Colour of the day no. 7 – Cadmium orange

Colour of the day 7 - Cadmium orange

Cadmium Orange

Cadmium pigments range in colour from yellow to orange and red. They are all basically cadmium yellow with selenium added in place of sulphur. Cadmium yellow was first introduced as an artists’ pigment in 1850’s. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s that Cadmium red and orange was introduced. In manufacturing paint they are often toned down before being ground with oils and binders.

We’d love to know via the comments below what Cadmium orange reminds you of or makes you think about. We’re also running a weekly competition where people can re-name a colour. If you had to re-name this colour, what would you call it? There will be a weekly prize of a pot of paint containing the colour and labelled with your new name and a £10 Amazon voucher.

Colour of the day

Throughout the Brighton Festival a colour of the day will be displayed in Fabrica and on this blog. To help decide which colour to choose we asked Anne Wight who is a grapheme synaesthete .This is a form of synaesthesia in which an individual’s perception of numbers and letters is associated with an experience of colour.

Like all forms of synaesthesia, grapheme-colour synaesthesia is involuntary, consistent, and memorable and is one of the most common forms of synaesthesia. Generally, while it is extremely unlikely that any two synaesthetes will report the same colours for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synaesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters.

We have chosen colours/pigments/paints for each day loosely based the colours she sees for the dates of May’s Festival.