The Color ‘Blue’: Use the Hidden Meaning for Art & Design

Color allows us to create our own individuality and flare. For years, interior decorators, graphic designers, photographers, advertisers and artists have been using color to enhance our environments. Research shows that color can play a major role in our overall state of well-being.

In art and design, color can be used to evoke a certain mood, create a message or evoke a strong response in the viewer. Creatives can use the positive or negative attributes of color in our works to subliminally send a message.

This post is part of a popular in-depth article I wrote last year entitled, “Use the Hidden Meaning of Color in Your Art.” There was so much useful information in the original post that I broke it down into smaller individual posts about ‘color’. Over the past few weeks we have learned about the colors red and yellow. This week, I will share what I have learned about the cool color, blue.

But first, a little review:

Blue is a primary color…

Blue is a cool color…

Cool colors:

• Cool colors are based on blue undertones and bring to mind a calming effect.
• These colors range from cold icy blues to warm and nurturing Mediterranean turquoises.
• Many decorators use these colors in spas, bathrooms and other quiet environments.
• Blues lower heart rate and reduces appetite.
• Blue represents dependability.
• It is commonly worn in uniforms and business suits.
• Dark blue is generally used by more authoritative figures including police officers and our Presidents!
• Blue and greens are used in advertising medicines and health care products.

BLUE: The color blue has a feeling of of cool expansiveness and openness. We think of the sea and sky. Soft, soothing, compassionate and caring, blue is an introspective color. Blue is often used in bedrooms and spas.
With its close association to water, blue is a popular color for bathrooms and kitchens. Because of it’s tranquility, blue is used in doctors’ offices, and reception rooms.
Blue is often a formal color which represents wisdom and steady character.  Blue is a universally soothing color. Throughout the years, most Presidents wear blue during important speaches!
Many superheros wear blue! It is considered a masculine color and the choice of corporate America. But, the quiet character and poetic subtlety of blue can also be associated with melancholy and resignation.
Remember Pablo Picasso’s infamous “Blue Period” of art? After the sudden death of good friend, Carlos Casagemas, Picasso’s personal trauma found expression in a series of deeply sentimental paintings which comprise his “Blue Period”.  Picasso himself recalled, “I started painting in blue when I learned of Casagemas’s death”.
What about singing the blues?
Etymology: The blues music is based on a  type of music called ‘the blues’. Blues music expresses the frustration, loneliness and bad luck of folks in trouble. The music is slow and melancholy in which songs often are about difficulties or bad luck.

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Please check out the original article & my sources, Use the Hidden Meaning of Color in Your Art.
…here are some great articles:
How to Choose the Right Paint Brush for the Art Technique
Tips for Painting Water and Reflections
The Best of 2010: Articles on Art, Marketing & Social Media
You might also like to read an article I wrote last year to help artists:
Feeling Blue in the Studio?
Also, I really enjoyed reading the book: Color Style: How to Identify the Colors that are Right for Your Home … Read more about the blues: How to Sing the Blues | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2067772_sing-blues.html#ixzz0vzAnmZXI or http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/sing+the+blues
Thanks, Lori 🙂