Applied Color for Everyone: Using Color to Tell Stories

Color is one of the most powerful storytelling tools available to artists, designers, and creators. In this beginner-friendly course, students will explore how color influences mood, emotion, atmosphere, and meaning; and how it can be used intentionally to strengthen visual narratives. Rather than focusing on color mixing techniques, this class examines why colors work, how audiences respond to them, and how color choices can shape the way a story is experienced. Through a variety of hands-on activities and creative exercises, participants will explore color systems, color relationships, and emotional color palettes across multiple artistic applications. Students will create color abstracts, experiment with fish and Zentangle-inspired designs, examine color use in interior design, and analyze color scripts from animation, film, and illustration. The course culminates in a personal color script project where students visually map the events of a previous day using color to communicate mood, energy, and emotional shifts throughout their narrative. Whether you're an artist, designer, storyteller, or simply curious about the language of color, this course will help you see color in a whole new way and provide practical tools for using it more intentionally in your creative work.