How Colors Speak to My Son

[GHA]

I recently asked my son — who is also an artist — a simple question:

“How do you see colors, and what sense do they make to you?”

He said:
“I think instinctively when I think of colors. It begins as an abstraction of thoughts, which then weave themselves into blurry images. From the hues within those images, I visualize colors. Most of the time, those colors are the symmetry of chaotic thoughts—sometimes intense, often broken or ruptured. But even those ruptured colors have voices, and those voices converge to create a space that is not my creation, but a manifestation of experiences or unresolved patterns. Those unresolved patterns are the colors for me.

While the use of colors depends on the abstract images in my mind, I’m drawn to the intensity of shades like orange, red, and yellow. They amplify my thoughts to a point where the unresolved becomes more visible, and the space of the canvas transforms into an ethereal stage.”

For him, both art and writing are more than hobbies — they’re therapeutic spaces where he can unwind and recharge after work, letting his mind move freely through color, form, and language.

 

[Outdated]

I never understood art.

I was a printer and one of the best colour matchers you'll ever meet. I understood colour from a technical point of view and was also a very good judge of how people's perception of a colour is affected by other colours surrounding it but I'm not in any way emotionally affected by those colours.

To me if it's ugly and expensive then it's probably art.

I understand the writing though, that's something I've done most of my life as a form of therapy.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I can visualize color...like if I am considering a change in paint color in a room I can go to the paint store and pick out the exact color I want...I don't need to test a bunch of paint swatches. Drives my wife nuts because she can't do that and needs a dozen paint swatches to bring home.

However, what your son is experiencing is pretty cool. I don't have that ability. Color is just color...red is just red...it doesn't associate itself with any deeper meaning.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

I never understood art.

I was a printer and one of the best colour matchers you'll ever meet. I understood colour from a technical point of view and was also a very good judge of how people's perception of a colour is affected by other colours surrounding it but I'm not in any way emotionally affected by those colours.

To me if it's ugly and expensive then it's probably art.

I understand the writing though, that's something I've done most of my life as a form of therapy.

I have never understood all the talk about artwork such as paintings speaking or being a means of self expression. To me, art is a technical skill. It is being able to accurately portray something with literal accurate details (including things like accurately angled shadowing or minute texture details that make the painting look realistic). I don't understand the point behind things like random color splotches.

 

[Outdated]

I have never understood all the talk about artwork such as paintings speaking or being a means of self expression. To me, art is a technical skill. It is being able to accurately portray something with literal accurate details (including things like accurately angled shadowing or minute texture details that make the painting look realistic). I don't understand the point behind things like random color splotches.

I agree totally, I love photographic art. People pay millions for a Van Gogh but I wouldn't hang one in my home even if it was given to me.

 

[GHA]

I have never understood all the talk about artwork such as paintings speaking or being a means of self expression. To me, art is a technical skill. It is being able to accurately portray something with literal accurate details (including things like accurately angled shadowing or minute texture details that make the painting look realistic). I don't understand the point behind things like random color splotches.

I can see where you’re coming from — there’s definitely an incredible skill in creating hyper-realistic work with perfect details, textures, and light. That’s a mastery in itself.

But for many artists, especially in the contemporary world, art is less about replicating reality and more about communicating something within — a mood, a thought, a pattern of experience that can’t always be put into words. The “random” color splotches you mentioned might look arbitrary at first, but for the artist, they can be the visual language of an idea, a memory, or even a sensory perception unique to them.

Realism speaks to the eye. Expressionism often speaks to the inner world. Both have value — they just reach us in different ways.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

I wonder if that difference affects my results on personality tests some times. When they ask if I see the value in art, I think (I like doing photography, especially macro photography and calligraphy as well so I guess that should be agree). However, if I end up getting a type that is supposed to be artistic, I start reading the description and thinking "WHAT! Nooo? Paintings don't speak to me."
My calligraphy is a skill of making the letters accurately and in a way that looks nice and legible while perhaps a tad fancy as well. My photography can be for a memory, or because something like a flower was pretty but perhaps most frequently it is a way of capturing minute details that aren't readily visible via use of a macro lense. The macro lense is like an improvement on the magnifying glass that I would crawl around the yard with "sciencing" things as I would call it. Crawling around "sciencing" with my magnifying glass is among my earliest memories from early childhood.

