Inspired by these two articles (here and here) on the artistry and vision of Josef Albers, I have created 20 color studies that I want to briefly share with you. Albers’ own color studies are stunning and visceral, made with physical medium. My digital studies are vibrant in their own way. Keep reading to learn the inspiration behind my various compositions.

1. Make four colors from three

This is my take on the classic Albers exercise to create four colors (to the eye) from just three colors in reality. These three squares each feature three colors although, hopefully, there should be a subtle difference in color when looking at the middle “scrap” of color, creating the illusion of four colors.

2. Inspired by Fruit

For this grouping, I let fruit be my muses. I found images online and sampled my color groupings from real photos of fruit, in particular what a cross-section or cut piece of fruit would look like. I feel that these combinations were the most harmonious — nature knows what she’s doing.

3. Inspired by Land, Sea, and Sky

For this trio, I was inspired by the world around me. One insight I gained from creating these squares was the effect of light on dark vs. dark on light. For example, in the land square on the far left, the innermost square seems smaller compared to the innermost square of the sea composition next to it, even though they’re the exact same size. I believe this effect is caused by the lighter square “absorbing” light from the darker square behind it. I sampled colors for the sky composition on the far right from a photo of the sky with clouds and I think it’s the most balanced square in this trio. Another reminder to look to nature for organic color combinations in my design work.

4. Inspired by Food Brands

Continuing with my food theme, I thought it would be interesting to see if popular brands could be recognized just by their color combinations? Are their brand colors distinctive enough to be recognized without accompanying typography or graphics? I’ll list the company names at the end of my post just in case you want to guess :)

5. Inspired by Taxonomy

Honestly, not sure where this idea came from but I went with it. This trio is inspired by three out of the four (five?) kingdoms we have on Planet Earth: fungi, plantae, and animalia. For the fungi and plantae kingdoms, I sampled colors from photos of woodland fungi and the Denver Botanic Gardens, respectively. For the animalia kingdom, there were too many options to sample colors from so I chose my top two favorite animals (beluga whales and pink pigs!) and sampled my skin color for the middle square since humans are a part of the animalia kingdom.

6. Inspired by Bob Ross Paintings

I couldn’t wrap up a color study like this without creating a trio inspired by one of my art heroes! I chose three paintings from Season 28 of The Joy of Painting (thanks to this website) and created studies based on them. I chose one winter mountain scene, one forest waterfall scene, and one warm fall scene for inspiration. I feel that the middle square is interesting because in reality, that innermost blue is quite dark, as is the blue square behind it, but layered the way that they are, the innermost square seems lighter. I saw this in the actual painting, where that blue really “popped” in the painting but was very dark when I actually sampled it. The last square reminds me of a peanut butter candy :)

This was a difficult exercise to complete despite the simplicity of layered squares of color. I enjoyed being inspired by nature for organic color combinations as well as finding inspiration from random topics such as taxonomy and classification. I would consider this to be a valuable exercise when working on a new design project to organize color combinations and maintain “open eyes,” as Albers would call it, to the world around me in a unique way.

*Food company squares, from left and across: Taco Bell, Domino’s Pizza, Whole Foods, and Dunkin’ Donuts