Tutorial 100 - The Color Blue

Keywords: Calm, Serenity, Spirituality, Truth, Loyalty, Vastness, Sadness, Loneliness, Cold, Chilling, Authoritarian. 

The most beloved color blue has numerous connotations, both positive and negative. In it’s positive light, it is associated with calm and serenity, spirituality, truth, loyalty, and expansiveness. But blue also implies sadness and loneliness, and can be used to convey the cold, melancholia, and the authoritarian.

One of the things that makes the color blue so interesting is the vast differences in reaction that different hues of blue elicit…and there are so many different hues of blue. Think of the different effects of cobalt blue, ultramarine, turquoise, robin’s egg blue. Keep in mind that adding green makes blues lighter and warmer, while adding violet has a darker and cooler effect. Darker blues are considered more masculine, while lighter tones appear more feminine.   

The darker blues, like navy blue, are considered ultra masculine and corporate. They are associated with success, authoritarianism, and power. We see these dark blues in the uniforms of authority figures like police and naval officers, and the suits of businessmen and bankers. 

In nature, blue is the color of the ocean, the sky, and mountains as they recede into the distance. It is the very color of our planet. For this reason, we associate blue with expansiveness, vastness, oblivion. 

Middle Eastern cultures have long used the color blue to ward off the evil eye (bad luck), painting graves and buildings blue like the sky to confuse and ward off evil. 

In color therapy, blue is used for its calming effect. Known to decrease blood pressure in some, it generates feelings of serenity and stillness, cool and calm. Other types of blue can have a chilling effect, and feel sad or cold. We use blue as a language to describe sadness, as in singing the blues, or feeling blue and even attribute a whole musical genre "The Blues" to the name.

Blue has been said to facilitate spiritual introspection and contemplation. It is interesting to note that blue has such a variety of significance in different cultures around the world.

Optically, blue appears to recede when placed next to other colors. This makes it ideal for rendering atmospheric perspective.