 

[Outdated]

My sister was very art oriented and in her early teens she got in to oil painting. She was really good too but everything was very realistic, very little representational. She was also much smarter than me socially. Both of us were always very social but she never seemed to make the same mistakes that I always did. We had very different natures too, I was generally a lot more passive than her where as she was always very quick to hit people. She was also OCD where as I'm happy to live like a pig.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

I get a bit confused between descriptions of thinkers vs feelers. One time I think I must be a thinking type because I analyze things so much, like learning, doing experiments, ECT. Then I will think that I can not be because I care if someone gets hurt and I cried when like a pet died or something. So then I decide I must be a feeling type until I start hearing about how feeling types have their various means of self expression that just don't make any logical sense to my mind and cycle back. This cycle just goes round and round.

 

[GHA]

My sister was very art oriented and in her early teens she got in to oil painting. She was really good too but everything was very realistic, very little representational. She was also much smarter than me socially. Both of us were always very social but she never seemed to make the same mistakes that I always did. We had very different natures too, I was generally a lot more passive than her where as she was always very quick to hit people. She was also OCD where as I'm happy to live like a pig.

That’s interesting — it really shows how different personalities and temperaments shape the way we approach art, even in the same family. Your sister’s focus on realism makes sense if she had a more precise, detail-oriented nature, while representational or abstract work often draws from a different type of processing — one that’s more interpretive or expressive.

It’s fascinating how art styles can mirror not just skill sets but also personality traits, life approach, and even how we interact socially. And I suppose that’s where the idea of art as “expression” comes in — for some, the satisfaction is in precision and accuracy; for others, it’s in using shapes, colors, and forms to communicate something that words or realism can’t quite capture.

 

[GHA]

That’s interesting — it really shows how different personalities and temperaments shape the way we approach art, even in the same family. Your sister’s focus on realism makes sense if she had a more precise, detail-oriented nature, while representational or abstract work often draws from a different type of processing — one that’s more interpretive or expressive.

It’s fascinating how art styles can mirror not just skill sets but also personality traits, life approach, and even how we interact socially. And I suppose that’s where the idea of art as “expression” comes in — for some, the satisfaction is in precision and accuracy; for others, it’s in using shapes, colors, and forms to communicate something that words or realism can’t quite capture.

This post was never about colour or art— it’s about how unresolved patterns and experiences find their own voice in our minds…

 

[GHA]

This post was never about colour or art— it’s about how unresolved patterns and experiences find their own voice in our minds…

**“When I asked my son (who is also an artist) how he experiences colours, his answer had little to do with pigments or palettes. For him, colours don’t start as visual things at all — they emerge from abstract thoughts that take shape as blurred images in his mind. Often, those colours are born from unresolved patterns and experiences — fragments of memory, emotion, or meaning that seem to give the colours their own voice.
In his words, some colours ‘amplify my thoughts to a level where the unresolved becomes more visible, and the canvas becomes an ethereal stage.’ For him, the act of creating art isn’t simply about choosing colours — it’s about allowing the subconscious to speak in its own language.”**

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

This post was never about colour or art— it’s about how unresolved patterns and experiences find their own voice in our minds…

I'm not sure what that means.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I don't understand the point behind things like random color splotches.

AGREED! I have exactly the same opinion I had as a child about "abstract art". Waste of time and materials.

 

[Misery]

To me if it's ugly and expensive then it's probably art.

Yeah this is usually how I see it.

Most things people label as "high art" just look like gibberish to me in some cases, ugly as a turd in others. And some are stupid on a level I have trouble processing.

Or there's others where it's like... they arent ugly or anything, but I clearly dont "get" it. Like the Mona Lisa for instance. It's not ugly, but it's also like... just a portrait? I dont get it. I could stare at it all day and understand nothing about what makes it famous.

Just... yeah, I cant understand any of that on a deeper level or anything. Seems to confuse people I interact with at times. When I show someone some stupid thing I made I've often heard questions along the lines of "what is the meaning behind it?" and it's like... there is no meaning. I mangled a bunch of shapes because why the heck not. Particularly with the fractals. It's a bloody fractal, how could it have any meaning?

I've lost track of where I was going with this.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

@Misery I got asked what a flower I had picked and stuck in a hat that I was wearing meant. I literally just thought it was pretty.

 

[Aspychata]

@GHA , as usual, we tend to go off on tangents when discussing things because our minds are quickly pulled in a million ways. But your son's observations re: color are fascinating.

 

[Judge]

Seriously, shades of teal (exclusively) have always given me those "warm and fuzzy" feelings.

Though I have utterly no idea why. Go figure.