The Influence of Background Colors

I recently uploaded the designs for Emotional Spectrum and Happy Camper framed prints. I like these a lot after receiving a rolled print in a tube that was so tight, I feared nicking it to get it to lie flat.

One of my favorite prints is of Einstein, by the painter Frank Szaz. It has lived in the same plexiglass frame for more than 40 years and the colors still hold true, so I recommend this combination for prints of my work.  

After posting the Emotional Spectrum and Happy Camper designs, five each, with different background colors, I noticed how those colors influenced the feeling of the drawings, and actually altered the perception of the colors within the drawings. White makes the colors a little darker, perhaps feeling a little calmer.  Teal, makes them pop.  Gray tones it down, perfect for a study or entertainment room.  Or at least that’s one way of looking at it.

I have used art as a means to explore psychology and spirituality for decades, usually through paint.  To see the drawings shift mood, influenced by background colors, validated the title of another scribble — With our thoughts we create our whirled.

In an article about children’s book illustrators, AA Milne (Pooh), Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends), Dr Seuss, and Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are, are described as not liking children.  Even so, Sendak is credited with many fond memories of children and is quoted as saying,  "Often, I am trying to draw the way children feel—or, rather, the way I imagine they feel. It’s the way I know I felt as a child. And all I have to go on is what I know—not only about my childhood then, but about the child I was as he exists now." (1) 

What appear as cartoons and childish drawings are actually a complex form of expression for the illustrator, drawn in contrast to or from their own “background colors” — the way they were raised, the choices they made, things that “happened”, what created their “whirled”. I know that is what brought about all of the current collections for me.

I mention all this to suggest that you too may find yourself drawn to, or pushing back on, a particular color combination anywhere in my shop. I believe that could be telling you something, about validation — and letting go.

Even if you don’t settle on any choices today, I hope you take the time to notice how the work here influences, affects, and hopefully uplifts you in the moment.  While we all have influential colors in our background, the designs are intended to help us remember what works.

Thanks for visiting,

Pic;)

What’s the gift?  This post offers a one-time 10% discount storewide.  

Use BACK10 at checkout.

(1) Weinberg, Jonathan, Wild Things Are Happening: The Art of Maurice Sendak. New York: DelMonico Books, 2022, p. 229.