On Harmony: The ancient architects used the Sacred Ratio (F = 1.618) to construct the Pyramids, Parthenon, Chartres, and Notre Dame Cathedral because they discovered that this ratio of height to width is pleasing to the eye. Leonardo's divine proportion in human figures and plants is a further extension of Sacred Ratio as found in nature. Just as there is harmony of form, so there is harmony of color. In Creative Color (1961), Faber Birren notes that "The eye delights in simple and clear-cut colors, forms and sequences, Things which are vague, uncertain or 'in between' will be disturbing and appear unattractive. Vision seems to want order and neatness and to be disturbed until good balance and proportion are evident." However, Birren warns us not to get bogged down by rules of color harmony, otherwise we'll become mechanical and lose touch with our artistic spirit of adventure and discovery.

Project: To paint one picture using a monochromatic color, limiting ourselves to 3-4 values. Hence the color (hue) could be lightened (tinted with white), darkened (shaded with black), neutralized (diluted with gray or its complement opposite hue). The same picture could be painted using other color harmony combinations such as analogous, complement, split complement, dyad, triad, tetrad, or trapezoid (I've chosen this instead of even values).

Color Symbolism: I was inspired by the simplicity of Claude Bragdon's poem "The point, the line, the surface, the sphere— in the seed, stem, leaf, and fruit appear." Using Adobe Illustrator 3.2, I drew a seed, from which grew a stem, four leaves, and a fruit. I chose the orange as the fruit because in China and Japan, orange is the fruit of the timeless tree, bringer of good fortune & immortality. In Christian art, orange is an attribute of Virgin Mary. It is a celestial fruit, symbolic of feminine principle, generosity, infinity, and perfection. In color symbology, orange represents the red of passion tempered by the yellow of wisdom. Buddha chose orange as his color for the monk's robe because it was formerly worn by condemned criminals. Perhaps, he did this to remind us that we are likewise locked up in the finitude of our ego-self, and only when we experience the beatitude of our infinite Cosmic-Self are we truly free. I'm reminded by Aristotle's Metaphysics (1072b): "In the beginning is not the seed, but the perfect", and decided to place my orange seed in the center of the sun. Since the sun is made of hydrogen (atomic number 1), and Oneness symbolizes perfection, we may consider the path of the seed to stem to leaf to fruit [point (0-dimension) to line (1-dimension) to surface (2-dimension) to sphere (3-dimensions)] as the way of wisdom. While becoming (growing) takes place in time, Being is here-&-now in eternity. The orange & the sun are one— both a circle of life.

Method of Drawing: Using the Pen-Tool in Adobe Illustrator, I drew the seed, stem, leaves, veins, and quadrant of the sun. The orange (1" diameter) was drawn with the Oval-Tool (press shift key for circle). The Scale-Tool was used to create a smaller orange (0.1" diameter) 10% size of the original. The Transformation-Tool was used to create an 100-step gradient blend from the small circle (fill: 5% tint orange, stroke: 5% orange, wt. 0.02 pt) to large circle (fill: 100% tint orange, stroke: 100% orange, wt. 2 pt.). When the small circle is placed at the upper left quadrant of the large circle, this blend creates a sphere that appears 3-dimensional. The left side of the orange seems to bask in light while the right side seems to be in shadow. A 24-step blend was performed on the seed where the brighter inner core (10% tint) becomes darker going to its outer shell (100% tint). This was done to symbolize the invisible inner spirit which grows more dense as it becomes manifest in the visible physical world.

Method of Coloring: Using the Paint Dialog Box in Adobe Illustrator, each item of the drawing may be filled & stroked with % of process color CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black). Different values (brightness) were used for the seed, stem, leaves, & fruit. Since I wish to show a 3-D orange, the 100-blend from small to large circle contains 102 different values from light to dark. The typographic font for the poem was Novarese Bold Italic (dark fill) with drop shadow (light fill). It was laborious to enter different CMYK %'s for each item in the Monochromatic, Complement, Analogous drawings, so I switched to Pantone colors for the Split-Complement, Dyad, Triad, Tetrad, & Trapezoid drawings. The Pantone Color Formula Guide 747XR shows 3 tints & 3 shades for each hue from which the % tint & % shade may be calculated. The Pantone Process Color Imaging Guide (CMYK Edition) was used to obtain the CMYK equivalents of these Pantone colors. Using these two guides in tandem, one can obtain most tints & shades of any hue by typing a Pantone # in the fill & stroke box under Custom Color, and paint efficiently.

Monochromatic: (Orange, Tints & Dilution with Cyan)— Staying within one hue on the color wheel
Analogous: (Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow)— Three hues adjacent to each other on the color wheel (favorite)
Complement: (Orange & Cyan with Tints)— Two hues opposite from each other on the color wheel
Split Complement: (Orange— Blue Violet & Blue-Green)— Hues forming isosceles triangle on the color wheel
Dyad: (Yellow-Orange / Blue Violet & Red-Orange / Blue-Green)— Hues forming a rectangle on the color wheel
Triad: (Orange, Violet, Green)— Hues forming an equilateral triangle on the color wheel
Tetrad: (Orange, Yellow-Green, Cyan, Red-Violet)— Hues forming a square on the color wheel
Trapezoid: (Orange, Yellow-Orange, Blue-Green, Violet)— Two adjacent hues & two opposing ones
    found to the right & left of their complements on the color wheel

Method of Printing: The two Adobe Illustrator EPS files "Seed-Orange" (659K) containing Monochromatic, Analogous, Complement, & Split Complement drawings on one 8.5"x11" sheet & "Seed-Dyad" (687K) containing Dyad, Triad, Tetrad, & Trapezoid drawings on another sheet were brought to Peninsula Blueprint, Inc. (1400 West Middlefield Rd, Mountain View). Two color copies were printed at 400x400 dpi from floppy disk on a Canon CLC500 Color Laser Copier + Efi Fiery Color Printing System @ $9 each. The PMS colors came out much darker on the Fiery than it appeared on the Macintosh Centris 660AV Computer Monitor Screen (softer pastel colors).