, has anyone else had that kind of random visual wake up call from just going outside?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace9264d ago

Oh, was it something about the way the light actually hits water that changed everything for you? I had the same kind of moment when I saw how a gray winter sky made the red barn in my neighbor's field look almost neon - it totally rewired how I think about muted backgrounds with bright pops of color.

fiona_lewis374d ago

But isn't it more about the feeling than the actual colors though? Like that red barn is still just red at the end of the day, right? I think the reason it looks neon is because our brains fill in the missing warmth from the gray sky... the red is just standing in for the comfort we're missing. When I see that kind of thing, I don't think it rewires my view of colors so much as it reminds me how much our mood changes what we see. The light hitting water thing too... it's not really about the physics of it, it's about how the moment feels. I guess I just see it all more as a trick of the brain than a real change in how colors work.