Charts and color

One of my favorite things to do when I get a new set of watercolors is to make a chart that tells me what the colors look like and how they mix with each other. A quick Google search will tell me that I am not alone in this endeavor.

But what I didn’t realize, was the many different ways of classifying color. For example, have you ever heard of a salmon fan? A color scale that reveals the level of carotenoid in a particular piece of fish. Apparently they were made so that salmon farms were able to color their salmon closer to those found in the wild. So that wild salmon may not be wild after all!

Please notice the Pantone matched colors. I could recreate this if I was so inspired. And while I am not inspired to do that, I was inspired to create a carotenoid color spectrum in response to a recent collaborative project. I received an accordion book in the mail entitled WHY. The first image was that of a salmon–I am to do the second and then to send it onto someone else. And after some drawing and image research I discovered the salmon fan and decided to examine what else is colored by carotenoid. It all stemmed from the question, Why are flamingos pink? And here’s what I made: