Laying Sci-art to Rest.

Well. Yesterday, I finally sat down and posted a whole bunch of real life drapings for the Figure My Season Facebook group, and the results were fairly well unanimous. What’s my MIT? Darkness and some warmth.

Ladies and gentleman, I’m Dark Autumn.

Which I kind of have been thinking for quite some time anyway, so!

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get myself a fan, and then I can start shopping for fabrics to make stuff with!

The funniest part about all of this is that I’ve always felt for sure that black is so bad on me. In fact, there was quite a lengthy discussion about the black and what it was doing to me. It turns out that everyone else thinks it’s really not so bad at all, and that I can handle that kind of darkness. Some even said they saw some skin clearing, too, though it was generally said that black is not The Best on me. A very dark almost-black or a softer black would undoubtedly be well. So how about that?

Burgundy was well liked, as well as, surprisingly, this medium sunny yellow. The yellow wasn’t perfect, but was nice on my skin. It did cast something of a shadow on the sides of my face, though, so the yellow color wasn’t just so, but there was something to like about it (so sayeth multiple people). I think it would do well were it a little browner and taken into the goldenrod territory. So now, I’ll be on the lookout for goldenrod-colored things as well! Pure white was an absolute, unanimous NO, which I guessed myself because I look very sickly in white. No one at all liked the charcoal gray, but I think if it were warmer (gunmetal?) I would like it a lot.

Dark brown, if warmed up some, was liked. I would like it too, but it’s so hard to find warmed up browns that aren’t TOO warm! The light browns/taupes were not well liked in general, because I needed more darkness than that. Cream was great, which is what I expected as I like it very well myself. The avocado green 2-in-1 was liked, though I saw some reflection under the chin, as well as the teal one. Which is awesome because I picked out both of those after having determined initially that I was Dark Autumn, and shopped them online using the palette (above) which I have saved on my computer! 🙂

It’s odd that almost all of the scarves I own are cooler, or at least far too cool for me. That was the general concensus: “This is far too cool, that is far too cool”…although there were a couple of instances where something was too warm, namely the rust/orange scarf I have. I’ve always kept those colors far away from my face, though, so no harm there. Up close both were dastardly, although I will say that all of the commentary about it was dead set against the orange. Which I knew all along. Orange is BAD on me. BAD. …AND the reason why I didn’t think for pretty much forever that I was an Autumn at all, because I could not wear orange well. Of course, I was imagining pumpkins and the like, which are for a True Warm Autumn. No, I am not that. I do have some neutral, too, and lean darker. But I’m told I ought to go a lot warmer than what I have been doing. Almost everyone commented on how they would like to see me in warmer recs, just to see what it would do. Alas, I don’t have much and draped literally everything I had to work with.

I was extremely gratified that everyone else saw that Brights were too bright for me. The true red was a definite no, as were the royal blue and the lime. Between the three it was easy to rule out Bright Winter and Bright Spring altogether. Which is good, because I hate both! I almost had a panic attack when I was doing the digital drapings in GIMP and was told by Buffy that she liked the Brights the best. That, I’m afraid, may have been a case of “I like the colors that look well on ME, not you”…just like I did when she was posting up what everyone else thought SHE was. I said I thought she was Dark Autumn. She turned out to be Bright Spring.

The teal paisley pashmina wasn’t entirely liked, however there WAS something about it to like. Going warmer was suggested, as it looked a touch too cool.

LOTS and LOTS of comments of this or that are ALMOST good, but a bit– or WAAAAAY!– too cool.

I need to work on my eye some to make sure I buy the right things.

Next order of business is to try and get myself a fan! If I can somehow manage to make one from this palette out of paint chips, I will SO do that! Otherwise, I’m afraid the palette strip will have to wait till tax time next year.

And to compare…

Not sure if this would be Dark or Soft Autumn. I’m inclined to trust the palette I made more than someone else’s. I’m going to check out a few more, too, like maybe even Dark Winter or Soft Summer, and see how the comparison goes.

Dark Winter (which at one time I thought yes to) seems like a definite nope!

This is VERY close…but I think it’s a smidgen too cool. The grays here are fabulous, and the 2nd Base is *almost* there, but I lose some of the greens which are so essential to my palette (since they’re my eye colors). So, hmmn.

Sci-art AHA! moment

I’ve been really struggling with sci-art and traditional color theory. I’ve posted photos with photoshopped drapes on facebook groups and got varying results and opinions from people. Some say Bright Winter (ha, no!) or Soft Autumn (sure, if you get rid of about half the colors…) and some have even claimed me for a Bright Spring (even more no!). A couple have suggested Dark/Deep Winter, and it felt kind of like the closest to what I could get.

For myself personally, I vacillate between Dark Winter and Soft Summer Deep, meaning that I want only the darkest of the Soft Summer colors, but I can take a little more contrast than Summer gives me. I think that when all things are said and done, Zyla’s Soft Winter type will be a good match. Why?

• Pale, sallow skin with dark hair and eyes equals a winter type.
• Winters, I’m told, tend to have pale, pale low-contrast lips unless they put some color on them.
• Bright colors and highly saturated colors overwhelm me. Think anything royal and I disappear.
• Light colors tend to wash me out.
• Colors with too much warmth (ie: yellows and oranges) make me look physically sick to my stomach.
• I cannot wear true black or true white (True Winter colors), but I can easily handle white slightly grayed and “old, faded black tee-shirt” black well.
• My skin likes darker, muted colors the most, ie: navy, burgundy, plum, forest green, charcoal. All of these are best when a touch of gray is added to desaturate them.

I saw an article today when reading on the 12Blueprints site: http://12blueprints.com/pam-is-a-dark-winter/

I can’t post the photos on here because of copyright, but you can click the link and see it just fine.

…and that was kind of my AHA! moment. My coloring is SOOOO similar to this girl’s. My hair and skin tones are almost exactly the same. The only difference is my eyes are mossy green hazel while hers are more straight brown. Still…this is as close as it gets in 12 seasons, I think.

I’m going to spend some time delving deeper into the Dark Winter category on Pinterest and the like now. I still suspect I’m a bit softer than Dark Winter, but I cannot confirm if I’m Soft Winter until I get Zyla’s book, which should be sometime between now and a couple weeks hence.

But yey! I almost kinda sorta figured some of this out.

Off to pin! 🙂