There are plenty of reasons why the underwater world is mysterious and unfamiliar terrain for humans. Though most of us have at least been in the ocean, our own bodily limitations (if only we had gills!) mean that 70% of earth’s surface is off limits, inaccessible for us to explore (without expensive equipment and training, that is).

Which is a shame, considering that the sea’s floor is a treasure-trove of creatures, colors, and textures that would send us into visual-overdrive. Even the most familiar of sea creatures - like coral, starfish, or octopus - are host to some of the most aesthetically unique hues and shapes.   Which is to say, we’re glad that underwater technology has advanced to the point that we can bring records of some of these stunners above-ground, in the form of photos and videos, crisper than ever before.

Underwater Wildlife Art by Andrey Narchuk

Without context, these could certainly be works of modern art, or a study in color and shape. But these underwater shots, taken at close range, capture details like a fish’s scales or tail, or vegetation in motion. The photographer says “Nature has created a huge amount of art. They fill our planet. It’s not surprising that the underwater world just hides a lot of them.”  

See more Underwater Wildlife Art photography by Andrey.

Another World: Underwater Experiments by Alexander Semenov

The photographer calls these creatures, “Beautiful monsters.” About his work at Moscow’s “White Sea Biological Station,” he says: “When I went underwater for the first time, I was absolutely shocked. White Sea showed me another world with it’s own aliens.” We agree, these unfamiliar animals, with their unnatural colors and pitch-black backdrop, look otherworldly.

See more Underwater Experiments photography by Alexander.

Natural History Film Series by Morphologic Studios

Who knew that unaltered shots of sea life would make the perfect music video? A Marine Biologist & a musician (Colin Foord and Jared McKay) collaborated to make this series of 24 short films. By pairing shots from a Miami aquarium with original music, “they transform the minute creatures that inhabit our coral reefs into strange, abstract works of surreal art.”

See more cool Natural History Film Series videos by Morphologic Studios.

Make sure to visit each artists Behance page for more fantastic images and in some cases the full view of a piece borrowed for the post.

Creations made/used:

Of all the things to be thankful for, color is at the top of the list. Color is saturated into every fiber of our lives. It gives variety to our days, our moments, our very lives. It is there in our darkest moments and happiest memories. It can influence moods and reactions. It is there for us when we brainstorm inovative ideas, new marketing techniques, or complicated craft projects. Color is simply inspiring. So, on this Thanksgiving Day, remember to take a look around you and notice all the beautiul colors that this season has to offer.

How are you celebrating color this season?

Fall Leaf Garland from Maureen Cracknell Handmade as a part of Celebrate Color 

Celebrate color this season with a leaf garland made of felt and yarn. Incorporate a gorgeous color palette into your home's decor without the crunchy mess of real leaves.

Project by Triple Play

Dazzling. Do you think these sparkly aqua-blue accents steer a little bit away from traditional fall colors? You have to admit, it adds a nice depth to the overall setting and complements that traditional orange nicely.

Thankful Tree" by Simply Vintage Girl

Elegant. Bring the outdoors in to create thankful bits of autumn pastels and pattern mixtures combined in a "Thankful Tree."

Parents.com

For the kiddos. Shades of brown add warmth and provide an earthy feel in this Turkey centerpiece. Choose a fun and colorful palette for the thankful feathers.

Tradition, (What Are You) Thankful Four?

What are you thankful...4? A great excuse to use color in so many ways! Write what you're thankful for on colorful number fours cut from scrapbooking or construction paper and share. Turn them in to ornaments to display all weekend. Keep them around as reminders.

"...one year I cut large 4s from paper and placed one on each person's plate. Just before dinner, we wrote the things we were thankful for on our cutouts, then took turns sharing our lists..." - Candice Steelman (reader at Disney Family Fun)

By Holiday Crafts and Creations

There's always room to go classic. Traditional autumn colors make a space warm and inviting. These edible place settings using M&M's to imitate Indian Corn are quite fun!

KABOOSE.com under Thanksgiving Crafts

Create a three dimensional palette with blocks and display an appropriately thankful message.

Design Sponge - DIY Project Autumn Leaf Bouquet 

What better way to say thank you to the beauty of color than to use fallen leaves to create vibrant autumn roses.

avery & anderson - Fall Decor' Part 4: THANKS be to upcycling wine bottles!

Get funky, use a few recycled wine bottles, a bit of paint and some other odds and ends to create and display a thankful word.

Crafty Katie - Fall Burlap Wreath

What would fall be without a wreath? Burlap offers a very earthy-happy texture, while adding a mix of traditional or non-traditional colors livens it up.

FineCraftGuild.com - Abundance Seed Balls

Blending tradition with innovation - did you look close enough? I took a double-take after realizing those were bean-balls in the cornucopia! How creative and fitting to the season. A gentle reminder of warm soup on chilly fall evenings.

INKspired Creations - Paper Pumpkins | Teresa Collins - Paper Thanksgiving Pumpkins

Autumn wouldn't be autumn without a couple of paper pumpkins leftover from Halloween. Another way to utilize a mix of patterns and palettes.

