Color Communication…

Color communication is a powerful thing indeed! Just imagine the last time you blushed or blanched. Your feelings were pretty obvious to any one that was paying attention via colorful social signalling. 

 Recently there have been a lot of images of polymer clay hearts on the web = upcoming Valentine’s day. If those pieces were rendered in  blue or brown would they evoke the same emotional reactions and tribal connections?

New scientific research reveals that chameleons change colors, not as a reaction to camouflage themselves from predators, but as a way of social signalling to other chameleons. You may want to check out these fabulous polymer clay chameleons by Amy Zinman.

What Color are YOU…?

Here is another fun web quiz. You check off adjectives that describe yourself and then one of 144 colors is displayed that describes your personality.

“Your saturation level is low” is not what I might have picked for myself, as I usually like highly saturated colors. I am however feeling a little vulnerable/turtle out-of-the shell, as my brace is history and my broken vertebrae is “officially” healed…next stop= PT (physical therapy).

Colorful Sundays…

Many blogs feature theme days for example: Monday’s Musings, Thursday’s DVD reccomendations, Saturday’s Slams. Today I found a colorful blog by a very talented artist, James Gurney that has a Sunday theme on color. While Gurney doesn’t work with polymer clay, his posts are well written, insightful and are generously ilustrated.

It appears that he will be making an appearance at one of my favorite local book sores, Politics & Prose. When I clicked the link on his blog it took me to this month’s events, so you might want to bookmark the page and check back in March.  

Colorful Focus…

Perhaps you have heard the white elephant story, where participants are asked not to think about a white elephant and then they can’t stop thinking about the white elephant? What we choose to focus on can have a profound impact in our lives. “Train your eyes to see color again” is about focus and color and a great reminder. Thanks to Cynthia Tinapple for sending me this focussing link.

Along that same vein, Netflix has just delivered “The Flowering of Human Consciousness” by Eckhart Tolle the author of “The Power of Now”..and I’m off to focus  on the video. .

Think Pink…

While color surfing the web today I came across this creative collaborative artists doll project= Pink Artists. Not only does the completed piece go to auction for a great cause, the Susan G. Komen Fund, the evolution of the project will be documented online.

And no worries…YOUR  contribution needn’t be pink, just thinking pink!

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Colorful Healing…

My first encounter with Aura Soma was during a home stay while teaching a color workshop for the Palm Beach Polymer Clay Guild. Not only did my hostess have a wonderful, generous spirit…her home was almost completely purple! When I enquired about the purple pool table…she whispered that “my incredible husband is color blind…”.  In the guest room was  a luminous shelf of rainbow colored oils that immediately attracted my attention. She explained that they were from Aura Soma and tucked me in with the three seminal books on the subject of  Aura Soma color healing.

There is a free on=line Aura Soma reading available online here for you to try.

Colorful Eyeware…

We have all heard the expression that someone “sees the world through rose colored glasses” and know that wearing sunglasses can be important to our eye health. I personally find it very dis-orienting to wear dark glasses, as the colors of everything seems so “off” that I find the experience unnerving. Yellow snow, fried pine branches and olive green oceans?  How much of our perceptions are colored by our expectations?

In the course of doing some on-line research into color healing this afternoon, I was reminded of one of the wackiest/unusual purchases that I have made in my life = a set of color therapy glasses. For  several years I did take the set to my color workshops, and most of my students found the color changes to their color charts   to be unsettling as their perception of what they were looking at was so radically altered by the colored lenses.

Having recently switched on a rose colored and a blue-violet lamp, I am reminded just how powerful the color of the light that we surround ourselves with can be. Life suddenly seems a little “rosier” and  blued down calm. I would urge you to experiment with colored light via colored lenses, bulbs or gel filters.  Check out some of your favorite polymer clay color combinations…do they look better or worse towards blue, red or yellow?

New Clay Colors…

To be more accurate, Polyform products has launched their new polymer clay = Studio by Sculpey. This clay comes in thirty four co-ordinated colors with yummy names= Cappuccino, Clover, Denim and Butterscotch to name a few. The surface finish is described as being “soft and suede-like” Since I haven’t touched clay (since my accident) I have been unable to experiment with the samples I received this fall. My first impressions are:

• The colors are lovely = softened (desaturated and/or tinted versions) of a palette designed to work together cohesively
• There weren’t very many deep, rich darks in the line
• The clay smells different from any of the other clays on the market

It will be interesting to see the work that evolves using this new clay; both from the technical perspective (does it cane well? how theromsenstive is it? ) and the perspective of the opportunity of having a predetermined palette to work from (instead of customizing ones own palette from the pigment primaries available) for the color mixing timid…any bets when the first conversion chart appears on the Internet? = how to mix the Studio line colors using FIMO soft?  

If you have had time to experiment with this new clay, I would be very interested in hearing your comments and observations.

Colorful Diet…

After receiving a fabulous new cookbook from Maggie Maggio as a Christmas gift= Eating by Color, I have been doing a little more research on this sub-genre of  nutritional trends and cookbooks.

 While most photo illustrated cookbooks are ostensibly about successful photographic color combinations…it is an interesting notion to include a rainbow of colors in your diet. One on-line article that i found was from the CBS Early Morning Show. Embedded in the article is the ability to research any of the included words by double clicking on that word…

Here is part of what appeared when I double clicked COLOR

Colorful Changes…

One of the changes that is happening in this colorful mew year is that Polymer Clay Cafe Magazine has a new editor, Connie Donaldson,and will be changing its publication schedule to six times per year.. You can read more about these changes on Kim Cavender’s blog /. I enjoyed a delightful telephone conversation with Connie earlier this week= she is enthused about her new position and ready for a “full steam ahead” return to the polymer clay world after an important hiatus for her Master’s degree in family counseling.

So here is your chance

• submit an article on a technique you have developed
• give Connie a heads up on an artist, web site or blog you enjoy
• submit YOUR suggestions for future issues
• submit a photo of your work for the gallery section of the magazine

Connie Donaldson may be contacted here.