My three year old daughter and I are learning to see better.  Learning to see better probably sounds ridiculous unless you’ve done drawing classes.  And, even in drawing class, I thought, “I can see! That’s not the problem!  It’s my hand-eye coordination I need help with!”

Figure drawing – time allowed 2 hours

But learning to see better is also something you do if you are a color enthusiast (me)…or are visually impaired (my daughter).  It’s about learning to use your vision as best you can.  It’s about fine tuning HOW you see things.  It’s about noticing more.

At greater than arm’s length, my daughter cannot see details.  This is part of her vision impairment and can’t be fixed.  But other things she sees incredibly well.  Better than you or I, I’d argue.  Yes, a visually impaired person seeing BETTER than you or I.   And by seeing, I mean noticing.  

Look at this photo, below.  I’d pushed her into the store in a cart, she looked up and said, “Light’s not working.”  I had to look.  She’s right.  One of the rectangular areas is half lit.

She sees colors well too, and is captivated by those that are reflective. “What is it?” I asked as she refused to budge from outside this house.  ”Purple windows!” she said.  (They’re not really, it was just the sky and time of day.)

But while light captures her attention greatly, and she quickly notices irregularities in expected color or the pattern, she struggles to see other things that are obvious to a fully sighted person.  (Read Visual Expectations for a fuller explanation of her impairment and sight issues, if you like.)  With the help of Vision and Orientation and Mobility specialists, we are learning to help her navigate the world, and color plays a bigger role than you’d think.  She’s being taught to identify landmarks on regular routes: yellow signs at the bus stops and dark blue for mailboxes, for instance.

While she is physically learning to navigate the world (or at least our day-to-day world), I am, for pleasure, trying to improve my ability to navigate color in terms of achieving color harmony on the human body.  I have been analysed as a Dark Winter (DW) in the 12 Seasons approach. (See here for that post.)  And later I then went for a customized personal analysis with John Kitchener (JK).  (See here, here and here for those posts.)

It’s been a couple of months since seeing JK, and I’ve had time to try out the different colors between the two palettes.  There is a lot of overlap.  A lot.  Let’s start there.  Excluding the white dot, which I should have covered, these are the Dark Winter colors that match swatches JK included in my customized palette.  (But bear in mind, he never saw my DW palette.  He hand selected these, holding swatches up to my face and hand, choosing from a couple thousand colors.)

My ring finger is purposely covering a dark olive green that JK did not include. 

And  these colors, below, are most of the DW colors JK did not put in.  Can you see they don’t work with my skintone like those in the first picture?  Photography is tricky and compounded by our monitors varying, but I think I managed to capture this or else I wouldn’t be sharing.

Of the icy DW colors, I only have the purple in my JK swatchbook. 

Let’s look at me draped in, or in one case next to, some of these DW colors that JK did not include in my palette: the icy pink and yellow, the bright (for DW) pink, and the apple green.

My personal feeling is that the pinks are the worst on me.  I will add that when my DW fan arrived, I had immediate qualms about that yellow-green page.  But I thought I must just not know what works on me.  And the bright pink (again, relatively bright) was the dot that scared me the most.  I actually went and bought that little planner in the color to see if I could acclimatize to it, thinking maybe it was a psychological aversion.  Nope.

He also didn’t include the dark olive green.  I had bought a purse in that color, using my DW fan.  I thought that color was ok – not a color I’d worn before, but I was eager to have “new” colors.

I don’t think it looks terrible or even overtly bad.  But then, well, let’s look at me wearing an example of one of my “calm/eye” (as JK calls them) colors in a coat.  This golden brown is nowhere close to being in the DW palette.  It’s True Autumn territory, but, undeniably, it works.

These are my eye/calm colors. I’m supposed to wear them in refined textures like silk and velvet. They range from True to Deep Autumn.

Go back and look at the full length photo of me.  Compared to the coat, the dark olive purse color feels heavy and dull, doesn’t it?

Let’s move through the rainbow now…

My JK reds stretch into True Winter red and include a True Spring coral. That latter was the only color that truly surprised me in my palette.  Yet, here it is, followed by a comparison of my DW and JK reds, and me in True Winter red.  (Edited to add: I’ll replace this pic with one that’s not over exposed asap!)

And here’s a close up of the True Spring palette overlying my JK coral. You can see it matches – and my DW coral does not.

My JK yellows and a handful of the greens are more subdued than those in my DW palette, though at first glance they seem very similar.  The yellows don’t seem to match a different Season better, they’re just less saturated.  There is an icy grey green in my JK palette too, which seems to have the icy component of DW but using a Soft Summer green as the base color.

My lightest blue goes dusky in my JK palette. See that bottom blue print? It’s not clear in feel like the DW lighter blues.  I don’t have those DW blues in my JK palette. I have yet to find that lightest of my JK blues in clothing, but comparing it to other fans, below,  it seems Dark Autumn has the closest color (bottom right fan), then True summer (fan on top).

