Psychology of Color

I found this graphic that goes into great detail about the psychology of color. Color seems to be a hot topic in our meetings lately. I thought this might help people pick colors based on a themed emotion or feeling they are trying to project with their crochet. You can also send a political message using color. It seems a bit absurd, but I always ask myself why do bright red cars always get the most speeding tickets?  Why are bedroom themes commonly done in cool colors? Why are brand images important?  It all boils down to the psychology of color.

You can go to the original blog that goes with this image at http://www.webpagefx.com/blog/web-design/psychology-of-color-infographic/

Curiosity: Where do you like to crochet?

Do you have a favorite spot that you gravitate to for crocheting? Do you have a cat or dog in your lap or a bird on your shoulder? What about food? Do you ever eat and crochet? How do you avoid the crumbs, grease, or other food leftovers? Does your family ever get irritated that you are crocheting too much? Do you watch TV or listen to the radio while you crochet? How about listening to an audio book and crocheting?

I look around my home and I have crochet just draped all over my couch and my desk. Those are the two areas I am at usually. I always have difficulty eating and crocheting, so I usually stick with doing the two activities separately.  I always like to watch TV when I crochet. I am not really watching the TV as much as I am listening to it. One of these days, I should actually listen to my audio books and crochet. I always forget what I have available to me. Most often, I have a cat on my lap or a bird on my shoulder. I struggle with this because if I am trying not to get cat hair on my crochet, I am dodging bird poop from my feathered friends. Large projects are in the biggest danger of being pooped on. Sometimes my birds are fascinated with what I am doing and they want to crawl all over my crochet and mouth everything. They think it is interesting. Much more interesting than the cats think. My cats just want to lay on it to say, "Look at me! Pet me!".

When I crochet, I like to marathon crochet. It can be annoying to some people that have lived with me because I tend to put everything else aside, for hours, until I cannot crochet any more. It is also frustrating because I am not good with stopping and starting projects.A lot of projects I stop end up not being finished for a very long time. Let's not talk about my UFOs. That's a whole other crochet issue!

What does your favorite crochet spot look like? Share!

Color Theory

Before we begin to crochet a new item, we always consider the color of yarn that we would like to use for the project. Color is important to most of us and provides aesthetic appeal to the finished object. It also provides a sense of order, harmony and context.  

Color has three main theories. The first is the Color Wheel. The Color Wheel provides a sense of order, structure and relation to other colors. There are 3 main color wheels. There's the primary color wheel, secondary color wheel and tertiary color wheel.

Primary colors are the three colors, red, yellow and blue. These colors cannot be mixed or formed by any combination of other colors. 

Secondary colors are green, orange and purple. These colors are formed by mixing the primary colors.

Tertiary colors are yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green and yellow-green. These colors are formed by mixing a primary and secondary color.That's why the hue is a two word name, such as red-orange.

The second color theory is Color Harmony. Harmony can be defined as a pleasing arrangement of parts. In this case a it would be a pleasing arrangement of colors. It engages the viewer and creates an inner sense of order and balance for the visual experience. When we do not have harmony, we have boredom or chaos. When choosing a color scheme, we can base them on several patterns. The patterns are as follows:

1. Analogous Colors - Any three colors which are side by side on a 12 part color wheel. Usually one color predominates.
2. Complementary Colors - Any two colors which are directly opposite of each other on the color wheel such as red-purple and yellow-green. The opposing colors create maximum contrast and maximum stability.
3. Nature - Choosing colors you see together in nature. An example of this is would be a red flower with a green stem.

The third color theory is Color Context. This theory describes how color behaves in relation to other colors and shapes. It is the most complex area of color theory. Observing the effects color have on each other is a starting point for understanding the relativity of color. The relationship of values, saturation and the warmth or coolness of respective hues can cause noticeable differences in our perception of color.

How will you pick the color of your next project?  What theory will you be applying?