REBECCA ZHANG
REBECCA ZHANG
akefeh nurosi RISD GD 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FINALE
AFTERIMAGE
CONTRAST
HARMONY
+/-HUE
THEORY
PRELUDE
This is the first thing I did for this class. I painted the colors i associated with each term on a given list of emotive/ expressive words. Then, I tried to match these colors with those of objects in and around my environment via photography.
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Life Green is the shade of mother nature. it is every thing fresh and lush.
mug
Love The color of a warm, heartfelt blush when you see that special someone.
wallet
Hate When your thoughts are clouded with what can only be described as darkness.
coat
Peace and Tranquility Relax and let the soft green-blues cradle your eyes and mind.
2
dress
Happy The color of a beach bathed in california sunshine. olfa box cutter
Sad A bad crit on a rainy day. soup mug Luminous Like bulbs and moonlight, breaking the night sky. dish soap Noble Tyrian purple from crushed shells— the color of ancient royals. shopping bag
3
Heavy Grounded, weighted, anchored by the darkest shade of earth.
sketch pad
Light Like the air in the sky that is bountiful yet weightless. plastic cap Loud A slap to the senses. It screams for your attention. detergent bottle Soft Like the walls or the mice that inhabit them, it’s always there, but often unnoticed.
4
cutting mat
Sweet The color of artificial strawberry candy. stationery box
Bitter The color of bile.
plastic bottle
Smooth Like beating eggs and sugar into meringue. gloves Rough Like the elementary school blacktops I’d scrape my knees on. jar cap
5
This is the backbone of all our assignments. By creating colors using gouache and matching them on the computer and printer, I learned the basic principles of both analog and digital color mixing.
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PRIMARIES
29, 100, 100, 0
95, 85, 15, 0
0, 0, 87, 0
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We started off the semester by creating the three primary hues using gouache.
RED is created with rose tyrion and windsor red.
BLUE is created with turqoise blue and ultramarine.
YELLOW is created with spectrum yellow and brilliant yellow.
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SECONDARIES
55, 100, 10, 42
0, 51, 100, 0
59, 10, 100, 0
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Here’s the same exercise, but with secondary hues.
VIOLET is created with rose tyrion and ultramarine.
ORANGE is created with brilliant yellow and windsor red.
GREEN is created with spectrum yellow and turquoise blue.
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TERTIARIES
20, 0, 80, 0
100, 50, 90, 0
0, 75, 100, 0
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Using all the previously mixed colors and gouache colors, I created the set of six tertiary hues.
YELLOW GREEN is created with green and spectrum yellow.
BLUE GREEN is created with green and turqoise blue.
RED ORANGE is created with orange and winsor red.
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TERTIARIES CONT.
0, 21, 95, 0
35, 100, 10, 43
0, 21, 95, 0
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YELLOW ORANGE is created with orange and brilliant yellow.
RED VIOLET is created with violet and rose tyrion.
BLUE VIOLET is created with violet and ultramarine.
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WHEELS
I designed this wheel to display the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors and explore color harmonies.
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Here are diagrams and explanations for the four basic three/four color harmonies.
TRIAD Three colors equally spaced about the color wheel.
SPLIT COMPLIMENTARY A variation of the complimentary; two adjacent colors to the compliment are used instead.
RECTANGLE This scheme is formed of two complimentary pairs
SQUARE Four colors equally spaced about the color wheel.
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A spread of all the color harmonies
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TINTS
These were created by lowering the opacity in 10% increments.
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SHADES
These were created by increasing the black value of the colors in 10% increments.
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Explore the positive/ negative connotations of colors. Compare what each hue looks like on a white background and a black background.
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FLORAL THERAPY
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For this project, I explored the medicinal properties of flowers. Each of the pill-shaped cards has a flap that opens up that details the flower’s name and diseases it cures. They’re neatly packaged in a handy first aid kit.
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Each pill opens up to information on the flower’s medicinal properties. The diseases/ health problems the plant cures is on the black side. Like this, it becomes evident how each color performs as both image and text on white and black backgrounds.
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PACKAGING I created a clamshell box out of illustration board to contain my pill cards.
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DETAILS
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HIBISCUS
NASTURTIUM
CALIFORNIA POPPY
high blood pressure
colds/ flu
JASMINE
TRILLIUM
CORNFLOWER
cancer, liver disease
bleeding, diarrhea
fever, congestion, constipatio
anxiety, insomnia
CALENDULA
DANDELION
EVENING PRIMROSE
cancer, wounds
indigestion, blood pressure, blood sugar
arthritis, eczema, inflamation
LAVENDAR
PASSION FLOWER
CONEFLOWER
wounds, stress, headaches
insomnia, anxiety, liver problems
infection, wounds, cancer
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30
With different triadic/ quadratic color harmonies, i created compositions and observed how different color schemes could affect them.
31
SKETCHES
For this composition, I chose two 3-color harmonies: one warm and one cool.
warm
cool For this composition, I chose two 4-color harmonies: one warm and one cool.
warm
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cool
These are some experimentations on working the color harmony with the compositions.
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FINAL COMPOSITIONS
warm
3 colors
cool
warm
4 colors
cool
34
i substituted colors with tints and shades, while keeping one color constant.
