A bit of Yellow therapy... my personality colour!

And what is your favourite colour? I want to tell you a bit about mine. For as long as I can remember my favourite colour has always been yellow. Most people who have a favourite colour wear that colour or have their houses full of it, like an orange dress, blue curtains or pink cushions or such. My love for Yellow is not like this for I own very few yellow things, it is a colour that I don't wear and I don't have objects, cushions or soft toys in this colour. So where does my love for this colour originate? I don't really know, but I think it shines from the inside, I must be yellow inside! I have discovered that yellow is what is called my 'personality colour'.

A few years ago I was ill for quite sometime and I felt the need to paint my studio yellow... a bright Primrose yellow, so that when I was sitting working at my desk I could feel the 'sun' on my back. This is the only time in my life that I have felt the need for my favourite colour and I am still happy with my choice and my yellow room!

I have had a stressful couple of weeks, lots of things have gone terribly wrong. I have lost almost all the files which contain all my designs and patterns. I have been working on for these for over two years. It made me really ill for a few days, I was incredulous and I also felt very stupid. I wondered if it was a sign for me to give up and go and do something else? 

Austria Center Vienna

However I am now picking up the pieces. I have decided to design new patterns. I think it is rather stupid to recreate the same designs (unless of course someone pays me a lot of money to do so). I am streamlining my production methods, before I left many designs unfinished, now I want to work everything through to the end and create a final collection or product with my designs so that nothing is wasted. In my depression I have been attracted to the colour yellow again maybe in the hope that it will give me the energy to carry on. 

Lucienne Day. Miscellany 1952

Luckily I have a Yellow board on Pinterest so that when I feel the need for a little yellow therapy I can just go and have a peek. The photographs featured in this post are just a few examples from my Yellow Pinterest board!

A fabulous yellow plate by Gemma Orkin

Below are a few interesting facts about the colour yellow.
Yellow Represents:
Mind and intellect: From a colour psychology perspective, yellow stimulates our mental faculties; it activates the left or analytical brain.
Happiness and fun: Yellow is uplifting to the spirits; yellow helps create enthusiasm for life and can awaken greater confidence and optimism.
Communication of New Ideas: Yellow is related to the expression and integration of new ideas and thoughts. 

Effects of Yellow:
Creative: The color of new ideas, yellow helps us find new ways of doing things.
Quick decisions: Yellow helps with clear thinking and quick decision-making but it can also be impulsive.
Anxiety producing: Yellow is fast moving so too much time in its presence can agitate and lead to nervousness and emotional instability.
Critical: Yellow makes people more mentally analytical and self critical of both themselves and others.
Non-emotional: Yellow relates to the head not the heart.
Choosing yellow as your favorite means you have a deep need for logical order in your everyday life and to be able to express your individuality by using your logical mind to inspire and create new ideas.

Danielle Kroll

To finish on a high note, I just did this 'quiz' I found on Facebook to define which colour best describes your personality and guess which colour came out... YELLOW, told you so!

 

Here it is... the PaperLove Blog Hop!

I just love, love, LOVE paper, it inspires me to experiment and subsequently I use it a lot in my work. My relationship with paper is not very sophisticated but of the 'cut and stick type' with a little bit of the 'obsessive hoarder' thrown in. Having a background as a Graphic Designer I adore the printed variety although this can be swayed with any kind of paper that may catch my eye for some reason. 
How can truly declare my love for this versatile material? Paper for me is definitely a visual and tactile thing... in fact instead of writing fancy words about my feelings for paper I'm just going to mess about with the stuff and see what happens! 
One thing which always amazes me about paper is it's strength, a contradiction when we see delicate things made out of paper or old documents which have survived the test of time. I also enjoy the way that with printed paper the content remains, recorded forever as if it is a concrete method of sealing a thing for life. This as where I am hoping to demonstrate my love for paper. I have a beloved collection of U&lc magazines. U&lc was a product created by Herb Lubalin and the International Typeface Corporation and was designed to advertise and launch new typefaces. The magazine was a great success and lasted from 1970 - 1999. Of my many personal copies I have a double issue of Volume 17/ N°2 from spring 1990. So I have decided to set myself a PaperLove brief... to reinvent the content by sacrificing one of these copies and to experiment with the 68 lovely newsprint paper pages.

My first experiment was to create a new format using the same content. By ripping up the original pages of the magazine I created 272 new pages and bound them up with string.

The second experiment, to reinvent the original information recorded inside the magazine. U&lc was primarily dedicated to launch new typefaces so I have designed a typeface using 'bits' of letters and other elements found in the original magazine. 