PLAID - Thankful Art Collage

The paper flower on this thankful journal has a nice whimsical feel to it and reminds me of autumn leaves. Writing down what you are thankful for is always a great way to reflect and come back to on days when you aren't feeling so thankful.

 Kind Over Matter - Thanksgiving Fortune Cookies

This simple, yet unique idea encompasses the idea that being thankful can also remind us of the good things that are yet to come.

Incorporating autumn colors into our homes and Thanksgiving celebrations is a special way to recreate that warm feeling we experience when we start listing all the things that we are thankful for. This reason, above all, is why color should be remembered on Thanksgiving Day.

A big Thank you to all of you COLOURlovers for loving color and making our community flourish with so many beautiful creations! Be safe and colorful on this holiday! - The COLOURlovers Team

Creations Used:

header credit: Leaf Garland

Hi, I’m Sarai, and I want to share a little style and sewing challenge that I’ll bet many of you will be interested in.

First, let me introduce myself. I am the designer and founder behind Colette Patterns, a boutique sewing pattern company. I also write the sewing blog The Coletterie and have a forthcoming sewing book, The Colette Sewing Handbook.

One of the reasons I started a sewing pattern business is that I love the idea of investing our everyday lives with creativity, making conscious and creative decisions about how to dress rather than feeling overwhelmed by the push of fast fashion and cheap, disposable goods.

To that end, I came up with a fun way for sewists to get their creative juices flowing, by challenging my readers to create a seasonal mini-wardrobe based on an inspiring color palette. We now host palette challenges in the Spring and Fall, and it’s always fun to see what amazing projects people come up with.

The logistics are simple: You create a moodboard and color palette that is inspiring you for the season. Then you choose the number of projects to sew in an 8 week time period, based on your color palette. In the end, you (hopefully) have a coordinated mini-wardrobe.

You can use any patterns, any fabric. The idea is just to focus your sewing around the colors that inspire and excite you.

For my Fall palette this year, I chose sunset hues of mustard-gold, pumpkin, and red punctuated with black and ivory. Here’s what I’ve made so far:

WEEK 1: Lonsdale Dress

This late-summer dress is my transition piece, I suppose. The pattern is the Sewaholic Lonsdale dress, and the fabric is a beautiful Italian cotton.

WEEK 2: Clover Pant

Last week, I made these slim cigarette pants from my new Clover sewing pattern. The fabric is a mustard wool blend, underlined in cotton twill.

WEEK 3: Chevrons + Clover

And finally, my latest outfit is a second pair of clover pants in black velveteen, paired with a cotton/silk version of the (free) Sorbetto top pattern.

You can still join up!

If you’re interested in trying out your own palette challenge, you can read more details here on the Coletterie (blog).

Get a re-cap or see even more inspiration from our sewing challenges here in the SEWING CHALLENGES section (includes Spring 2011 + the current Fall Challenge underway).

Image credits for my moodboards: vintage mustard wool skirt from Dear Golden, 1930s crepe dress from thirteeneightyfive, image via junebugweddings, the character Joy from Mad Men, orange dress by Erin Fetherston via Style.com, red dress by Marc Jacobs Fall 2004 via Style.com, Orla Kiely cookbook, image via ginnyandjudes Etsy shop

From the Forums

In the Forums we invite all those doing the challenge to post their inspiration boards, color palettes and anything to do with the challenge. It's amazing where some people draw their color inspiration from!

Outer Space Inspiration by "sweetjane"

"I decided to draw my color inspiration from outer space, since I'm a huge nerd & I associate fall with stargazing on brisk September/October/November evenings. (this particular photo is the Horsehead Nebula... I really like the muted almost-autumnal glow of all the colors. My palette could use a little work, but it's pretty close to what I'm going for.)" - sweetjane

Nature Board by "julie s"

Emralds by ginnie.wise

Creme + Orange by michaelannn

Muted Orange + Reds by Chance Of Rain

By feeding silkworms a mulberry mixture containing fluorescent dye, scientists are able to harvest brightly coloured silk.

The environmentalists like it cause it cuts back on the water use and harsh chemicals needed for the dyeing process. Scientists like it for the potential to create silk with antibacterial, anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory properties that could be used in wound dressing or even as biomedical frameworks for repairing damaged tissues. We like for both those reasons. Plus, we especially like it because of how colorful they are.

Here's some silkworm color love inspired by science and these 'intrinsically colored and luminescent silk worms'.

By feeding them mixtures containing dyes, researchers have helped silkworms spin fluorescent, coloured silk.

By feeding silkworms a mulberry mixture containing fluorescent dye, Natalia's team was able to harvest brightly coloured silk that is structurally unaffected, but which also has luminescent, or glowing, properties. The dye molecules are ingrained within the silk filaments to create permanent colour.

