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Let’s get cheerful
The focus of this blog post brings us all the way back to our early school days, learning about primary colors. The never-ending bottles of red, blue, and yellow paints left nothing to be desired. We learned what happens when you mix all three colors together (gross, murky brown) but also learned that each individual primary color lends itself to so many different colors. Yellow + red = orange, yellow + blue = green, and so on.
Because of this, yellow is extremely important to our foundational color education. When thinking about the different seasons through the lens of color analysis, we know that there is a huge spectrum of warm to cool hues that we must consider. When you add yellow to a color, you are bringing in warmth in the form of pure sunshine.
Pure warmth
When you look at traditionally cooler colors, like the blues, purples/violets, and greens you find on the Winter and Summer color palettes, you will not find much evidence of yellow in their formulas.
Alternatively, when you look at those colors in the Autumn and Spring palettes, you will see that their blues, purples, and greens have an extraordinary amount of yellow! This takes away from their “pure, cool state” and provides the kind of warmth that makes the colors appear to be less sharp.
Yellow for Summers
As with our last post on Oranges For Each Season and since yellow is such a warm color, Summers and Winters each only have one in their palette. Summers have primrose, which is a very soft, pale yellow that reminds us of vanilla ice cream. The softness of this color plays well with the muted quality of Summer coloring. Anything brighter or more intense would be overwhelming.
Yellow for Winters
Winters have in their palette a bold, acid yellow. This color actually looks like it is borderline green. The green tones you see actually add a depth of coolness while still being extremely bright so that it is appropriate for this cooler-hued season. If you were to put Summer’s primrose on a Winter gal, it would cause her skin to look splotchy and washed out, since it is so light, soft, and muted.
On the other hand…
Springs and Autumns have a whole slew of yellow shades to choose from. In keeping with the qualities of their respective palettes, Spring yellows are brighter and clearer while Autumn yellows are deeper and cozier. They relate to the actual seasons quite well, making it easy to remember the characteristics of these colors.
Yellows for Spring
In the Spring palette, you’ll find that there are many examples of light yellow tones that are magically both bright and soft. These yellows remind us of actual springtime rays of sunshine, Easter bunnies, and fresh, floral blooms. There are also brighter, zesty yellows that have more of a punch.
Yellows for Autumn
Autumns have in their palette the deepest and richest of all yellows. These shades go into spicy gold and can even start to look a bit murky as you can see in mustard and burnished gold. They equate perfectly with everything we love about the changing leaves of fall. While Autumn has a couple of brighter shades in its palette, it does not have the lighter shades as seen in the Spring palette.
Understanding the seasons
If you’ve been keeping up with each post in this series, you’ll have a pretty good idea by now of the qualities of each season, and how that affects their palettes. If you are new here, welcome! We would encourage you to go back and review these posts so you have a great foundation for our color exploration.
Virtual Color Analysis
If you don’t know your season yet, never fear! There is a really great service we offer called Color Analysis, where we drape you in all sorts of fabulous color drapes to determine what your season and sub-season is. If you’re not located near Pittsburgh, however, we are gearing up to offer Virtual Color Analysis, which entails taking a series of photos of your glorious face, and analyzing the tones in your hair, skin, eyes, and lips, to determine the details of your coloring.
While we are super excited to offer this service, it is worth saying that NOTHING compares to having your colors done in person, but we feel strongly that services like this should be more accessible. If you’re curious to know more about this service, feel free to reach out to us and we would be happy to provide you with all the information.
