Interacting with color
Josef Albers’ book, The Interaction of Color, was my first real look at color. Ever since I have been eyeing original silk-screens and playing with color. In a first exploration, I dusted off my Macromedia Director hat and threw together a simple visualization to explore color blending, mottling and motion.
The algorithm is pretty simple: given the surrounding boxes, average their colors to determine the current box’s color. On a 10 x 10 matrix, I introduce two pebbles to drop in the pond, one is under the user’s control and the other is related, moving opposite to first and controlled by the computer. Each square has determined a random color and clicking on a given box will reassign it another color. The order in which you calculate the average impacts the visualization – consider that each square is an object, completely self-sufficient. To provide a little more interest, I have forced the rendering to occur around the vertical mid-point.
January 4th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Hey Brian…
I could play with that for hours. Well, not literally—but it is fun. Takes me back to Color Theory with Keith Vreeland, at CCS in Detroit. I painted more damned color squares and inhaled more gouache that semester than is safe for any human…
The final project was a series of six paintings of a pair of beta fish, starting with a replica of the original photo image i chose, then moving around the color wheel in various directions and amounts, until the original image was completely reversed. It was a nice addition to the portfolio… I have former classmates that still have them up on their walls as art, too…
…Aaron