Week 12 - Episode 61 - Bad Blue

According to colour expert Michel Pastoureau, in his beautiful book on Blue, Romans didn’t like the colour at all.

They thought it was barbaric.

“Having blue eyes was considered almost a physical deformity, or at least a sign of bad character. Pliny asserted that Breton women dyed their bodies blue before joining in orgiastic rituals - and that therefore it was a colour to be distrusted and avoided.”

This continued throughout the middle ages. Blue was used for death. The dark. And devils.

But as the Church’s perspective on colour shifted blue became more prominent, and, eventually, the colour of celestial and divine light.

Much to the chagrin of red dyers, who campaigned for stained glass artists to paint the devil blue, hoping to discredit the newly fashionable colour which was threatening their profits.

They failed to stop the rise of blue as the colour of Heaven - and currently, it is one of the most popular colours.

Today, much as you may love blue, try to look at blue from a Roman perspective.

Barbaric, treacherous, devilish blue.

Can you see it? The dark side of blue? Or, as it has become known more recently, ‘the blues’?

Find it, capture it and share it on Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye.

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Week 12 - Episode 60 - Beautiful Blue

Blue is everywhere in our world. We associate it with the sky, the sea, and so many things in between.

Maybe your eyes are blue. The ink in your pen.

Your suit. Your mood. Or your Monday.

It’s hard to fathom that the ancient Greeks didn’t use a word for blue. But linguistic research shows they - and many other cultures - didn’t.

In Homer, there is no use of the word blue. The sea is purple, not aquamarine.

Now it helps to realise that back then, other than sky and sea, not many things were were naturally blue. There wouldn’t be much occasion to point to an object and say ‘this is blue’ or ‘look at the blue colour on this thing!’.

And researchers currently think not having a word for a colour means you probably can’t consciously discern it.

Which means no blue joy for the Ancient Greeks, Chinese, Indians.

Well, we have a word for this stunning colour and we’ll be looking at it, and its fascinating history, all week.

Natural Ultramarine Pigment

Today start spotting all the blue in your life.

See it, capture it and share it on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #kramerseye.

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Week 11 - Episode 59 - Divine Dots

Dots in their smallest incarnations are an essential ingredient in all the visuals we process.

Too small to be separately perceived, they make up everything we see on screens or paper.

Enlarge them a bit, and they can become informative matrices. Or stunning colour fields.

Expand them even further, and they become beautiful patterns on papers or fabric.

And when you blow them up to create giant discs, they become powerful enough to completely alter the perception of an urban landscape.

Dots can morph into many things. And this weekend, the shape they take is up to you.

After spotting dots all week now is the time to create your own.

Here are some suggestions.

You may think, like me, that dot-to-dot puzzles are a bit lame. But have you ever tried creating your own? It forces you to decide what parts of a picture are essential - and what you can easily leave out.

You can upload an image of your choosing (a photograph, or a picture of an artwork for example), to:

http://www.picturedots.com/

And then start to painstakingly create your own dot-to-dot puzzle.

I thought I’d try this for part of the Mona Lisa, which wasn’t at all easy.

Dot-to-Dot Mona Lisa - Created using http://www.picturedots.com/ and a photograph of the original

Want to improve your composition skills?

Then get some coloured paper and cut out three dots in three different colours and sizes.

Grab a sheet of white paper to use as your canvas and experiment placing your dots on it in different constellations.

How does it look when they’re all heaped together on one side, for example?

Or when you put as much space as possible between them?

What does it feel like when they overlap? Or when they take sides against each other?

To help you remember which compositions you prefer, take pictures, positioning your camera perfectly parallel above your canvas.

Dots & colour

If you can get your hands on some paint, dot paintings are a great way to start experimenting with colour. Especially if you’ve never held a brush before.

Simply Google “dot painting” and you will find hundreds of tutorials showing you how to get started.

After a week of focusing on them I’m still not clear on why dots, especially in their larger incarnations, are so irresistible.

Is it the tension created by the space between them?

Is it because they remind us of patterns in nature? Is it because we, as humans, are drawn both towards circles and patterns, and fields of dots combine the best of both worlds?

Maybe I’ll find out some day, but for now, I’ll leave you with what Japanese dot-artist par excellence Yayoi Kusama has to say about them:

A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots can't stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka-dots become movement... Polka-dots are a way to infinity.

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Week 11 - Episode 58 - Dots as Demarcation

Earlier this week, we looked at the use of dots in art, typography and pattern. But there is even more to the humble dot.

It is being used to reclaim public spaces and to slow down traffic. Very functional - and at the same time all those dots inject a bit of colourful joy into people’s daily lives.

In L.A. and New York, dots are being used to reclaim areas for pedestrians.

Dots to demarcate pedestrian area and slow down traffic in Austin

And in Auckland and Austin, large colourful dots on the roads are used to make cars slow down in areas with lots of pedestrians.

Polkadots used to slow down cars at pedestrian’s crossing in Auckland, New Zealand © Claire Davis

There are more dots in public spaces - and not just as demarcation. You have probably been saved from walking into a glass door or wall many times by rows of demure dots.

Dots may have helped you find your way in train stations or airports.

And they even tell you when your transport of choice will arrive, on those familiar dot matrix displays.

You may not be so lucky as to live near a polka-dotted plaza, but today, do keep an eye out for dots in public spaces.

Spot the dots, capture them and share them using the hashtag #kramerseye on Twitter or Instagram.

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