The Visual Language Of Color Analysis Part 2: The Exotic Winter

Beauty follows form and in the case of Personal Color Analysis, we work from the premise that everyone is unique and when your outward appearance reflects this “core” essence the more you look like yourself.

Here is a young, Exotic Winter type who knows who she is. And yet, some of her palette colors expand her beyond who she is right now. When she is older she will appreciate the deeper Related Reds I gave her. Although she is more attracted to the Cadmium Reds. She’s a pageant queen and as such is often sporting a spray tan that is darker and warmer than her actual peach skin tones ( Geranium Lake pigment based peach). The lighter and neutral to warm quality of her actual skin is very striking with her bronze – yellow green – brown eyes and warm black hair. She is sleek, controlled and contained. Being in the presence of an Exotic Winter is a very different experience than the Iridescent Summer that preceded her.

I loved working with Bianca, because of her serenity and air of certainty. Unusual for her young age of 21, but not unusual for the winter type. I chose this secondary triadic composition for her because it had an exotic feel to it and I elt she needed the richer, deeper selection of hues.
Sometimes the visual journey isn’t about what you see, but about what your thinking. The creation of this palette is an example of that. It took many statements ( as we say in drawing classes) to “find” her with my true eyes and not my brain.

Here is a quote from Gurdjieff that reminds me of this color analysis journey I had with Bianca. He understood that beauty follows form, but, we can’t always know whether we’re being true to ourselves because of conditioning.

“It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality. Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is “not his own”. “Not his own” means what has come from outside, what he has learned or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation – all this is “not his own”, all this is personality.”

G.I. Gurdjieff – In Search of the Miraculous

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