The Color PINK

Pink is a very contradictory color. Its meaning can depend greatly on the culture and context in which it is presented. It can be linked to feminine and masculine, shallowness and tenderness and many other things.

The meaning of PINK around the globe.

• The pink ribbon is an internationally recognized symbol of hope and awareness in the fight against breast cancer.
• In Japan, the color pink has a masculine association. The annual spring blooming of the pink-blossomed cherry trees (the Sakura) is said to represent the young Japanese warriors who fell in battle in the prime of life (the Samurai).
• Jaipur City is a foremost tourist attraction in India because of its superlative forts, grandiose palaces, vivacious temples, multicolored bazaars, pulsating streets, and its distinguished pink color to which the city owes its oft-used name “The Pink City”.
• The Chinese had not recognized the color pink until they had contact with Western culture and the Chinese word for pink translates as “foreign color.”
• Marrakesh is another city associated with the color pink. It is sometimes refereed to as the “Rose City” because of its salmon-pink colored buildings and the red clay of its terrain. 

Do you want to know more about PINK? On Wednesday, November 26, 2014, I posted PINK. 

There also some famous PINK songs.

The Colour Psychology of Red

How does the colour RED make you feel? Red is often described as warm, vibrant, and intense. It is often seen as an exciting and even aggressive colour, but it can also evoke feelings of love and comfort. Red is often used to grab attention, particularly in advertising and traffic signage.

As the fashion designer Valentino once suggested, "Red has guts .... deep, strong, dramatic. A geranium red. A Goya red ... to be used like gold for furnishing a house ... for clothes, it is strong, like black or white."

The Colour Psychology of Red

• Red is a bright, warm colour that evokes strong emotions.
• Red is associated with love, warmth, and comfort.
• Red is also considered an intense, or even angry, colour that creates feelings of excitement or intensity.
• Consider how Red is used in language: redneck, red-hot, red-handed, paint the town red, seeing red

While red has different symbolic meanings, individual reactions to the colour red can vary widely.

RED

Red is the colour at the end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary colour in the RGB colour model and the CMYK colour model and is the complementary colour of cyan. Reds range from the brilliant yellow-tinged scarlet and vermillion to bluish-red crimson and vary in shade from the pale red pink to the dark red burgundy. The red sky at sunset results from Rayleigh scattering, while the red colour of the Grand Canyon and other geological features is caused by hematite or red ochre, both forms of iron oxide. Iron oxide also gives the red colour to the planet Mars. The red colour of blood comes from protein haemoglobin, while ripe strawberries, red apples and reddish autumn leaves are coloured by anthocyanins.

Red pigment made from ochre was one of the first colours used in prehistoric art. The Ancient Egyptians and Mayans coloured their faces red in ceremonies; Roman generals had their bodies coloured red to celebrate victories. It was also an important colour in China, where it was used to colour early pottery and later the gates and walls of palaces. In the Renaissance, the brilliant red costumes for the nobility and wealthy were dyed with kermes and cochineal. The 19th century brought the introduction of the first synthetic red dyes, which replaced the traditional dyes. Red also became the colour of revolution; Soviet Russia adopted a red flag following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, later followed by China, Vietnam, and other communist countries.

Since red is the colour of blood, it has historically been associated with sacrifice, danger and courage. Modern surveys in Europe and the United States show red is also the colour most commonly associated with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love and joy. In China, India and many other Asian countries it is the colour of symbolizing happiness and good fortune.

BLACK

Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, literally a color without hue, like white (its opposite) and gray. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness, while white represents light.

Black ink is the most common color used for printing books, newspapers and documents, because it has the highest contrast with white paper and is the easiest to read. For the same reason, black text on a white screen is the most common format used on computer screens.

In color printing it is used along with the subtractive primaries cyan, yellow, and magenta, in order to help produce the darkest shades.

Black and white have often been used to describe opposites; particularly truth and ignorance, good and evil, the "Dark Ages" versus Age of Enlightenment. Since the Middle Ages black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates.

