What's in a Color?

Many of our past life experiences can determine how we react to colors and color combinations. I'm painting my apartment in NH and chose colors that to me were in the style of the Arts & Crafts movement. My 37 year old Daughter said, "oh, Girl Scout colors." A male friend with a farming background said, "I like the John Deere colors." An Arizona based Sister said, "great New England colors."

I came home the other day to this addition to my decor and was told that I needed a different color/style clock!

Comfort colors for me are the rich, opulent colors like deep reds, royal blues and a green that is almost black. They evoke "childhood home" to me. There were times in my life when I always had Chinese red in my wardrobe and yet in my 40's and 50's never wore that color. My children commented one time that, "Mother never wears red." To which my sister replied, "Your Mother always wore red." How much does life, circumstances and mood contribute to personal color choices? Today I like to design with and dress in bold colors. Yellow-green is one of my favorite colors. Maybe one does enter a second childhood later in life with a desire to revert to crayon colors again. A good example is my lariat that is aptly named "Crayon Lariat". Whatever the reasons, I'm having fun with primary, high contrast colors.

Thinking about and looking at color seems to be in the air lately. It's interesting what other beaders see in colors. Bev from No Easy Beads found this New Orleans scene interesting, yet she usually works in another color palette. Liz was commenting on colors in nature earlier this month and seeing what is in a photo that could be used in beadwork. Another beading friend, Marcie generally works in the cool blue color schemes. We always notice and comment when she uses colors that are not blue. There are a lot of color theory books on the market, however the only one that I actually like and read cover to cover is Margie Deeb's book "The Beader's Guide to Color".

I'd be interested in knowing what are comfort colors for other people.