My plane has just landed in Kansas City. It’s a quick trip from Chicago, just long enough to watch a couple episodes of the Dick Van Dyke show. Once I’ve landed I make my way to the rental car plaza to pick up my car, this time it’s a bright red Toyota Matrix that I will call Morpheus.

I zoom onto the expressway, past fields of cattle towards downtown. Within twenty minutes I arrive at my destination. A brightly lit oasis in the middle of a former industrial block on McGee Street. Welcome to Christopher Elbow Chocolates. Forget everything you think you know about chocolate, open the door and open your mind.

The first thing that strikes you is the explosion of color and the elegant modern design. Then you see the display case, an assortment of colors and patterns akin to an aerial photo of Mardi Gras.

The assortment of seasonal flavors that Mr. Elbow assembles are the true labors of an alchemist. From the Caramel with Fleur de Sel to the Champagne [made with Möet & Chandon] each flavor is masterfully balanced. Prefer a more liquid delivery to your Utopian taste experience? Try a devilishly decadent cup of drinking chocolate. Not to be confused with hot chocolate, this European delicacy is rich and filling and demands to be sipped. Before you get to the cashier [the equally bright and sweet, Rachel], be sure to grab a bar of No. 6 Dark Rocks from the back wall. It’s a 61% dark chocolate bar infused with Pop Rocks.

I recommend sharing your Christopher Elbow chocolates with friends or family, cut them into pieces and share the experience. After all chocolate, like good whiskey, is best when shared.

This summer Mr. Elbow launched a second “gift” to the good people of Kansas city. Glacé is an artesian ice cream parlor, offering the same high quality epicurean taste experience as his chocolate shop. Glacé, offers ice cream and sorbet flavors ranging from the creamy and sweet Goat Cheese & Wildflower Honey, to Boulevard Brewery Bob’s 47, a flavor using Kansas’ own Boulevard beer. My personal favorite is Salted Pretzel, but the description of that should be a blog post in itself.

Once my weekend in the Crown City has drawn to an end, Morpheus and I will be headed back to the airport. I’ll be back here in late September and I’ll stop into Christopher Elbow’s again to try the new fall flavors. Can I bring anything back for you?

By: Chris Hoffman

For more information visit: www.ElbowChocolates.com / www.GlaceIceCream.com

Helene’s Florist, oil on canvas, 1971

Richard Estes is a photorealist painter who studied at the Chicago Institute of Art. His paintings generally represent colorful city images capturing layers of reflective surfaces and glass. These are the kind of paintings you can sit and stare at for hours. He captures the slices of color and the depth of glass perfectly; a second of life in a busy city frozen in time.

By: Chris Hoffman

Click Here to see more images by Richard Estes.

Central Savings, oil on canvas, 1975

Phone Booths, oil on canvas, 1968

Phone Booths, lithograph on paper, 1970

Grand Luncheonette New York City 1960s, oil on canvas, 1969

Food City, oil on masonite, 1967

Jone’s Diner, oil on masonite, 1979

If you’ve been around the blog this month, you know that I have written before about looking for color in your everyday life. I’ve encouraged you to explore routine situations and environments with new eyes using photography. If that didn’t work for you I think videography might do the trick. Especially if the video uses a quarter of a million brightly colored Super Balls bouncing down a San Francisco street.

The creative people over at Sony Bravia teamed up with Fallon London and created this ad that is sure to make you celebrate color. All it took was a little imagination and 250,000 familiar objects.

For more images and video from the making of this ad check here and here.

By: Elissa Braun

Everywhere I look now I see those familiar muted colors and earth tones. Imagery flooded with warmth that wraps around you like an almost forgotten, pleasant memory. These vintage color palettes have become incredibly popular and people just can’t seem to get enough of them, myself included. However, it begs the question, “Why is it that at a time when technology allows for such vibrant and crisp imagery, do we go out of our way to make them appear outdated—with limited colors and aged tones?”

Color palettes and image quality are, for the most part, always at the mercy of the most current technology. Now, we are fortunate enough to have the resources in order to make almost anything possible. Digital cameras allow us to view our photographs immediately, so that we can weed out any imperfections on the spot. Programs such as Photoshop allow for such awe-inspiring manipulation and mastery of our images that sometimes it’s easy to believe that the possibilities are limitless. You can create something purely from your imagination or just improve upon what is already there. It’s remarkable.

But even with our advanced equipment, we still crave the imagery that was once so limited.  We have a need to recreate the imperfections where there otherwise were none—longing for the random and unpredictable. Above all else though, we seek out that which is difficult to replicate. One-of-a-kind.

That is why we find ourselves being drawn to warmer colors and imagery. Just saying the word “warm” evokes emotion, even if it’s just at a subconscious level. The reddish-brown, orange, and yellow colors bring with them feelings of comfort, contentment, and joy. Mix those up with subdued, “washed-out” looking imagery and you’ll find yourself swept up in nostalgia. It’s a feeling that people thrive off of; that sense of a unique and special moment in our lives, one we cannot fully bring back. They seem to occur in some former time and place, where we were certain beyond all doubt that we were happy—content. We were home, and we wanted that moment to last forever.

By: Bryan Heredia

An old dive master once told me,
Going to the sea and not going underwater
is like going to the circus and not going into the tent.

I’ve come across many of these little wonders while diving. It’s breathtaking to swim to a rock on the deep dark ocean floor and encounter some of these vivid colors. These shocking self illuminating tones don’t exist above the surface, even these photos don’t do justice… but they’ll give you an idea.