Black was one of the first colors used by artists in neolithic cave paintings. In the 14th century, it began to be worn by royalty, the clergy, judges and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen and statesmen in the 19th century, and a high fashion color in the 20th century.

In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches and magic. According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, evil, and elegance.

Etymology

The word black comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *bhel- ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon blak ("ink"), Old High German blach ("black"), Old Norse blakkr ("dark"), Dutch blaken ("to burn"), and Swedish bläck ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin flagrare ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek phlegein ("to burn, scorch").

The Ancient Greeks sometimes used the same word to name different colors, if they had the same intensity. Kuanos' could mean both dark blue and black.

The Ancient Romans had two words for black: ater was a flat, dull black, while niger was a brilliant, saturated black. Ater has vanished from the vocabulary, but niger was the source of the country name Nigeria the English word Negro and the word for "black" in most modern Romance languages (French: noir; Spanish and Portuguese: negro; Italian: nero ).

Old High German also had two words for black: swartz for dull black and blach for a luminous black. These are parallelled in Middle English by the terms swart for dull black and blaek for luminous black. Swart still survives as the word swarthy, while blaek became the modern English black.

In heraldry, the word used for the black color is sable, named for the black fur of the sable, an animal.

Songs about BLUE

BLUE

Blue is the colour between violet and green on the optical spectrum of visible light. Human eyes perceive blue when observing light with a wavelength between 450 and 495 nanometres. Blues with a higher frequency and thus a shorter wavelength gradually look more violet, while those with a lower frequency and a longer wavelength gradually appear more green. Pure blue, in the middle, has a wavelength of 470 nanometres. In painting and traditional colour theory, blue is one of the three primary colours of pigments, along with red and yellow, which can be mixed to form a wide gamut of colours. Red and blue mixed together form violet, blue and yellow together form green. Blue is also a primary colour in the RGB colour model, used to create all the colours on the screen of a television or computer monitor.

The modern English word blue comes from Middle English bleu or blewe, from the Old French bleu, a word of Germanic origin related to Old Dutch, Old High German, Old Saxon blāo and Old Frisian blāw, blau. In Dutch BLAUW. The clear sky and the deep sea appear blue because of an optical effect known as Rayleigh scattering. When sunlight passes through the atmosphere, the blue wavelengths are scattered more widely by the oxygen and nitrogen molecules, and more blue comes to our eyes. Rayleigh scattering also explains blue eyes; there is no blue pigment in blue eyes. Distant objects appear more blue because of another optical effect called atmospheric perspective.

The Starry Night by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.

Blue has been used for art and decoration since ancient times. The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, coming from mines in Afghanistan, was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament and later, in The Renaissance, to make the pigment ultramarine, the most expensive of all pigments. In the Middle Ages, cobalt blue was used to colour the stained glass windows of cathedrals. Beginning in the 9th century, Chinese artists used cobalt to make fine blue and white porcelain. Blue dyes for clothing were made from woad in Europe and indigo in Asia and Africa. In 1828 a synthetic ultramarine pigment was developed, and synthetic blue dyes and pigments gradually replaced mineral pigments and vegetable dyes. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh and other late 19th century painters used ultramarine and cobalt blue not just to depict nature, but to create moods and emotions. In the late 18th century and 19th century, blue became a popular colour for military uniforms and police uniforms. In the 20th century, because blue was commonly associated with harmony, it was chosen as the colour of the flags of the United Nations and the European Union. Toward the end of the 20th century, dark blue replaced dark grey as the most common colour for business suits; surveys showed that blue was the colour most associated with the masculine, just ahead of black, and was also the colour most associated with intelligence, knowledge, calm and concentration.

Surveys in the US and Europe show that blue is the colour most commonly associated with harmony, faithfulness, confidence, distance, infinity, the imagination, cold, and sometimes with sadness. In US and European public opinion polls it is the most popular colour, chosen by almost half of both men and women as their favourite colour.