Image credits: Institute of Materials Research and Engineering

Sources: Australian Geographic |  Intrinsically Colored and Luminescent Silk [Via inhabitat]

The work of Daniera ter Haar & Christoph Brach, who have become better known by the name of one of their projects, Raw Color, is highly prismatic, covering the spectrum between art, design, photography and color research by mixing the powerful colors of vegetables, innovative color harvesting processes, with unique applications for print and textiles. Each project is created with an astute design sense and captured with stunningly composed photography.

The Eindhoven, Netherlands based team uses color as the 'connection between their different practices' posing questions like, 'what is the nature of a color and what is the connection to its physical state?' This post focuses on their research on vegetable pigments. Two other posts to follow will focus on their design and photography.

“Color is a really nice connection between those disciplines. We use it almost as a material, and it’s transformative the way it can make something seem hard or light or heavy.”

Blue Holes are named for the dramatic contrast between the lighter shades of the surrounding shallow water and the dark, deep blue holes where these natural formation plunge into the abyss. The deepest, Dean's Blue Hole, located in bay west of Clarence Town on Long Island, Bahamas, reaches 202 meters (663ft). Many others are located in the same region (the Bahamas) as well as Belize, Guam, Australia and the Red Sea. The deep blue color is caused by the high transparency of water and bright white carbonate sand. Blue light is the most enduring part of the spectrum; where other parts of the spectrum—red, yellow, and finally green—are absorbed during their path through water, blue light manages to reach the white sand and return back upon reflection.

Images from neatoramam & Un Monde Ailleurs

And It's not just incredible color palettes with unique contrasts and quintessential deep sea greens and blues that sceintist are discovering:

Swimming holes they are not. The inland caves on five islands sport freshwater caps covering heavier saltwater layers, sometimes filled with clouds of poisonous hydrogen sulfide released by salt-eating microbes, acting to preserve whatever falls within. Others contain whirlpools powered by the tides. - USA Today

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree! Much pleasure thine COLOR can'st give me... So much so that there are over 200 Christmas tree colors in the COLOURlovers Library. Below you will find common varieties of trees used in North America & Europe as "Christmas trees," and colors extracted from, or inspired by, them.

"It was really an accident," Cecelia Webber admits in an interview with Modern Luxury, "I shot a nude figure against a black background and thought it looked so much like a petal I just went with it."  And thus started her journey as a professional artist in hopes of dispelling much of the world's view of nudity as either "something erotic or disgusting," as she puts it.

Her work consists of only the naked human body, often her own, photographed in the most peculiar of positions then painstakingly overlaid using Photoshop to form the familiar shapes of petals, stamen and stem. So familiar the shapes are and so acutely formed that at first glance it is hard to tell that you're looking at naked people. Lastly, but always first in our book, she saturates the forms with stunning color. Her work pays great homage to nature: the beauty of the human figure and the shapes and colors that connect all living things.

Warning! : The colors below may cause sweating, irritation to the eyes & mouth, the forming of sad, scared, awkward looking facial expressions, and the gratuitous exhibition of machismo. Be careful not to touch your eyes or your ...er...more sensitive areas after handling. Now, the hottest colors in the world.

Chili Peppers

The spicy heat of peppers is measured in Scoville Heat Units. This scale measures the amount of Capsaicin the chemical compound that stimulates chemoreceptor nerve endings in the skin, especially the mucous membranes. In other words it makes that stuff hot.

To give us an idea of the Scoville scale, Pure capsaicin (the active component in peppers) is a 15,000,000 - 16,000,000, you don't want to eat or even get near that. If your using pepper as a weapon or deterrent you'll want at least 5,000,000, which is what is used by law enforcement in pepper spray. On the other side of the scale we have bell peppers at 0 units and Tabasco red pepper sauce with a rating between 2,500 & 5,000 units.

We start of with the hottest peppers in the world and work our way down through some of those with less heat but still packed with hot colors.

Tambako the Jaguar

Naga Jolokia / Bhut Jolokia

Scoville: 855,000 - 1,075,000 | This is the hottest chili in the world.

iPhone

World Cup Collection From Uncommon

Uncommon Collections

The collection has all 32 qualifying team flags and four general soccer designs. Uncommon will be knocking teams out of the collection as they are knocked out of the tournament. So once your team is out, the flag case is gone.

API Love

Bookmarklet For Palette/Pattern Browser

Bookmarklet | Browser |  CL Forum

ycc2106 made a great bookmarklet for the palette/pattern browser a little while back. If you select a username with your cursor and click the bookmarklet it'll take you to the browser with that user's stuff. If you don't have anything selected it opens a window to enter the username. Super handy.

With permission, cuttlefish is hosting it now. Just drag the links into your bookmarks bar to use it.

Thanks ycc2106!

- COLOURlovers Forum

Nature

Bees Use Flower Petals For Colorful Nest Wallpaper

Story @ NPR

When we think of bee nests, we often think of a giant hive, buzzing with social activity, worker bees and honey. But scientists recently discovered a rare, solitary type of bee that makes tiny nests by plastering together flower petals. - Continue Reading

Sport

Body Sails

Sporting Sails