Art and culture : Colourful world
【明報專訊】Hi, I am Chattie. I am a cloud. I have been travelling around the world and have seen a lot of people and places. Can you guess where have I gone this week? I've just met a special friend of mine and had a short chat with him.
My friend is called Rainbowdon. He is a rainbow of course. He rarely appears. He appears after a rain only if he is in a good mood or wants to display his beauty. So I am lucky to have seen him. We had a chat about arts. Our topics are always about arts because he thinks he is the origin (根源) of many kinds of arts, especially visual arts (視覺藝術).
I remember that, the first time I met Rainbowdon, he asked me, "How many colours have I?'' I replied, "Seven, as many books say." Laughing, he smiled, "Seven? I have many more colours than you can see! I have more than primary and secondary colours!'' I had no idea what primary or secondary colours were. He dwelled on scientific theories and mathematics, which I didn't understand. But I was interested in what he thought about arts.
Once he said proudly, "When people look at me, they are amazed by my colours. Different colours give them different feelings. People have mixed feelings when they look at my numerous colours. I am a superstar having millions of fans. They praise me with such words as 'amazing', 'magnificent' and 'brilliant'". Had I not stopped him, he would have spent an hour praising himself. Having listened to what he said, I really wanted to know more about relationships between colours, feelings and arts.
Rainbowdon and I began talking about artists' ways of using colours in their paintings. Some think there are two types of colours - warm and cool. Red, orange and yellow are warm colours (暖色). Warm colours make people happy, excited or energetic. People may associate them with sunlight, fire and heat. Blue, green and light purple are cool colours (冷色). Unlike warm colours, they make people sad, calm or lonely and, when they see them, people may think of ice, the sky or the sea.
Rainbowdon and I did a test. I drew two similar pictures, and Rainbowdon painted them with warm and cool colours respectively. We showed them to different people and they responded differently. When they looked at the warm-coloured one, we saw their smiling faces. When they looked at the cool-coloured one, we saw their long faces and even tears from their eyes. I then understood artists' ways of choosing colours for their paintings. They choose them according to their pictures' moods.
At the meeting we just had this week, he showed me some interesting items. They were three cards. The first one was a circle formed with three colours - blue, red and yellow. Rainbowdon told me people called them primary colours (原色). The second card was a circle formed with six colours. Besides blue, red and yellow, there were purple, orange and green among them. Rainbowdon said purple, orange and green were secondary colours (二次色) and they were mixtures of certain primary colours. Blue when mixed with red becomes purple. Red when mixed with yellow becomes orange. Yellow when mixed with blue becomes green.
Then, Rainbowdon showed me the third card. It was a circle formed by many colours. Rainbowdon called these circles colour wheels (色輪). The colour wheels look like rainbows but are circular in shape. Rainbowdon claimed that the colour wheels were presents his fans had made. I stopped him because I knew colour wheels were tools that helped humans to understand colours. I saw them looking at colour wheels when they learned about colours in their art classes. At that moment, I wanted to tell Rainbowdon I knew what colour wheels were but he disappeared. Yeah, he always appears and disappears unpredictably. I hope I'll see him again soon.
■Travis Ying
•An artist, theatre stage designer, illustrator and registered teacher.
•He is interested in spotting arts in daily life and he cannot stop sketching at meetings.
•The creator of Chatties and Friends, a co-founder of Sparky Creative.
■Jeffrey Chan
•An artist, theatre director and English teacher.
•He is interested in breaking frames in his living, direction and teaching.
•A co-founder of Sparky Creative.