Purple Rain and Purple Haze

"Purple Rain" is a song by Prince and The Revolution. It is the title track from the 1984 album of the same name, which in turn is the soundtrack album for the 1984 film of the same name, and was released as the third single from that album. The song is a combination of rock, R&B, gospel, and orchestral music. It reached number 2 in the United States for two weeks, behind "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!, and it is considered one of Prince's signature songs. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1984, shipping one million units in the United States, and it was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry in 2013.

Following Prince's death in 2016, the song rose to number one on the US and UK iTunes Charts, allowing "Purple Rain" to re-enter the Billboard Hot 100 at number 17, later reaching number four. It also re-entered the UK Singles Chart at number 6, making it two places higher than its original peak of number 8. Originally peaking at number 12 in France, "Purple Rain" reached number one on the national singles chart. As of April 30, 2016, it has sold 1,186,215 copies in the United States.

"Purple Haze" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and released as the second record single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on March 17, 1967. As a record chart hit in several countries and the opening number on the Experience's debut American album, it was many people's first exposure to Hendrix's psychedelic rock sound.

The song features his inventive guitar playing, which uses the signature Hendrix chord and a mix of blues and Eastern modalities, shaped by novel sound processing techniques. Because of ambiguities in the lyrics, listeners often interpret the song as referring to a psychedelic experience, although Hendrix described it as a love song.

"Purple Haze" is one of Hendrix's best-known songs and appears on many Hendrix compilation albums. The song featured regularly in concerts and each of Hendrix's group configurations issued live recordings. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is included on lists of the greatest guitar songs, including at number two by Rolling Stone and number one by Q magazine.

PURPLE

Purple is a color intermediate between red and blue. It is similar to violet, but unlike violet, which is a spectral color with its own wavelength on the visible spectrum of light, purple is a composite color made by combining red and blue. According to surveys in Europe and the U.S., purple is the color most often associated with royalty, magic, mystery and piety. When combined with pink, it is associated with eroticism, femininity and seduction.

Purple was the color worn by Roman magistrates; it became the imperial color worn by the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and later by Roman Catholic bishops. Similarly, in Japan, the color is traditionally associated with the Emperor and aristocracy.

Etymology and definitions

The word 'purple' comes from the Old English word purpul which derives from the Latin purpura, in turn from the Greek πορφύρα (porphura), name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail.

The first recorded use of the word 'purple' in the English language was in the year 975 AD. In heraldry, the word purpure is used for purple.

Purple vs. violet

In the traditional color wheel used by painters, violet and purple are both placed between red and blue. Purple occupies the space closer too red, between crimson and violet. Violet is closer to blue, and is usually less saturated than purple.

While the two colors look similar, from the point of view of optics there are important differences. Violet is a spectral color – it occupies its own place at the end of the spectrum of light first identified by Newton in 1672, and it has its own wavelength (approximately 380–420 nm) – whereas purple is a combination of two spectral colors, red and blue. There is no such thing as the "wavelength of purple light"; it only exists as a combination.

Monochromatic violet light cannot be produced by the red-green-blue (RGB) color system, the method used to create colors on a television screen or computer display (a fact that is, indeed, true of any monochromatic color of the spectrum besides the shades of red, green, and blue chosen for the primaries). 

However, the system is capable of approximating it due to the fact that the L-cone (red cone) in the eye is uniquely sensitive to two different discontinuous regions in the visible spectrum – its primary region being the long wavelength light of the yellow-red region of the spectrum, and a secondary smaller region overlapping with the S-cone (blue cone) in the shortest wavelength, violet part. This means that when violet light strikes the eye, the S-cone should be stimulated strongly, and the L-cone stimulated weakly along with it. By lighting the red primary of the display weakly along with the blue primary, a relatively similar pattern of sensitization can be achieved, creating an illusion, the sensation of extremely short wavelength light using what is in fact mixed light of two longer wavelengths. The resulting color has the same hue as pure violet; however, it has a lower saturation.

