Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Glad Color




It's been awhile since I posted about early influences, the last times being here, here, and here.

But I had this early influence aha! moment in the garden yesterday...
I found some gladiola bulbs on sale in the spring, and the package color showed fuschia and lime green flowers. Ooooh, yes. I bought them, thankyou, and popped them into the ground on the edge of the vegetable garden.

But what has erupted are these bodacious YELLOW and PURPLE blooms. I was a bit disappointed at first, but then that purple looked so appealing, so friendly, so familiar, like the concord grape jelly that I used to help my grandmother make...(I can still see that particular shade of purple oozing through the bulbous bag of white cheesecloth hanging over her kitchen sink...)
Or like...
Like....
(Like what? What did that purple remind me of?? Then it came to me! Yes! Of course!!!)
Color Kitten Purple!
And I do believe that complimentary yellow glad is Color Kitten Yellow...
Ahhhhh, The Color Kittens!!! Yes, indeedy, one of my most beloved early influences.
What are some of yours?

2 comments:

Polly Jones said...

Wow, The Color Kittens was my favorite also! I had never thought of it as an influence on my work before but after your post I realize it is definitely swimming around in my sub-conscious. I was fortunate a couple of years ago to see an exhibit at the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature in Abilene, Tx. It had original Golden Book illustrations, so vibrant and incredible! They had one from The Color Kittens.

Dean Grey said...

Clearly it was before my time because I've never heard of The Color Kittens until now!

My biggest influences were obviously comic books and 80's cartoons while growing up as a child.

-Dean