Living With Art Week 3 Blog Reese

1. Describe Color and it's effects on emotions. Use the appropriate vocabulary of color in your posting.  When I think of colors, I can’t help but to think of vacation time in April.  Almost every April for the past twenty years, my family has taken a trip to Florida.  As we get into the airport and take off you can’t help but to take notice to the mundane landscape.  From ten thousand feet in the air the earth appears dark and dank as anything I’ve ever seen.  Living in Western New York for the past twenty years this is a time of year I’ve just come to accept.  However, one must dissect the feelings that colors have on our emotions.  Personally, I enjoy the cold dark nights of winter for about a month or two, but once that time has passed I’m ready of the bright vibrant colors of spring and summer.  Most people would probably agree that their spirits are much higher during the spring or summer vs. the winter.  Most humans have overwhelming positive experience when they encounter landscapes of great color.  I have one memory of a trip to Disney a few years ago that lends credit to the belief that colors bring happiness to individuals.  I was walking into Disney and at the front gates that had the most unbelievable display of flowers in the shape of Mickey ears.  Now I have to admit that I am a Disney fanatic, but it wasn’t Mickey that was making me smile it was the color from the flowers.  I had been so used to seeing the dark dank days back home that the colors of the flowers were an assault on my senses in a positive way. 
2. What is a theoretical aspect of color that most intrigues/fascinates you? Why?  The aspect of colors that intrigues me the most is how colors change your mood.  Now beautiful landscapes don’t make everyone happy, because if that were the case no body in Florida would ever commit a crime.  With that said it has been proven that humans respond well to colors.  There are studies as to what colors make individuals more productive at work or in the classroom.  Prisons around the country paint rooms a soothing color to help temper the emotions of inmates. 
3. In the Color video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and it's effects on emotions?  This may seem a little of topic, but the one thing that made the biggest impact on me was when the artist did a rough draft painting of the landscape.  I was so intrigued by this.  I couldn’t help but to think...why didn’t she just take a photograph of the landscape and use that as a guide, but I quickly understood that the camera wouldn’t be able to fully capture all the different shades as well as the draft. 
4. In the Feelings video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and it's effects on emotions?  I particularly appreciated how the narrator explained how the colors of the ancient Roman painting encompassed colors and geometry.