Like A Rainbow

We all learned from childhood that when you use all the crayons, it comes out black. So, most people assume black was the combination of all colors and white was the absence of all colors, since the paper was white before it was colored. All evidence to the contrary. And the teachers should have explained this back then, to keep this misinformation from lasting as long as it did.

The color spectrum originated from, and is based on, light. No, not the light on your desk or hanging from your ceiling. That’s artificial light. More on that later, for enlightenment purposes only and mostly for those working indoors, predominantly the office environment.

Light is the combination of all colors. Each color has a specific frequency, like radio waves, that travel through our atmosphere. This is why the sky appears blue. I know what you’re thinking; where did that come from? For some reason that only expert scientists know, but I understand in a limited capacity, is that our atmosphere, for all the things it does and is responsible for, most notably, giving us the ability to breathe, and I’m certainly thankful for, is made up of certain properties which allow it to do what it does best, among other things, but for our issue at hand, is that only the lowest frequency is able to pass through. Each frequency is represented by a different color. The lowest frequency is blue, thus the blue sky.

Back to light. You need proof? Look at the title. The rainbow itself. A fantastic illusion of light, created by a mixture of warm and cold fronts, clouds, fog, and smog, for what it’s worth, and any number of chemical gases rising from the earth, natural, and/or manmade. (Don’t ask where the pot-of-gold urban legend came from. I don’t have a clue. Google it.) Case in point: ever notice that when you see a rainbow, it is always at a distance? Never overhead. So, basically, you can never find or go to the end of the rainbow.

The term ‘rainbow’ has evolved and transcended it’s original meaning to that of something, anything, containing or possessing all of the primary and intermediate (secondary) colors. Another example uses a different element, yet achieves the same effect. Oil and water. Yeah, yeah, they don’t mix. I was born during the day, but not yesterday. Who hasn’t seen beside the curb or in a driveway, a rainbow in the puddle. It isn’t just water you’re looking at. That’s water and oil. It isn’t a rainbow in the rainbow sense, such as the one you see as a half-arc in the sky, but a mixture of the same colors. That puddle mixture creates a swirl of these colors. But oil and water? Oil is black and water is clear. The answer is light. The colors appear only when shed upon by light. If it’s foggy, nada. Nighttime? Uh, no.

The standard 8-piece crayon box is a masterpiece of modern science. It goes in order from primary to secondary to the next primary, with each secondary being the combination of the preceding primary and the next primary. What?? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black, brown purple. Red and orange becomes yellow. Yellow and blue becomes green. Blue and back to red becomes purple. Unfortunately, just like science, there is always a flaw, a discrepancy, that is never realized or understood, and left in as an extra. And written off. In this case, the two remaining colors are brown and black. (This may be why martial arts levels follow the same scheme, but because brown and black are out of order, and unrelated to any of the other colors, are place last in the curriculum. Ever notice that all of the belt systems start with white, proceed from the lightest to the darkest, and end in black?)

Back to the basic crayon set of 8. Why is black represented and not white? Because the page is white. Duh. The problem is, where the hell did brown come from. It can’t be a result of a combination of black and white, proportionately speaking. That would be various shades of silver and gray. As gross as it may sound, research on its origination very well may have started with…uh, shit. It doesn’t get any browner than that. And natural, too. Ecchh. (I’d hate to be the scientist doing research on that.)

I have a theory, though, that may shed some light, if it doesn’t explain it outright, but you can’t hold me to it. Going on the basis of colors changing based on the percentage of the mixture, combined with light, and the interpretation by our vision, which is an important factor I might add, brown is a combination of black and orange. Say what? Hear me out. I have a shirt that is black and orange. Yup. A simple shirt. But it’s not the shirt colors that are the key here, but the pattern involved. The shirt is primarily black, with tiny one-millimeter-wide orange diamonds. Up close, it’s black with little orange diamonds. But from afar, and at a passing glance, the shirt appears brown. See? This is where vision, or actually, the illusive aspect involved in the visionary interpretation of the color, gives the impression of a color other than what it actually is. Because of the pattern, the eye unconsciously blends the orange spots with the black background, resulting in the appearance of…brown.

I noticed it first while shopping and it caught my eye. Hey, brown. No wait. Looking closer, little orange diamonds on a black background. Did I just discover the color combination of brown? Even though there’s some scientific evidence that did so decades or centuries ago, that I had yet to be educated on? Hey, it is possible to discover something that’s already been discovered, if you have never seen or experienced it before. So, I decided to put it to the test. The test had to be under the same, or very similar, circumstances, as I had discovered it. By chance, with outside variables as a distraction. Up close and paying attention would not have worked. This research was based on the illusionary aspect.

For a two week period, I asked individuals, friends and strangers, in passing, off the cuff, and/or changing the subject during an extended conversation, to gauge a snap response, eliminating the possibility of an opportunity for a closer look, thus defeating the purpose of the desired effect and confirming the data as empirical, bringing the result of brown closer to fact rather than speculation, or that of an illusion. Nine times out of ten, the response was brown. Cooool.

So, light represents white, and is the combination of all colors and black is the absence of all colors, as in space. Or night. After all, if you can’t see, everything is black. Which makes me wonder? Why do people sweat over what color to paint the bedroom? If the primary use for the bedroom is sleep and sex (more sleep than sex, btw), then the color is a moot point. The light is out and the darkness is black!

Let’s delve briefly into the spectrum, in general. All colors, as infinite as it may seem, are combinations of the primary three; red, yellow and blue. Although if you’ve ever worked in a copy center, the colors are actually magenta, yellow and cyan. It could be these are the true colors, with a modicum of yellow added to magenta to get red, and the same amount of yellow added to cyan to get blue. Who knows. But this is how the color copier works. The colors I mentioned, magenta, yellow and cyan, are the colors of the toner. The machine then mixes to achieve a specific color as it is translated to paper. You can actually bring up the percentage configuration on the panel screen. Throws a huge monkey wrench into it all, doesn’t?

What it comes down to, basically, is ratios. 1:1 color ratio examples: red + yellow = orange, yellow + blue = green, red + blue = purple. How about 2:1 ratios: 2 red + 1 blue = violet, while 1 red + 2 blue = purple. Here’s some other examples of multiple ratios: 2 blue + 1 green = aqua but 1 blue + 2 green yields turquoise.

Society certainly has advanced in their color combination descriptions these days as they are attributed to the colors of fruits, vegetables and flowers. And why not?! They’re the most colorful things on the planet. And natural, too.

Carrot (red + orange), tangerine (orange + yellow), peach (orange + white), salmon (orange + pink), etc. How many other colors can you come up with that have orange in it? How about each of the other colors? Even variations of our black sheep color, brown: beige, tan, sand. Someone was thinking creatively by putting a positive spin on brown. What do they call it now? Earth tones. Niiice.