In the Roman Catholic church, cardinals wear red and bishops wear purple

White Wedding - Billy Idol

WHITE

White is an achromatic color, a color without hue*. An incoming light to the human eye that stimulates all its three types of color sensitive cone cells in nearly equal amounts results in white. White is one of the most common colors in nature, the color of sunlight, snow, milk, chalk, limestone and other common minerals. In many cultures white represents or signifies purity, innocence, and light, and is the symbolic opposite of black, or darkness. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, white is the color most often associated with perfection, the good, honesty, cleanliness, the beginning, the new, neutrality, and exactitude.

In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white as a symbol of purity, and Romans wore a white toga as a symbol of citizenship. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance a white unicorn symbolized chastity, and a white lamb sacrifice and purity; the widows of kings dressed in white rather than black as the color of mourning. It sometimes symbolizes royalty; it was the color of the French kings (black being the color of the queens) and of the monarchist movement after the French Revolution as well as of the movement called the White Russians (not to be confounded with Belarus, literally "White Russia") who fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922). Greek and Roman temples were faced with white marble, and beginning in the 18th century, with the advent of neoclassical architecture, white became the most common color of new churches, capitols and other government buildings, especially in the United States. It was also widely used in 20th century modern architecture as a symbol of modernity, simplicity and strength.

White is an important color for almost all world religions. The Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has worn white since 1566, as a symbol of purity and sacrifice. In Islam, and in the Shinto religion of Japan, it is worn by pilgrims; and by the Brahmins in India. In Western cultures and in Japan, white is the most common color for wedding dresses, symbolizing purity and virginity. In many Asian cultures, white is also the color of mourning.

The white color on television screens and computer monitors is created with the RGB color model by mixing red, green and blue light at equal intensities.

* Hue is one of the main properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined  technically, as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli  that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow" (the unique hues). Orange and violet (purple) are  the other hues, for a total of six, as in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. The other  color appearance parameters are colorfulness, chroma, saturation, lightness, and brightness.

• Hue — another word for color
• Saturation (chroma) — the intensity or purity of a hue
• Lightness (value) — the relative degree of black or white mixed with a given hue
• Temperature — the perceived warmth or coolness of a color

RED

Red is the color at the end of the visible spectrum next to orange and at the opposite end from violet. The wavelength of red light is approximately 620–740 nm on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Red is the color of blood, and because of this it has historically been associated with sacrifice, danger and courage. Modern surveys in the United States and Europe show red is the color most commonly associated with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love, and joy. In China and many other Asian cultures, it is the color of happiness.

Since the French Revolution, the red flag has been the symbolic color of revolution and in the later 19th and 20th century, it was the symbolic color of socialism and communism.

Etymology and definitions

The word red is derived from the Old English rēad. The word can be further traced to the Proto-Germanic rauthaz and the Proto-Indo European root rewdʰ-. In Sanskrit, the word rudhira means red or blood. In the Akkadian language of Ancient Mesopotamia and in the modern Inuit language of Inuit, the word for red is the same word as "like blood".

The words for 'colored' in Latin (coloratus) and Spanish (colorado) both also mean 'red.' In Portuguese the word for red is vermelho, which comes from Latin "vermiculus", meaning "little worm".

In the Russian language, the word for red, Кра́сный (krasniy), comes from the same old Slavic root as the words for "beautiful"—красивый (krasiviy) and "excellent"—прекрасный (prekrasniy). Thus Red Square in Moscow, named long before the Russian Revolution, meant simply "Beautiful Square".

 In heraldry, the word gules is used for red.

So the color red is the color of energy, passion and action and it is a warm and positive color associated with our most physical needs and our will to survive. It exudes a strong and powerful masculine energy.

Red is energizing. It excites the emotions and motivates us to take action.

