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! 🙂

Feeling out Soft Winter…

I’ve been into seasonal color analysis for quite a long time and have run the gamut where it concerns how *I* lie in the seasonal color system. Lately, I’ve been dabbling in Soft Summer, particularly DEEP Soft Summer. My coloring in some respects seems to fit there; the muted, soft tones suit me because loud, vibrant, jarring ones tend to overwhelm all of my features.

I went at one point to one of these seasonal color forums, posted some photos of myself, too, but I didn’t come out with much help in that arena because the lighting on all of them was dramatically different. Some suggested to me I may be some kind of clear summer (no, clear is too bold for me…), but one did suggest a Winter type. I had an immediate, visceral reaction saying NO, NOT WINTER, because a Winter is supposed to be that girl that looks fabulous in stark black or white, and I’m neither.

Of course, I suppose that doesn’t always hold true to EVERYONE. Black and white on me are fairly horrid, I think, but I was told that while the black wasn’t The Best on me, it wasn’t TERRIBLE, either…which made me want to take a look at winter again.

I’ve been looking into the new-ish 16 season color system, as opposed to the 12, and I think I may have found my match in Soft Deep Winter. Before, I thought the best I could do is Soft Summer on the deep side, sticking to all the darker colors which suited me better than pastel.

The below is the ONLY image I’ve ever been able to find of a Soft DEEP Winter color palette. Unfortunately, it also shows EVERY OTHER palette, too.

So, in response to this HUGE file, I made the following, a nicely sized color palette JUST for Deep Winter SOFT:

In this palette I can see many similarities to the Soft/Deep Soft Summer palettes. However, I can also see that the colors tend toward slightly darker colors overall.

I’m definitely happy with the graphic. Regards whether this palette is suitable to me…the verdict’s still out. I’m happy with everything EXCEPT for the yellows, which usually are pretty horrid on me. We’ll see. More research today, as I’m able.