color inspiration

[ktinkel]

I have been thinking a lot about Vermeer lately, and at the same time trying to come up with a color scheme for a web site. So I decided to try to put the two thoughts together.

Decided to go looking for Vermeer images on the web. Many of the Vermeers are in poor shape, and so are the photos of them. But this is for the web, where color is whatever you can approximate, right? So I found a very nice site, Paintings of Vermeer (http://www.ballandclaw.com/vermeer/), with large images of many of the paintings.

Mainly so I can see how these look (as they do not exactly hang together at this point), I am attaching a GIF of my samplings. (Hmmm. How bizarre. They were on a transparent background in the .ai file, and I saved the image as a .gif. Where did the black borders come from, I wonder. Some new feature of Illustrator CS2? Have to see if I can fix that later.)

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

Where did the black borders come from

They're not visible in the enlarged thumbnail.

[PeterArnel]

Vermeer is very in vogue in the UK - with anyone who in anyone sedning thank you / get well cards with his pics on them
Peter

[dthomsen8]

Curious. I don't quite know how you got the color squares you have in your message, or what they do for you in getting to a web site color design.

I will be quite interested to see the result, though.

[ktinkel]

They're not visible in the enlarged thumbnail.How profoundly weird!

I will never understand computers. Never!

[Ian Petersen]

That's a nice palette - very autumnal - and a nice way to get it. I do a similar thing sometimes by simply taking a picture, or section of one, with a nice colour scheme and reducing it in Photoshop to a few pixels in size. Instant palette! Come to think of it, I'm sure I've seen a plugin or script that could do similar.

I can't remember if this has been posted here before but there's a simple palette generator at http://colormatch.dk/ and many similar around the web. There's one built into the ubiquitous TopStyle too. Vermeer is prettier though!

[Kelvyn]

Curious. I don't quite know how you got the colour squares you have in your message, or what they do for you in getting to a web site colour design.

David, it is relatively easy to pick colours off a displayed image using, for example, Paint Shop Pro or the ColorZilla (https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=271) extension for Firefox (although there may be conflicts when using this extension on FF1.0.7.) I use a simple utility program called SLUGS (Windows only) which has a colour picker and then generates a colour wheel based on the picked colour. I find that this utility allows me to see quite easily (and quickly) which colours may work together.

[ktinkel]

Curious. I don't quite know how you got the color squares you have in your message, or what they do for you in getting to a web site color design.I used a color tool with an eyedropper to sample from the Vermeers I found on the web. (I rather doubt the colors are accurate to the paintings — and know that many of the paintings are either faded or dirty, so probably do not look as they once did.)

Anyway, my theory was that a painter’s sense of color may be better than mine so why not sample from a painting. Thus the colors in the squares.

I’m not sure how much they help in choosing a web design, but I thought it was an interesting notion.

[ktinkel]

I can't remember if this has been posted here before but there's a simple palette generator at http://colormatch.dk/ and many similar around the web.I have Color Studio Schemer, but you always have to start somewhere and then the color schemes tend to be somewhat insular. That is often desirable, of course — helps you get compatible dark, medium, and light shades.

ColorMatch is cute. BTW, the maker says it works only with MS Explorer, but it also works with Opera and Safari (though not Firefox).

[Ian Petersen]

Yes, it works in Opera athough does get confused sometimes if you drag the sliders instead of clicking.

One thing most of those palette generators don't take into account is the proportion of one colour to another. A little bit of red goes a long way in a field of green. That's where sampling your Vermeers is a good technique if you can keep the same relative proportions as in the original painting.

[Cristen Gillespie]

Anyway, my theory was that a painter’s sense of color may be better than mine so why not sample from a painting. Thus the colors in the squares.

I’m not sure how much they help in choosing a web design, but I thought it was an interesting notion.

This palette is very appealing. Can something be both calming and lively at the same time? I think artists do work on that concept. The trick to using it is to take one of the Vermeer photos and see what proportions of these colors are used. That is, if you want to let the artist help you design. I'm sure in your art courses you've had to do that as an exercise.

[ktinkel]

This palette is very appealing. Can something be both calming and lively at the same time? I think artists do work on that concept. The trick to using it is to take one of the Vermeer photos and see what proportions of these colors are used. That is, if you want to let the artist help you design.No. I was looking for a useful yellow and thought of that gorgeous edam-cheese color that tints the light in several Vermeer paintings. And I wanted a blue that worked with it.

So I poked around and came up with that collection of colors. Considering how damaged many of the paintings are, that the images were made from photos taken under who knows what sort of conditions (or when), and that I was sampling from jpegs on the web, not bad! <g>

And it was at least as much fun as most methods of arriving at appealing colors. The best way is with paint, of course, but then I would still need to convert them to screen color. Obviously need a colorimeter! <g>

[Cristen Gillespie]

No. I was looking for a useful yellow and thought of that gorgeous edam-cheese color that tints the light in several Vermeer paintings. And I wanted a blue that worked with it.


You *would* think of a food to match the color<BG> And the association works. I can see the color in my mind right away.

We obviously need ALL the expensive little gadgets. A colorimeter being just a start<ggg>

[ktinkel]

You *would* think of a food to match the color …
We obviously need ALL the expensive little gadgets. A colorimeter being just a start<ggg>Can’t help myself, especially not in this case. Could have said butter, but not all butter — especially here — has that warmth of color.

As for the colorimeter, you bet! I haven’t checked in a while — last time I noticed, they cost about $1,100. That is definitely out of my league!