#color value

[befree182]

"I filled the hole in my head with prescription medication

And forgot how to cry, who am I to complain?"

[mulberryrainy]

I wanted to practice drawing in monochrome since I was feeling a bit rusty with my color values, anyways here's some of the studies that I did

I really love how the road with the cloud ended up looking, my favorite one out of them<3✨

HOPE Y'ALL ENJOY!!!:D

[rabbivolesolo]

Color theory experiments....Im kinda running a lil art school for myself 😊

[nichehouse]

The royal obsession with purple

It is a well-known fact that the color purple has always been associated with royalty and wealth. With the color purple not often occurring in nature, the color purple was really regarded as rare and expensive. It was so rare and expensive that in the Elizabethan period, Queen Elizabeth I's Sumptuary Laws forbid anyone but close relatives of the royal family to wear purple! This sounds pretty absurd and you might think impossible. But it’s true!

Queen Sophie Dorotea wearing a purple dress - truly a color of royalty!

In fact, in 1547 Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey was tried for high treason against Henry VIII. Their main argument was because he wore the color purple and at that time, only the king was allowed to wear such color.

The popularity of color purple

The color purple was particularly popular in the Byzantine era. Its rare and difficult production gave the color purple a certain level of scarcity to the products that use the color purple. This was highly regarded by the Byzantine people that the emperors and kings of the time would wear flowing purple robes to signify that they can afford such luxuries.

Not all royals can afford the color purple though. In the third century, Roman emperor Aurelian wouldn't allow his wife to buy a shawl made from Tyrian purple silk because it literally cost its weight in gold.

I’d like to think that that was a pretty embarrassing situation for them. Especially now that it’s being talked about by everyone. Like a little-known fact about them, they shall forever be remembered as the royal roman couple that could not afford to buy his wife the expensive scarf.

Why was the color purple expensive?

A question that ran through my mind was why was the color purple so expensive at that time? In our world today, we can see the color purple everywhere. In fact, so many people consider purple as their favorite color and can literally have almost all their possessions in different shades of purple.

I did some snooping around and I came to the conclusion that it was as simple as supply and demand.

Blinus brandaris - the origin of the purple dye in the Byzantine era.

The color purple in the Byzantine and Elizabethan era was specifically called Tyrian Purple. The color was named after the city of Tyre, current day Lebanon, along the coast of ancient Phoenicia where the shells of a species of sea snail now known as Bolinus brandaris were harvested and made into the purple dye. These sea snails were found along the coasts of the Mediterranean sea.

Harvesters would have to go through a long and arduous process just to make an ounce of usable purple dye. First, they would crack the snail shells open to get to the actual sea snail. After that, they’ll get the purple-producing mucus that comes from the sea snail. After harvesting the mucus, they will then expose the mucus to sunlight for a specific amount of time.

With the amount of mucus one snail can make and without the current technology of snail mucus extraction, it took about 250,000 mollusks to yield even just an ounce of purple dye! Remember, the purple that royalty wore was dark and striking. Thus is the low supply of the color purple. Only those that are willing to give the extra amount of gold would be able to purchase it!

It’s even more absurd to think that the dresses of royalty are usually thick and long! Imagine how many mollusks were used to create even just one spool of thread.

Thankfully, by 1856 an English chemist by the name of Willian Henry Perkin was able to create a synthetic purple compound as he was attempting to synthesize quintine, an anti-malaria drug. He realized then that this compound that he created was able to dye fabrics. At the age of 18, Sir William Henry Perkins was able to patent this compound and manufactured it under the names aniline purple and Tyrian purple.

Sir William Henry Perkin | Photo from Science History Institute

By 1859, three years after its discovery, it was called mauve from the French name of the purple mallow flower.

Thanks to the efforts of Sir William Henry Perkin, the elite royal color became widely available and affordable.

The color purple in pop culture

Although purple has not lost its magic and its meaning of royalty, the color purple has been used to represent different things. The color purple has been seen in the political scene quite a lot. IN the women’s suffrage in the US and Europe, the color purple was used as a symbol of solidarity and unity among women.

The color purple has been used in the movements of social change and I think it’s beautiful that something that was once something that only royalty and the elite could have is now being used by the masses for change.

The bisexual flag and its colors

Take for example the bisexual flag. For the longest time, bisexuals have not been very visible. When you think of sexual orientation, it is still most common to end up with the idea of binary gender. The bisexual flag represents an attraction to the gender binary by pink and blue with the color purple in between to signify the attraction to everything in between.

Bisexuality does not mean the binary of gender and attraction but is the umbrella term for what is known to be current-day pansexuals. There are a lot of readings about the bisexual manifesto online and would be best to read on that before defending the state of pansexuality.

Prince and the Revolution Purple Rain

In pop culture, the color purple has been used in extravagance and individualism. As seen here in Prince and the revolution of Purple Rain album where he dons the color purple quite proudly. For the longest time, the color purple was significantly connected to Prince that on the day he died, people wore the color purple to signify their mourning instead of wearing the typical black that was know as the color of mourning.

Conclusion

The color purple is everywhere today. The days of monopolizing purple for the rich is over. It is now the color of the masses. It may still symbolize wealth and extravagance, but with everything happening today, purple is just a color with no ownership.

[aidarrian]

As Inktober approaches a reminder that not every drawing needs to be your best!

[arantarisu-yamu]

Character Bra Size Hana is Size A Ultima is Size B Dark is Size C Alantaris is Size D Dark is jealous...or is she.....probably becuz she thinks Alantaris is using magic to cheat XDDD. But i didnt feel like coloring so i used values of white to black. 

[magictransistor]

A.H. Munsell. The Color Sphere, with Measured Scales of Hue, Value, and Chroma. 1907.

[star-wonder]

OK, so I realize this is probably one of the first concepts you learned in your high school art class, but I never had art class in school, so bear with me.

COLOR VALUE, guys. To me, this idea is nebula shattering.

Last week, I stumbled across the Muddy Colors blog, a blog about all things art. WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE. Just clicking through the articles in the “Education” tab has given me riches beyond belief.

The concept of value stood out to me especially. I’ve been guilty my whole life of creating a finished piece of art based on the first thing that pops into my head, without considering how much better the piece could be if I paid attention to the light and dark areas and intentionally planned the composition based on these values.

- I also had no idea how to use subtle or strong contrast to create a mood.

- I was unaware of how dark or light certain values are in real life, which caused my art to look flat and unrealistic.

If you want to learn more about these concepts, check out these blog posts tagged #value on Muddy Colors: http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/search?q=value

This article is great for learning 10 quick data points about using value in art: http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/11/10-things-about-value.html