Tuesday, November 07, 2006

The Titanic (monotype): or what's the difference between purple and violet?

I've always wondered whether there is a difference between purple and violet. I finally looked into it, and not just by checking my box of crayons. Purple is a group of colors that includes violet, violet is more red, and purple is more blue. That's just generally speaking. I know you want all the amazing details you can get your hands on, so here's the Wikipedia page on the subject.

This image is a monotype of the Titanic. It looks different than my others because I used a buff-yellow printmaking paper instead of white, and a layer of white ink under the dark ink. And I admit, to go with the "purple" theme, I added just a hint of violet color (using Photoshop).

Sometimes I prefer my "quick-draws" to the drawings I spend a lot of time on, because I don't get caught up in unnecessary details. I stopped working on this after about 45 minutes, deciding it was okay as it was. A highly detailed version might have taken three or more hours.

2 comments:

Nancy said...

I hate reading the classic "Take me to the Zoo" (Look--now all his spots are blue!). Then you get to Violet spots! Say, you are good. Do more, do more! We wish you would!

I can get my kids to say all the colors except violet and it's hard to explain the difference. However, I shall use your site as a reference now on!

Nice pic btw. My grandfather was alive when the Titanic sank and used to tear up in conversation about it.

Planet Janet said...

Altarnator1 has corrected my error on purple vs. violet: "Purple is between violet and red, but Violet is between blue and red. (Thus cooler, more towards blue.
Websters dictionary calls violet reddish blue (meaning more blue than red.) This is the crayola color chart, the way we all learned our colors growing up. There is a plue violet and a violet, and I believe they are to the cool side of the purple range.

http://www.auterytech.com/enantiodromos/crayola.html"

Thanks, Altarnator1. Wikipedia confuses the heck out of me when it comes to their definitions of purple and violet. I swear they conflict. They do say that it depends on who's asking. A chromatician would say some colors between violet and red are called purple; some aren't, depending on whether they're spectral colors or mixtures of red and blue light!

So in the end, here's my conclusion:
It's kinda complicated.
Janet