The Experience Project – Exploring emotions through colour in Art

Abstract

For the experience project I plan to research into how artists portray emotions through colour. This
is to support a body of work that will develop in me a better understanding not only of colour, but
also various mediums – especially oil paint, acrylic paint and watercolours – as well as furthering
my use of drawing inks and oil pastels to push myself outside of my usual preferred mediums to
work in.

The final pieces produced from this body will be focused on using colour to present emotions in an
abstract manner. This is to ensure that I develop skills to show emotions without relying solely on
facial expressions. I feel that embarking on such a project will make me into a stronger creative
person, with a greater understanding on the best ways of using colour to present a body of work in a
certain manner.

Aims and Objectives

Aims

To develop an understanding in how colour can influence the emotions a viewer experiences when
viewing a product/piece of art.

Objectives

1. To develop an understanding of how colour can alter how a person sees a piece of
art/ a product
2. To develop a wider understanding of various mediums including a stronger
development of paints
3. To create a body of work that uses colour in an abstract style to express emotion
Research

Pablo Picasso - introduction

One artist who used colour in his work to portray emotions was Pablo Picasso. This started with the
suicide of his friend. The main defining feature of the images painted in the period after this is the
use of blue as the dominating hue. This gives the paintings a sad feeling, without making the
paintings seem overly depressive, instead the blue hues give the viewer a feeling of loss. Another
interesting feature that the use of blue hues created was making the subjects depicted appear more
sickly, most of the subjects portrayed were from the lower class.

This use of a colour hue continued on into the rose period. Warmer hues started to dominate, such
as reds and oranges, giving the paintings a more optimistic feel to them. It was also during the rose
period that his paintings started to portray circus performers and acrobats, which possibly
influenced the change in hues. The use of warmer hues made the figures seem healthier and more
desirable.

Picture in Focus: Celestina by Pablo Picasso

The subject in this painting is a one eyed woman. This

piece is interesting due to the fact that had the piece been
painted in warmer colours the painting would seem more
hopeful. Instead with a predominantly blue palette the piece
gives a feeling of resignment in life to the station. The
black clothing gives a feeling of mourning that is
heightened by the use of blue as well.

I feel for this reason that this is a good example of an artist

using colour to portray emotions as despite the hint of a
smile the feel of the image is that of melancholy resignment
to ones fate of been poor and lower class.
Early concepts

Something I started to notice as I was playing with marker pens in my sketchbook (NB the original
pages will be uploaded after I get back from London) was that it wasn't just the colour but how they
were laid down on the paper as well as the hue.

In my first examples with the colour blue when darker shades of blue were used the feeling was
immediately that of sadness, whereas more pastel shades gave a feeling of tranquillity and peace. To
prevent the blue been too cool I added in a warm green to balance the cold of the pastel blues
without disrupting the flow of the piece.

Another thing that was interesting was when the shades of blue and green were scribbled down in
rough edgey strokes the tranquillity was altered to have far more energy in the piece. This is in
comparison where the shades were laid down in a linear gradient blend which enhanced the tranquil
feel.

To see how this affected how when reds oranges and yellows were used I repeated the same two
styles. When the colours were laid down using rough edgey scribly strokes the feeling was that of
anger. When they were blended linearly in an ordered pattern the feeling was warmer and more
welcoming.

Further concept development

After my initial concepts and further research (which was included in the hand outs delivered for
presentations) I started to work on the painted canvas'. For these I used acrylic paint and used a
technique I'd not really used before which is mixing the paint straight on the canvas. Normally I'd
have mixed the paint colours and shades before placing them down. I felt that the results gained
from this though was interesting and I felt it best showed the feelings.

When presenting the canvas' it was soon noticed that its not only the colour hue but also the way the
strokes and texture was portrayed. This hints at another angle that raises the question is it just flat
colour that are stereotypically linked to colour or is it the texture and style of brush strokes.
Evaluation

Overall I feel that this project is far from finished, and although I have found information out about
this in the project, some of it evidenced by the presentations. However I feel that I've only just
started to really get into the project itself and for this reason plan to research further into how other
people perceive colours, as well as create more canvas' with the hope of somehow displaying them.

NB – This is a report work in progress ^_^