My purples, like my greens, go lighter, stretching into Summer. I wanted to include a photo of me in the dusky periwinkle (bottom left JK swatch above), but it came out too blue – it’s bluer above, than it is in real life too.  It is just beautiful on, and I’d categorize it as an iced Light Summer color.

As for neutrals, JK gave me antique or oyster white, not a soft white of DW. And my JK palette includes a medium and dark brown.

So where does this leave me in my quest to navigate the world of Personal Color Analysis?

I think that the 12 Seasons approach is amazing in that it’s a SYSTEM that works incredibly well for many, many people.  It has taught me so much about harmonious color palettes.  BUT like any system, there are imperfections.  I would definitely be better off with my DW fan than without any color analysis.  But I’d rather have my JK colors over it.

I appreciate that JK’s approach is not limited by anything but what color works – firstly with the skin and secondarily with the eyes and (natural) hair color.  I am a DW in the 12 Seasons system, yes, but are those my best colors? Well, yes, if we’re only considering the 11 other seasonal palettes.

When you draw, you have to get into a zone, like an athlete would.  No words in your brain, just seeing, feeling, responding.  JK works fast, selecting swatches and deciding yes or no.  Even the swatches he puts back are very, very close to the ends of your range of a hue.  He’s in that zone, seeing the color next to his client’s face and hand and responding.  Like an athlete or an artist, he’s trained for hours to be able to do this on demand, going through many, many colors in any consultation. He’s a color pro, for sure.

Gesture drawing – time allowed 2 minutes

I’m realizing that to navigate the world of color harmony on humans, part of what I need to do is be able to enter that quiet place of JUST SEEING.  Color analysis doesn’t need, as JK demonstrates, to include drapes.  It can be done with small swatches near the person’s face and hand.  And I wonder if this isn’t easier: to see the gestalt, and not get distracted by details of shadows under the chin or eyes.  I can’t say for certain, of course, this is just my thinking thus far.  It probably says as much about how I work best as it does about any approach to color analysis.

I’m also convinced that to really create your most harmonious effect with a 12 Season palette, you need to use it to develop your understanding of color harmony.  Which colors in your seasonal palette are your best?  Which don’t work as well?  (There shouldn’t be that many because it’s a good system!)  What if you tweak these less good colors?  Lighter, darker, brighter, less bright?  Should some simply be discarded?  And, also, which colors from other palettes have you seen work on you?  Learn what you should look like – in your best colors, then create your refined 12 Season palette.  I don’t think this is easily done, by any means.  No, I think you should go see an expert, like JK if you can!  I am just saying that this, in my opinion, would be the ideal refinement of a 12 Seasons fan.

JK doesn’t keep client records with photos of the individual’s face and hand and the colors in their swatch books.  I wish he did and his database was open for study!  I’d want to look at the clients who straddled seasons more than I do (because there are plenty of these people, I know), and study their coloring, then evaluate the 12 Season philosophy with that knowledge, because I trust JK’s eye/swatch choices.

I’d also love to have a whole bunch of DWs (or any season) go see JK to see if the 12 Seasons system could be further refined, but still be a system.  For instance, do darker skinned DWs get icy colors in their palette?  Do more autumnal DWs get the true DW olive and apple and cooler DWs not?

Could 12 Season trained analysts add eye color to a client’s color recommendations? I am so grateful I know mine and want those who have 12 Seasons fans to know theirs.  But this, in my opinion, seems almost the hardest selection for JK to do.  I could be entirely wrong…but I’d have never guessed my eye colors went so golden.  These are my musings as I learn to navigate color.

Meanwhile, Peaches is learning to NOT focus on color or lights, but to scan.

This was the first toy she showed any affection for – and knowing what we do now about her vision it makes total sense.

Last week we went to our local playground with her Vision and Orientation and Mobility specialists for a mock Easter egg hunt.  All the treasures were “hidden” in full view, on the play structure that is no wider than fifteen feet.  Another little girl at the park ran over to see what was in the goodies, investigating each one.  Peaches did not see anything out of the ordinary.  She was relying on her visual memory.  ”Look down. No. By your foot. Is there a toy?” the specialist would say.  Peaches would look down at her shoe, seeing nothing special. “By your other foot,” the specialist would urge.

At the end of our time playing the “game”, Peaches had improved, looking down at the ground or on ledges for toys.  She learned what her goal was, and focused as well as a three year old can.

I wonder, is she, too, entering the zone to see better?  And, seeing light and color “more” than the rest of us, would color analysis come more easily to her?

She is quite the sidewalk chalk artist.

I’ll keep writing as I learn more about color analysis and investigate other systems and approaches.  Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially from others who have 12 Season and JK swatchbooks.

Do comment below and share your thoughts!