The Movement of Color
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A swarm of brights blurred by a peloton of bike racers, the gradual fade to white in the center of an orchid, mercurial shiftings on the skin of a soap bubble. All around us color constantly fluctuates, hops, writhes, glows, blanches, shimmies, swarms, blazes, hovers.
Color is frequency, it resonates. So even a single solid color in the corner all by itself moves. Can you sense how yellow moves? Its movement is entirely different from that of blue. Sit quietly with patches of solid color and you'll begin to feel their movement.
All color combinations involve movement. Pared down to its essence, color harmony is all about movement. When you become intimate with the language of movement, you open up a whole new way of looking at and working with color.
I study the movement of colors with each other and individually within a scheme. Colors may move together in kinship, as they do in limited monochromatic or analogous schemes. Or against each other in competition, as they often do in complementary schemes. In detailed mosaic paintings they interact in several different ways simultaneously. Look at the myriad colored pixels of an enlarged color photograph on your computer monitor and watch how they interact up close and at a distance.
Study color palettes nature uses or humans have chosen. Do their colors speak softly with each other or shout to see who can be heard? Do they take leisurely walks together, or are they racing for an unseen finish line? Do they dance a bold tango, or waltz more elegant, subtle steps?
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