GEEK PEEK: LOCAL COLOR

I like looking outside of my profession to get inspired creatively and broaden my way of thinking. Last year I found this book and I fell in love with it. It’s about connecting memories and color.

Color has a way of imprinting itself in my mind when it catches my eye. I notice it everywhere I go.

In this book, watercolorist Mimi Robinson goes a step further as she creates a palette inspired by her travels and her memories of places. Instead of just noticing colors individually, I found myself creating complete palettes in my mind to capture the feel of a place. Not just the colors I see, but the colors that represent what I smell or taste or experience in a place.

I don’t paint on paper. I paint on hair. But it was fun to look at haircolor the way an artist does with watercolor. So I decided to take my memory palettes a step further and create haircolor palettes that capture the feel of a place. Haircolorists mix, adjust, dilute and intensify colors in a similar way as watercolorists do. It can be tricky at times, because the pigments I have access to can be more limited. But it’s still fun to experiment and create in a different way. (See below for one of the palettes I created around a beach in Hawaii.)

When you look at Mimi’s palettes and read her descriptions of the places in her book, you’ll feel like you’re right there with her. And you’ll love it too. You’ll be creating personal memories of time, travel, and place through color palettes, using the exercises and examples she shares.

You can find the book here: Local Color Seeing Place Through Watercolor

Bonus Treasure for those of you who are COLOR GEEKS like me, she also has these awesome Color Theory Notecards that I am in love with. I’ve bought waaaay too many boxes of them and I use them for notes and thanks you’s and everything where I need a card. You can buy them here: Color Theory Notecards . You will thank me later. Send me a card! 😉