What is the color of Uranus?

Through the use of satellites the public has been able put a images and color to the planets in our solar system. NASA has launched many satellites and with them have captured photographs of all nine planets. These photographs have been the defining images of the planets so from this research we are able to know more about the other planets in our solar system.
Mercury has a very similar look to Earth's moon. It has a grey rocky surface and does not appear to have any sort of color in its atmosphere.
Venus has thick clouds that block any satellite to get a look at the planets surface. These sulfuric acid clouds are yellowish in color mixed with some lighter hues of yellow as well as some white. Due to the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere the air and the surface of Venus has a reddish brown color. But scientists say if the atmosphere could be removed the planet would look more neutral grey.
Mars an arid planet that has a reddish brown color due to iron build up in the surface. Due to Mars's atmosphere that creates strong winds the surface dust is moved around making the whole planet have more of a red hue.
Jupiter's swirling colors comes from the multiple gases it is made up of. Orange and white are the prominent colors in the planets atmosphere and they are created by ammonia and ammonium hydrosulfide.
Saturn's is also made up of hydrogen and helium gases like Jupiter, however, small amounts sulfur give the planet a yellows look. The haziness that is noticable with Saturn is attributed to the addition of nitrogen and oxygen gases mixing with hydrogen.
Uranus is the least massive of the giant planets. Like the other giants its atmospheric make up is helium and hydrogen gasses. The planet appears as a pale cyan and the edges lower in value. Uranus is probably one of my favorite planets due to its pale blue color.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/astronomy/q0264.shtml

I smell spring

I have always been fascinated with the changing of seasons. Every year it happens but one of the biggest noticeable changes is the transformation of leaves. I did some research on how this transformation works, and why. Although researchers have been studying leaves and their color changes for a long time there is still not a full understanding of the process. Scientists have agreed on some of the factors that affect the leaves change, some being, leaf pigment, type of tree, weather, and the length of night.
In creating autumn colors there are three pigments that trees use to create what we see the fall season.
1. Chlorophyll- green
2. Carotenoids- yellow, orange, and brown
3. Anthocyanins- red, and purple

Plants and trees use chlorophyll to capture sunlight and use that sunlight for photosynthesis. During growing season/Spring there is more sunlight and that abundance of chlorophyll is what makes the plants so green. Once plants start getting less light during the day the chlorophyll content recedes and the other pigments become more evident. All trees have different characteristics and each one has certain colors that its leaves change to each fall.

Oak- red and brown
Dogwood- purplish red
Red maple- bright scarlet
Black maple- bright yellow
Aspen- golden yellow
Birch- golden yellow


http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fs/colors/colors.htm

We had a choice

There were a few people in my class that already learned many of the color techniques being taught. Bart, Paulette, Sharon, and myself all went to the professor and proposed different ideas for more alternative activities for learning the different aspects of color. After she read over our ideas the four of us voted one what we wanted to do most. Sharon's idea of painting everyone in the three different color schemes won the vote. The first area our group decided on was to use the color red for the three different areas. Once our group sat and divided who would do what we decided on the materials we would need to acquire for our activity. Bart was assigned analogous colors of red, I was assigned

monochromatic colors of red, and Sharon and Paulette were assigned complementary colors of red. We painted Bart first and because analogous do not have to be painted in in sort of order we decided to paint Bart with random shapes and in random places over his upper body. Sharon and Paulette were painted next and each one of them had one half of the scale on their arms. One of the creative parts of complementary painting was that when Sharon and Paulette put their fists together the scale flows from arm to arm. Sharon and Paulette planned out a pattern on my back. The basic shapes of my ribs and spine were painted in monochromatic colors of red. Bart and I documented all of the painting and final product by taking pictures and Sharon and Paulette wrote a statement about our activity. All four of us we painted by the end of class presented ourselves to our professor. After that we presented our activity to the class. Bart, Sharon, Paulette, and I all enjoyed working together on this project. Each one of us was painted and each took part in painting. The four of us worked well together in creating an interesting spin on the traditional color schemes. 

MONO+COMP+ANALOGOUS

Similar to the color wheel this color mixing project involved good craft. It involed a clean finished product. I enjoy the feeling of having a beautiful finish piece no matter how annoying or time consuming the activity might be. When I first sat and started the color mixing project I was thinking about how unimportant it was for me to paint these rectangles. Once I finished the first row (monochromatic), I found that I was becoming much faster at mixing the colors. Once I was able to get the colors faster painting did not become such a dreadful task. It took some time but after working with the medium for a while I was able to enjoy the assignment more. I was happy with my end result. There was a great improvements in my color mixing after completing the activity.

Color Wheel!!!!

I was able to finish the primary colors of my color wheel in class. The color wheel is a classic way to get to know and understand color, but because it is such a common start to understanding color I found this assignment boring. I have made many other color wheels in my art career and painting another one was monotonous.The one thing I did like about creating this color wheel though was its precise lines and the emphasis on the perfect gradation of color. All the color wheels I have made in the past have been a simple, quick attempt and this is the first that I truly tried to make the perfect color. I am a bit of a perfectionist and this structure for the assignment appealed to me greatly.The type of color wheel that our class painted is called Munsell color system. This system deals with hue, value, and color purity. Hue is another name for pure color. A hue does not have any tint or shade to change its appearance. Value is where a color sits on the scale of light and dark. Color purity is the saturation of the color. These three elements make up the Munsell color wheel. Again, I have painted color wheels before so the generel assignment was lack luster, but the way it was carried out was a better way to teach basic color.

Learning Color

Color means more to me than it did before college. I like color now. 

I took an oil painting class last year and that 6 week class opened the world of color for me. Ever since I took that class I have seen color in a different way. I notice color more frequently in my day to day life. When I first started to go to museums and was interested in paintings and the technique, I found that I was loving color more and more. All the paintings I saw had such interesting combinations of color, and because I have been a photographer for a couple of years now, there was a time where I ignored color, due to my love of black and white photographs. 

Once I started learning art history in first semester of college I realized the vast world of color, and how necessary color can be in art. College has exposed me to new colors and a new way of thinking about color. I feel like I am learning how color works with paint, light, and everyday items. Through this class(Visual Concepts), I have learned to mix colors and to experiment with the combination of them. Through some minor design work, studying color photographs, and being exposed to more art I have developed a greater understanding of color. 

Color Context

Color changes the way we perceive objects. Corporate companies know this and use it to their advantage. A couple examples: the color red is used to catch attention (stop signs, bike reflectors) and the color green is used to represent calmness, nature, healthy things. 

The picture to the left shows Johnson's baby lotion. The bottle was made pink probably because the company wanted to portray a feeling of softness and comfort. Pink also reminds me of baby items due to its strong reference in girl baby clothing. Companies think of all these things when creating a product and deciding its color. 

In the second picture each gift card has different colors that have been assigned to a company. Each company has chosen colors that would best represent its motive. The cards shown are cell phone minute cards. Most cell phone companies have chosen bright colors to catch the attention of their customers. Repeating colors are also used to get customers to relate those colors with that company. 

Color has everything to do with product design and is an important part of how we as customers perceive things.