3 color: 2 tints
3 color: 2 shades
4 color: 2 tints 1 shade
4 color: 2 shades 1 tint
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36
37
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This third assignment involves the effect of simultaneous contrast of monochromatic and analogous harmonies. I chose to create a three dimensional project to show this phenomenon.
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PALETTE
K=17 K=45 K=77
0, 91, 76, 70 185 M, 90% 185 M, 40%
80, 35, 75, 45 45, 0, 100, 28 20, 0,65, 2
40
This project began with a study of grayscale. The values included on the left are dark grey (75%), medium grey (50%), and light grey (25%). Then, I took windsor red gouache and tried to make a monochromatic progression value imitating the greyscale. After, I chose a green progression of analogous colors to imitate the greyscale values. The swatches on the left were first done in gouache and then matched digitally.
41
DETAILS The goal of this assignment was to experiment with colors to make one look like another in context to the background color of a composition.
42
For example, by using a white background, light grey could look very similar to medium grey on a black background. This goes for the monochrome reds as well. There’s also the aspect o scale change and how that affects the colors.
By changing background colors to different hues and values, I also attempted to make the colors from the palette in the previous page look more like their neighboring values. By using yellow (absorbs yellow, makes darker) and blue (absorbs
blue, makes lighter) as context, i tried to make neighboring analogous green colors from the original palette look more similar. Converting the greens to greyscale was a test on the after-image effect (next project).
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PRODUCT
I printed out these compositions and used them as origami paper for a set of paper tops. I folded 32 tops and glued pushpins to the center as a handle. As for packaging, I made a large 16” x 16” box out of foamcore and dividers out of illustration board. Each cubby has one color scheme; the versions that feature different scales are stacked underneath the regular sized tops. It’s also pretty interesting when
the colors of the tops are reflected onto the sides of the dividers, creating unique lighting effects for each cubby. While the simultaneous contrast effects are not too distinguishable, they were very evident in the design of the paper patterns. The threedimensional aspect was something I had missed, so i very much enjoyed crafting the entire project.
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FINISH
Here’s some documentation of how the tops spin. It’s quite interesting how the colors blend.
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This is a view of the set of tops in its entirety. It’s in the same order as the compositions are from pages 42–43.
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The afterimage effect involves the appearance of colors being influenced by its surroundings. By altering these backgrounds under a set of constants and variables, it’s easily observed how different the same colors appear in different surroundings.
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PALETTE subtractive
additive
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The colors on the left were made by blending primary/ secondary colors in steps. Subtractive color (RYB) is used when mixing pigments while additive (rgb) is used for mixing light (i.e. computer screens). From the additive/subtractive palette, I selected 2 colors for the typemark I chose (originally from W magazine). One color had to be cold and the other had to be warm. Both had to be of the same value.
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AFTER-IMAGE EFFECT
1. The instructions were to choose two light colors of the same value for the background: one cold and one warm. Because the values are similar, the background halves seem to blend into each other. Compared to the other compositions, the typemark colors seem darker. 2. The instructions were to choose one very dark color and another color. Here, the halves are very evident because of the contrast in value. The left half of the typemark als seems the brightest in comparison to the rest of the versions.
3. The instructions were to choose a bright, warm color and a cool, dull color. Thus, the left half of the typemark seems much duller while the right half seems much brighter. 4. The instructions were to place the compliments of each half of the typemark as the corresponding background half. This was calculated through CMYK values (as was the background grey) and carefully edited to reflect the same values as the parent colors.
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27, 60, 75, 0
7525 U
0, 51, 100, 0
144 U
71, 28, 28, 0
634 U, 80%
57, 43, 57, 0
446 U, 87%
5, 21, 33, 0
473 U
69, 21, 0, 0
2995 U
15, 11, 32, 0
453 U
85, 85, 0, 0
1788 U
71, 28, 28, 0
Black2 U
49, 33, 33, 8
424 U
49, 50, 37, 0
5205 U
PANTONE MATCHING
I matched all the colors used in the four compositions and the background grey above to solid uncoated pantone colors. At times, I used tints of pantone swatches if they were closer than any of the pure pantone values. It’s clear that pantone swatches are generally more vibrant and pigmented than the process color swatches.
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FOUR-COLOR SEPARATIONS
This experiment reveals how much of each pigment (CMYK) is really going into a finished print. It shines a light on the printing process, especially for offset printing.
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Here is the same exercise, but with a halftone filter. This is to simulate offset printing.
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After a semester dealing with color, I finally utilized colors derived from nature to create harmonious compositions in the form of stamps. Here’s where it all comes together.
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PALETTE
For this project, I drew inspiration of color from nature. My muse was the jewel beetle. I created three palettes: monochrome, analogous, and complimentary color schemes. These are depicted on the left.
jewel beetle for reference
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TRYPTICH
I designed my stamps as a tryptich. The stamps are connected by the transparent elements, which forms a jewel beetle with spread wings.
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MONOCHROME
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COMPLIMENTARY
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ANALOGOUS
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REBECCA ZHANG RZHANG01@RISD.EDU RISD GD CLASS OF 2015