Colors Are Relative (part one) - Illustrator AC Bodnar Plays with Color Theory and Practice

Did you know that in many ancient cultures, the ocean was described as "wine" colored because they didn't have a word for blue? I was gob-smacked by that, and amazed to learn that the way we perceive colors is so relative to what other colors are around them.

A.C. Bodnar explores this with some theory and four illustrations that are broken down and analyzed in her post Color Theory Practice: Playing Around with Color Relativity.

One of the illustrations, broken down by color

As A.C. explains it,

If you do not know what color relativity is, and color theory more broadly, let me endeavor to explain it as well as I am able. Essentially, our eyes do a lot of adjusting as we look at the world. Our brains want to see a full spectrum of colors like you see under white light/sunlight and will change our perception of what we look at to achieve that. The first time that I actively noticed and engaged with this in my life was with ski goggles (though sunglasses, blue light glasses, or any other tinted eyewear have a similar effect). I remember the first time my dad buckled me into little kid skis, strapped a helmet to my head, and snapped on a pair goggles, so tiny that I was still young enough for free lift tickets (I wonder if they still do those). I whined when my goggles came on because they turned the world orange. How could I have a beautiful snowy day if everything was orange?! My dad told me to just wait because, in no time, I wouldn’t notice it anymore and things would look normal. To my surprise, he was right. Soon enough, the world appeared the almost same as it would have if I was just seeing it under white light, despite the fact that what I was actually seeing could only be the orange light that passed through the lens of my goggles. And then, when I took my googles off, the world was so eye-searingly blue and bright that I could hardly look at it! Transfixed, I remember taking my goggles on and off, waiting for my eyes to adjust and then immediately switching back. I did not understand it at the time, but what I was witnessing was color theory (along with some optics, but I am artist, not a physicist). 

It's fascinating reading (and by reading I mean spending time with both the words and the illustrations.) 

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee