'Auras'

'Colour In Art' by John Gage is an interesting book, hard going at times but pretty insightful. The part that caught me was chapter 6, Can Colours Signify? Here he talks about colours having a roloe in our lifes, take for instance; flags.The colours symbolises different concepts for different countries, i.e. national flag of Saudi Arabia, green often appears in the flags of Islamic countries because of the strong association of the Prophet Mohammed with this colour. The inscription reads ' There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet'. Whereas the green of the original Mexican state tricolour was glossed as symbolising independence from Spain. Nowadays the green in the Mexican flag, like the Portuguese, expresses hope, a concept taken over from the colour of hope among the traditional Christian theological virtues.

The Aboriginal flag symbolises the people and their land. The flag, introduced in 1971, four years after Aborigines gained Australian citizenship, has become a powerful political symbol in much non-traditional Aboriginal art. It introduces three of the four 'traditional' colours; red for the earth, yellow for the sun and black for their black skin.

Further on in the chapter Gage talks about man's aura, introducing C.W Leadbeater's 'Man Visible and Invisible' and William Blake's 'Albion Rose'

Leadbeater's 'Man Visible and Invisible' 1902.

Blake's 'Albion Rose' 1796.



This got me thinking about trying to describe my kids in colour; their auras. I started with Rebekah who can be basic described as reds, yellows and oranges as she is loud, fiery expansive, flamboyant and full of energy. These are some colour studies I did using oils and mixed media.

This is a typical look from madam, she was having an attitude problem that day lol.