Sunshine 2020: Prompt Three

[bloodydemonic]

Prompt 3: Yellow
Yellow is a bright color that is associated with a variety of things including: joy, enlightenment, enthusiasm, alertness, danger, clarity, summer, expression, deceit, cowardice, confidence, satisfaction, and optimism.

All I feel is celestial desire
A distant joy is dancing all around me
All I see is yellow in the spring air
How beautifully the color worked itself in —CITIZEN, “Yellow Love”

Yellow can be a polarizing color, for some invoking the bright joy of optimism ... while serving as a symbol of duplicitous gutlessness for others. When has yellow been a prominent color in your life? Were you torn in two directions, or was its meaning clear?

Please feel free to answer in whichever way comes naturally to you, be it a memory you share or an artwork you create. If you’d like a more specific idea to kick things off: tell us a story that reminds you of the color yellow or one of its listed qualities.

You've all been so nice about my history nerding responses to red and orange, so I kind of feel like I'm letting everyone down by not having something very cool to share about yellow and history. I probably do know something if I stopped but it's not being an automatic reaction like 'only peasants can wear orange'. I think one of the chakras is represented by yellow, for example, but it's not a strong enough urge to write about.

The two places my mind goes to are sunflowers and The Beatles.

Sunflowers - they're my favourite flower. They make me think of sunshine, and that makes me happy. I remember growing them in the garden as a child, my brother and I each picking a growing sunflower and 'racing' to see which one would grow the tallest and who'd 'win'. And there's a whole series of photos of both of us standing against sunflowers taller than us.

And, of course, I can't talk about Sunflowers without going just a little bit of nerdy love for Van Gogh (*points to default icon*) - he is, after all, rather well known for his paintings of them. I prefer the Arles series (the ones in vases) which, if I recall, he was trying to prove you could create an image with numerous variations of a single colour, without any loss of eloquence. 'Three shades of yellow and nothing else'

If I had to pick a favourite, it would probably be because the turquoise background makes the yellow even more vibrant, but the only one I've seen in person is the in the National Gallery in London.

My other immediate reaction to 'yellow' is The Beatles' Yellow Submarine. #

Watch on YouTube

My mum loves The Beatles. I don't think she's old enough for the main Beatles-mania (I don't know enough about them to know dates and stuff - but mum was born in 1961) and she used to play their music all the time. Little Joey loved Yellow Submarine and there's probably still home videos of me aged like 4 or 5 singing and dancing to the song. Super embarrassing. I'm glad my main childhood wasn't posted all over social media - I'd just die from cringing! But it's a fun song and it triggers happy memories and makes me smile... and I still know all the silly words to to

Comments

[smallhobbit]

Definitely van Gogh's sunflowers need to be mentioned :)

[isabellerecs]

Lovely sunflowers! They are one of my favs too. I've always been a fan of The Beatles though I've found that I always favor the songs written by George Harrison or the others. (I agree with you about being glad to have not grown up on social media ;))

[bemused_writer]

Love the sunflowers. ^^ Van Gogh drew some lovely ones. I was curious about the chakra and it looks like you're right; the solar plexus chakra is yellow. ^^

[shadowhive]

Aww sunflowers are so pretty. I remember we grew a really tall one once but I’ve not grown any in awhile.

The paintings are pretty

Aww that’s sweet.

💛

[oldtoadwoman]

Yellow Submarine was the first thing I thought of as well.

There's a Paul Simon song called "The Late Great Johnny Ace" which has the lyrics:

It was the year of The Beatles
It was the year of The Stones
It was 1964
I was living in London
With the girl from the summer before

It was the year of The Beatles
It was the year of The Stones
A year after J.F.K.

I have no idea why I get that stuck in my head from time to time, but it's how I remember JFK died in 1963 and the Beatles' first world tour was 1964.

[enemytosleep]

My mother was/is a huge Beatles fan, so this was a song that sprang to mind for me as well.

I love the paintings. Very different shades of yellow and different feels to each piece too.

[silveradept]

Oh, I love the sunflowers painted. And Yellow Submarine is part of the songs that I heard a lot, although I'm not sure I ever paid too much attention to them.

[lightbird]

Van Gogh is awesome, and I love his sunflowers.

'Yellow Submarine' is a fun song.

[bloodydemonic]

[corvidology]

And now I'm singing Yellow Submarine so thanks for that! :D

[bloodydemonic]

heehee! You're very welcome ;)

[pauraque]

It's so cool that you got to see that painting in person! Did you notice anything new about it that hadn't struck you when seeing it only in print or digital form?

[bloodydemonic]

It was mainly the texture of it - you tend to think of art as being very 2d when you only see pictures