We continue with the article. Before I move on with it, I want to talk with you about color. The next part of the article we’ll be talking about different colors. I want to give you some detailed information regarding color that you might know about.

You know that each color has different colors within it to create the color. There are three colors that you can always count on being there. They are blue, pink, or gold and you call them undertones. One of the three colors will always be a part of the mix of colors to recreate what you are looking at. If you do not see it quickly, it’s okay. You have to be trained to see it and I’ll show you how in a few minutes.

Since we are going to be talking about red, I want to tell the difference between reds. A tomato red has gold in it. It does not go with the other reds. A tomato red needs to stand on it’s own. If you aren’t sure that you have a tomato red. Take the different colors out in the sun and if you find your eyes jumping between tomato red and a burgundy or a lemon yellow. You will see it yourself.

A lemon or a banana is a good measuring stick to use in finding out if you can gold in a color. The fruits will let you know immediately if you should put the colors together. After a few minutes, do you find yourself wanting to look away? Or does the tomato just stand out? How would you feel if the tomato was larger or matched the size of pink?

This is what happens when you put colors together with the wrong undertones. You can use blue and pink with gold. They are colors that stand alone. We know them as Periwinkle blue and peach. Remember this as we talk about colors.

Before I leave, let me tell you the secret on how to tell if a color has the undertone of gold or blue and pink. I like to wear a silver or white gold ring and a yellow gold ring on my hands. I try to do this in sunlight. If you place the two rings on a color and you find the yellow gold ring stands out, then you know it has blue and pink undertones in it. If the silver jumps out, then it mean you have gold undertones in the color.

If you find your eye jumping between the two colors, then you know that the two colors have both gold, blue, or pink as part of the mix. I hope this helps you.

Now, let’s go back to the article.
“If colors exert such a powerful force on mental and physical health, it behooves us to know more about them. Here is a spectrum of colorful facts.
RED – THE EXCITER
The red family includes everything from maroon to crimson to pink (although pink-red mixed with white seems to have properties all its own). Several years ago, Robert Gerard, then a doctor candidate at the University of California, Los Angles (UCLA), studied the physiological reactions of people in a colored room, measuring blood pressure, respiration rate, heartbeat, muscle activity, eye blinks, and brain waves. The rate of activity in all these indicators went up in a red room. Brain-wave activity, which showed an immediate response, stayed high for more than 10 minutes. People who were already anxious found red even more disturbing than those who were previously calm. When the same people went into a blue room, all the physical indicators went down.”

If you are using red in your room, it works well in a room that is normally cooler than the rest of the house. As you can see above, people will feel warmer in a room that is normally colder than the rest of the house.

My daughter has a room in her home where it always stays colder than than the rest of the house. The room has a lot of floor to ceiling windows and it gets very little direct sunlight. The walls are a dark blood red, which means it has a blue undertone to it. The floors are wood and it works great in this room.

Once a group of our friends stayed in condos at a resort. One of the condos had red walls, red carpet, and drapes. Everyone staying in that condo kept coming over to ours, complaining that they wanted to choke everyone in the condo. They would come to ours to calm down and eventually return after a couple of hours angry and frustrated. It didn’t make sense to them. After I learned this, it made a lot of sense to me.

Here is a little more information that I found in other books regarding red:

“The lens of the eye has to adjust to focus the red light wavelengths; their natural focal point lies behind the retina. Thus, red is literally a come-hither color. It advances, making red objects seem nearer than they really are. A bossy color, it grabs the attention and overrules all surrounding colors. The way it says, ‘Here I am!’ makes it stand out in a crowd—whether as a party dress, an official’s red cap, or a package on a supermarket shelf. Its consciousness and power to command makes it the obvious safety color you’ll find in stop signs and traffic lights.
The attributes of red are almost all superlatives. Red has the longest wavelength and lowest energy of all the visible lights. It is thought to be the first color perceived by babies or by any person long exposed to light, the first hue to re-intrude on awakening sense. This physical phenomenon is reflected in language where it is among the oldest color names, the first to appear after distinctions between light and dark. Of the warm colors, it is the hottest and nearest in wavelength to infrared, which actually produces the sensation of heat. It is the fastest-moving color in terms of catching the eye, and has the greatest emotional impact. Red sits at the top of the rainbow.
Red shift refers to the change in the frequency of waves of sound or light, which occurs when the source and receiver are in motion relative to one another. It is most often experienced in the sound of passing sirens. When the source and the receiver are approaching each other, just as sound becomes higher pitched, light becomes bluer. It becomes redder when source and observer are moving apart.”

Next time, we will talk about pink. It’s a big color.