SMILE...It's All About Yellow

There are no Daffodils blooming in my neck of front yards.  By now in years past, a small patch of the yellow daffy dills have popped through a tangle of ivy that surrounds an oak tree in our front yard.  They have dilly dallied around too long to show off their Daffodil Yellow as this months 'Color of the Month'.  No matter...I have Yellow Pottery.

As you may or may not know, yellow is one of the three primary colors.  For color theorist that means you must have yellow already on your palette before you can make a secondary color like green or orange.  Those you get when adding blue or red to yellow.  Yes, it's a very important color in the Grand Scheme of the Color Wheel no matter how you spin it.  I can guess what your next question is....how do you make Yellow?

Ceramic glaze artists/chemist go straight to Mother Earth for making yellow with minerals and oxides like feldspar, dolomite, zinc oxide, iron oxide and bentonite...just to mention a few.

Glazing history is quite interesting...if you are interested in that sort of thing.  If not, then the following may glaze over your eyeballs...just skip it...and move on to the psychological aspects of yellow.  That will either snap you out of it or put you in a haze.

Interesting to me is the first recorded piece of glazed pottery because it is called 'Sue Ware'.  Made during the Kofun period of Japan, it was not yellow but a greenish color resulting from the natural ash...a by product of burning wood.  Over time, ceramics became objects of art as well as function with hand painted under and over glazing techniques.  The ancient countries of Islam made significant contributions to ceramics with the development of stoneware and high fire glazes.  Okay, enough history....even my eyeballs are glazing over.

In the natural world, yellow is the color of sunflowers and daffodils...you know, the ones that are dilly dallying this month. Mother nature's yellow is also found in egg yolks, lemons, canaries, bees and butterflies.

Then there are man made yellows like Sponge Bob, happy faces, caution signs and more.  I'll expand just a bit on the more since it is a biggie in my world of Fiber.  Yellow fabrics are not generally speaking a primary focus fabric in most Fabric Stashes or items made from fabric like quilts and clothing.

It is more a 'Zinger' color!  Used to brighten, intensify and highlight other colors or designs.  It is however, one of the most useful colors...just in small doses.

Yellow is the color of happiness, optimism, enlightenment, creativity, sunshine and spring.  And, although, there is a dark side of yellow, we are  not going there in this post.  We  are definitely staying on the enlightenment, creative and healthy side of yellow.  Yep, we all have a built in yellow that relates to our health, so drink lots of water and eat your squash! 

Oh, and SMILE!