Thirdly, to use the paper to make a new item or design that is not related to the original form or function. I have begun to make paper rosettes from the torn pages they will be used to create patterns and textured backgrounds for other projects. My main occupation these days is creating patterns so I will use these rosettes to create new designs.
One thing which has become clear to me working through this creative process is that paper truly inspires me and I never know where I might end up when messing about with the beloved stuff. I do hope you have enjoyed my little rambling and experiment with paper. Continue to be inspired and delighted by paper by following the whole of the PaperLove Blog Hop which continues below.

The PaperLove Blog Hop is a celebration of all things paper! Follow the links to discover more bloggers who love paper and use it to inspire and delight. And if you want to explore a whole world of paper, and stretch your paper passion further with a host of creative projects, why not join the innovative new online course PaperLove (starts March 31). Led by book artist Rachel Hazell, PaperLove is a five week creative adventure for paper lovers. Find out more here.

Majo Bautista 

Tona Bell 

Louise Best 

Cathy Bluteau 

Jennifer Bomgardner 

Giova Brusa 

Lindsay Buck 

Beka Buckley 

Joanna Caskie 

Jonathan Chapman (Mr Yen) 

Halle Cisco 

Sarah Clare 

Cathryn Clarge 

Dawn Clarkson 

Rhiannon Connelly 

Jenny D'Fuego 

Molly Dhiman 

Ian Dudley 

Ayisatu Emore 

Akmal Farid 

Monika Forsberg 

Claire Fritz-Domeney 

Louise Gale 

Chrissy Gaskell 

Julie Hamilton 

Emma Hawman 

Rachel Hazell 

Holly Helgeson 

Claudine Hellmuth 

Kim Henkel 

Sarah Hoffman 

Joanne Hus 

Paula Joerling 

Beth Kempton 

Julie Kirk 

Eos Koch 

Katie LaClair 

Kristy Lankford 

Michelle Manolov 

Doreen Marts 

Rosie Martinez-Dekker 

Tori Mears 

Maria Mederios 

Lise Meijer 

Debbie Miller 

MaryJane Mitchell 

Suzy Naidoo 

Grace Noel 

Hannah Nunn 

Camilla Olsson 

Jo Packham 

Rachelle Panagarry 

Monette Pangan 

Melanie Paul  

Nicole Piar 

Jen Pitta 

Liz Plummer 

Julie Reed 

Michelle Reynolds 

Lisa Rivas 

Angee Robertson 

Natalie Ryan 

Aisling Ryan 

Elisabet Sapena 

Kyrrha Sevco 

Jamie Sprague 

Elizabeth Steele 

Terri Stephens 

Juniper Stokes 

Mary Tanana 

Maike Thoma 

Linda Tieu 

Gabrielle Treanor 

Tammy Tutterow 

Deborah Velasquez 

Jordan Vinograd Kim 

Cat Whipple 

Brooke Witt 

Katie Wood 

Amelia Woodbridge

 

PapeLove BlogHop - inspiration from my studio!

In my quest for paper inspiration for the PaperLove project and after scouring Pinterest for a couple of days I decided to spend some time in my studio and go through the wealth of 'papery' things that I hoard there. First of all I looked in the most obvious places like my set of drawers already organised to contain scraps of paper of every different type and colour imaginable. I chose some pieces that I particularly like, transparent tissue papers, lots of chocolate and sweet wrappers, envelopes and coloured paper bags. 

I then got out my fruit papers... you mean you don't collect fruit papers? well you better get started then. I have been saving them for years, I love the 'poor' graphics and patterns that you find on them and of course the crinkly fragile tissue paper. I also collect the graphics and illustrations found on fruit boxes, but that's yet another story and forces me to hoard bits of wood as well as paper :)

Just looking around my studio I found lots of evidence of paper experiments, paper rosettes, folded paper (I wouldn't call it real Origami) and cutouts, 60's wallpaper boarders which I keep for no particular reason, and cut and sew projects which incorporate magazine and newspaper cuttings.

I own many old books which I buy from car boots and second hand shops, often only bought for the cover design or the feel of the paper it is made from. Many foreign books are in this collection in languages that I will never understand.

I have an 'out of control' number of magazines of every different kind, literally piles of them and I have a feeling I will never throw them away. The only problem is this collection continues to grow. Some of my old magazines include numerous issues of the famous U&LC which was a large format magazine printed on newspaper. Many of the copies are now yellowed but they are fabulous just the same.

Finally I got out my sketchbooks which have many cut and paste paper patterns which I then elaborate by filling in with line work. I usually use this technique when I am designing Efuto envelopes to send off around the world to my surface pattern friends.

Basically I was amazed to find that my studio is jam packed full of paper in every size, form and condition. This proves to me my love and attraction for this humble material. I am pleased to say that whilst nosing around in my studio I came up with the idea for what will be my PaperLove project. So much for Pinterest… I had all the inspiration I needed at home in my study!
The PaperLove Blog Hop organised by Paperphilia will be going live on March 10th. Time to get down to creating some paperlove work for my blog post, see you then :)