How do you think color affects your mood or your child’s mood? I was always interested in learning how different colors within your environment can affect your mood and perspective. Once I started researching this particular topic, I began to think about how colors in picture books affect a child’s mood or perspective of the story they are reading.
How do you feel when reading a picture book with dark colors? How about a brighter more engaging one?
As a child and now as an adult, I am always attracted by bright and vibrant colors within a picture book. It captivates my attention and makes me feel happy. I wanted to review the basic color theory by Kandinsky and discuss how different colors can represent a particular feeling or mood. Wassily Kandinsky was a famous Russian painter and art theorist who developed the Color Theory in 1911.
Yellow – warm, exciting, happy
Green – peace, stillness, nature
Blue – peaceful, supernatural, deep
Red – restless, glowing, alive, confidence
Orange – radiant, serious, healthy, mix of red and yellow
Black – extinguished, grief, dark
White – harmony, silence, cleanliness
So what does the color theory have to do with The Monkey Balloon? I think a lot! When creating the story for The Monkey Balloon, Mindy, Yuki, and I wanted to use bright and colorful illustrations that would captivate a child’s attention without being over-stimulating. We wanted a book that uplifted a child’s spirits and sparked their imagination. Can color do this? I think so! With a combination of color and writing, a story with the right combination of colors can become a beautiful journey for a child. The Monkey Balloon has many colors, but its most prominent colors are blue, green, yellow and red which can help a child exhibit feelings of warmness, nature and being alive. The contrast of the silhouette of Mimi and Papi makes the colors even more vibrant. Why did we make Mimi a silhouette? Find out in our next blog post!
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