View more images here & here. See them for yourself, visit PADI.

 

All Photos: David Doubilet

By: Chris Hoffman

What’s your favorite color?

Before you answer, you may want to consider what the renowned, Swiss psychotherapist Max Lüscher would say about it.  He created the Lüscher Color Test which measures a person’s mental and physical state based on his or her color preferences.  The test uses 8 colored and numbered cards — blue, gray, magenta, green, black, brown, yellow and red — in which you are to select the order in which they appeal to you, starting with the one you like most. The test is then repeated and your “pairings” are then tabulated into a formula for measuring your psychophysical self.

Some examples of what descriptors represent a specified color: blue — passive, sensitive, perceptive; yellow — eccentric, active, aspiring; green — perseverance, tenacity, pride. Anyone interested in color and psychology should get a copy of this book and read the first few chapters. I suggest taking the online test and then reading the interpretations from the book as the online version is limited. The science and psychology surrounding the colors is quite a fascinating read with deep roots into nature.  What Lüscher is trying to achieve with his test is for you to see color separately from other considerations in your life — not what shirt looks best with your favorite shoes or what drapes would go best with the sofa and rug. To see color as just that, a single, non-involved entity — alone with no one around to shape its being.

I have a copy of this book from 1969 and the color cards are so off the mark from their actual color that my readings online and from the book differ immensely.  Which got me to thinking… the blue in the book and online were one of the last colors I selected because the sample provided was a bit on the garish side for me.  But if the blue would have been Pantone 285 or 299 it might have been higher on my list.  So does this make people who think of color as a PMS book full of options inadequate subjects for this color test?  Well, lo and behold out there some where, Dr. Lüscher has a “full” test with hues and shades… if anyone knows where I can get a copy, let me know!

If you would like to take an online version of this test, please visit:
http://www.kahome.co.uk/cgi-bin/lschr.pl

By: Andrea Colón

Red + Blue = Purple. It seems like such a simple concept. You’ve been taught it from a young age. You learned the color wheel at school and maybe even applied that knowledge later in life when painting your own home. Color relationships are common knowledge today, but did you ever stop to think about the person that invented the color sphere? Thanks to a link and image from our friend Georgie, one of our sketchbook participants, you can learn all about it. Below is a time line outlining the development of the color sphere by Philipp Otto Runge, a Romantic German painter.

1807: Philipp Otto Runge develops the concept of the color sphere. His goal was to show the complete realm of colors, using only the mixture of the three primary colors (red, blue, yellow). Runge saw the three colors as a “simple symbol of the Holy Trinity” and black and white as “light is goodness, and darkness is evil.” His idea was to expand the hue existing circle into a sphere, with white and black forming the two opposing poles.

1808: Runge intensified his work on color, including making disk color mixture experiments. Runge was concerned with the “construction of the proportion of all mixtures of the colours with each other, and their complete affinity.”

1809: Runge completed work on the manuscript of Farben-Kugel (Color sphere).

1810: The manuscript of Farben-Kugel is published in Hamburg, Germany. It included a description of the color sphere, an illustrated essay on rules of color harmony, an essay on color in nature, a hand-colored plate showing two different views of the surface of the sphere as well as horizontal and vertical slices showing the organization of its interior (like the image above). Runge passed away later that year, after falling ill with tuberculosis. He was 33 years old.

We’ve come far in the world of color theory in the last 200 years, but Philliip Otto Runge definitely got artists off to a great start.

Source: Wikipedia

Much like type, color is all around us and we often take it for granted. Every now and then though, the sun shining through dark ominous clouds or the hues of a blooming Spring will stop us in our tracks. But more often then not we just carry on without a second glance. Passing the same scenery, landscapes and landmarks daily, it can be difficult to find color inspiration in the places that we call home.

I’m guilty of of this color negligence as well. I’ve fallen into ‘color ruts’ in the past and have found that daydreaming through photography is one of the quickest ways to get in a colorful mindset. I especially admire photographers that use everyday objects, color palettes and places and present them in ways that make you look twice. Pictures that make me ‘want to go to there,’ Liz Lemon style, are some of my favorites.

One person that I can always count on for a burst of color and imagination is Elena Kalis, a photographer who spends her days on a small island in the Bahamas. Despite the geographic difference between the Bahamas and the Midwest, Elena’s photographs have a theme that resonates with everyone: water. If you’ve read my bio on the faucethead site you know that my greatest ambition is to breathe underwater and Elena’s photographs give me a chance to do just that.

Other than giving me an opportunity to live out my childhood fantasies, Elena’s photos are also an excellent source of color inspiration (it is color month after all). Perusing her website, I am continually amazed by the hues she pulls from the ocean, the subject and the overall composition. When I’ve hit a metaphorical ‘color wall’ in the past, I have used her images as a jumping point for color palettes, like the one above. As I opened the images and took a closer look I was amazed by the multitude of tones one little photo could hide.

While the waters of the Bahamas are a little bit clearer than the Fox River out my window, Elena’s work has helped me to see the beauty and color of the everyday.

By: Elissa Braun
Photography by Elena Kalis

Also, today kicks off Color Month on the faucethead blog. We will explore color palettes, mood boards, vibrant colors and maybe even a few ugly colors [though we'll keep that to a minimum]. We’ll also introduce some fun useless facts, for instance… did you know there are currently 120 different colors offered by Crayola^®?

By: Chris Hoffman