Scouting for Colours…

“Colour is the power that directly influences the soul” Wassily Kandinsky

Hello! My first ever blog post here, so please be kind!!

Do you ever wonder why your are drawn to the the same colours, be it, types of clothes, jewellery or furnishings all the time? I mean, I own about 15 stripey T-shirts and most of them are black and white!! I also always seem to gravitate to bright coloured clothing when Im out shopping, if I see that perfect cobalt blue jumper Im practically salivating. Although for some reason I often panic and buy the black one “because it will go with everything”. I often wonder why are we attracted to certain colours and what is it about colour that can have such a visceral effect on your mood and emotion? These and many other thoughts surrounding colour have been playing on my mind lately.

So Im asking you to join me in a new adventure called Colour Scout as I explore colour.

What is colour scout about?

This blog is coming out to you on “international day of colour” and let me tell you, I have a big passion for colour. I have a growing collection on books about the subject and I love reading about the origins, psychology and theory of colour.

I find the names of colour both amusing and odd as they can be so evocative and relatively accurate, despite their given names often being quite abstract. Some paint colour names from Farrow and Ball come to mind, Elephants Breath, Mouse’s Back or Arsenic, anyone??? I can totally see how they relate, I think that you can usually guess roughly where in the spectrum they fall. Although can you guess the colour of Farrow and Ball’s Lobster?… Red right? Wrong, its blue!

Its fascinating to read about the origin of some colours names too, in the book The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St Clair we learn that the colour puce comes from French for flea, and the name originates to a pinky greyish brown coloured gown that Marie Antoinette wore which her husband King Louis XVI described as couleur de puce- ‘the colour of fleas’ in an attempt to embarrass her, it didn’t work though, it later became the only fashionable colour to be worn by the ladies at court.

If you are reading this you will already know that colour is hugely important to me and you can probably guess the types of colours that light me up, but why is it the case? How come Im not so cock-a -hoop for purple or teal which I can see the merits of, but I cant seem to get excited about them and I tend to shy away from those colours in my jewellry designs too. Ive been thinking about these things a lot lately, and It’s made me realise that I need to broaden my horizons and go on a quest to deepen my knowledge of colour and try to find the love for some of the colours that leave me cold. I want to do this both to potentially add new colour options to my jewellery but mainly as Im just so interested in colour and I know that you might be too.

So, I want to introduce you to my new baby, something that has been bubbling up inside my head for quite a while now. I want to talk about COLOUR and yes I know that is not a new idea, but I want a place where I can explore with you, have chats about colour, delve into colour relationships and unpick colour theory to create exciting colour palettes, share my artistic work and yours too, share exciting colourful things that Ive spotted both in the real world around me and online and geek out and get granular about an individual hue.

I guess I just generally want to get excited about all good things in the coloursphere and keep them neatly in some instagram squares (rectangles) And Im hoping you will come along with me for the adventure.

At first its going to be a new instagram account where you will find all the things I mentioned above (and hopefully more!) But Im planning on writing longer pieces here in my blog and possibly in substack too (Im getting carried away here, its an idea, I don’t even know how substack works!!😂) Also, calm down Claire, this is your first blog post and now Im planning my colour memoirs…ha ha!!

If all this colour chat sounds up your street then I’d love for you to give me a follow here and join me on my adventure as we go scouting for colour!

Thank you for reading.

Claire x

P.S I don’t even know if you can leave comments here, did I mention it’s my first blog?….. But if its possible, please do, let me know what you think and if there’s anything you would like me to include at colour scout that I’ve not already mentioned.