It signifies a pioneering spirit and leadership qualities, promoting ambition and determination.

It is also strong-willed and can give confidence to those who are shy or lacking in will power.

Being the color of physical movement, the color red awakens our physical life force.

It is the color of sexuality and can stimulate deeper and more intimate passions in us, such as love and sex on the positive side or revenge and anger on the negative.

 It is often used to express love, as in Valentine’s Day, however it relates more to sexuality and lust, rather than love – love is expressed with pink.

At its most positive it can create life with its sexual energy, or use its negative expression of anger and aggression to fuel war and destruction.

The color red can stimulate the appetite, often being used in restaurants for this purpose. It also increases craving for food and other stimuli.

Being surrounded by too much of the color red can cause us to become irritated, agitated and ultimately angry. Too little and we become cautious, manipulative and fearful.

In Eastern cultures such as China red is the color for good luck. Although times are changing and many Chinese brides now wear white, it is traditionally the color for weddings. In Indian culture it symbolizes purity and is often used in their wedding gowns.

more about red at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red

If your favorite color is red, it will reflect in your personality!

• Having red as your favorite color identifies you as extroverted and optimistic, courageous and confident.
• You are action oriented and physically active - sex is a necessity to you - you have strong survival instincts.
• With a favorite color red, you like to be the center of attention - in fact all reds crave attention - other people are drawn to the vitality and sense of excitement you emit.
• As a personality color red, you are stimulating to be with and you radiate a great deal of energy.
• You are ambitious and competitive and like to be the winner - you are achievement orientated and second place is not good enough for you. With you it is all or nothing.
• You usually gain the respect of others quite easily with your practical and grounded attitude and ability to set boundaries.
• Lovers of red are the explorers and pioneers of the world, the entrepreneurs and builders who like to be first in discovering new physical realms.
• If you favor the personality color red you have a passion and enthusiasm for life and are not afraid to pursue your dreams and goals.
• You are impulsive - you should count to 10 before reacting to situations as it is in these situations that your anger and aggression often appears.
• You are always in a hurry, wanting to do everything right now. Patience is not one of your strong points.
• You do not procrastinate - you never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
• You are a hard worker when you have a personality color red, and you specifically enjoy physical labor and working with your hands.
• Red people can be aggressive and easy to anger, often exhibiting a violent temper - this is negative passion and energy. You flare up instantaneously but calm down quite quickly once you get it out of your system and then forget it ever happened - you do not hold a grudge.
• Lovers of red are probably not particularly spiritual or religious - however if you do participate in religious activities it is the physical customs and rituals that you are drawn to, the singing, Communion and other rituals, organizing the church fete and other fundraising activities, the physical part of being there. Red people like to take care of the nuts and bolts, the nitty-gritty, the practical aspects and physical preparation of organizing an event.
• You have a strong need for power and control which is connected to your basic survival instincts.
• You can be somewhat of a know-it-all, not wanting to appear unintelligent or ignorant.
• You are a good worker, although not necessarily a good boss - your aggressive nature doesn't serve you well in management positions. Because you are action orientated you are good at meeting deadlines and getting the job done at the right time.
• You can be quite determined when you want something, but tend to have a short attention span, moving on to the next best thing when you quickly get bored with the previous one - you want it all and you want it now!
• With a personality color red you may have an over active ego and appear over confident with a super inflated sense of your own worth.

PINK

Pink is a pale red colour, which takes its name from the flower of the same name. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the colour most commonly associated with charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, the feminine, and the romantic. When combined with violet or black, it is associated with eroticism and seduction. Pink was first used as a colour name in the late 17th century.

Etymology

The color pink is named after the flowers called pinks, flowering plants in the genus Dianthus. The name derives from the frilled edge of the flowers—the verb "to pink" dates from the 14th century and means "to decorate with a perforated or punched pattern" (possibly from German "pinken" = to peck). As noted and referenced above, the word "pink" was first used as a noun to refer to the color known today as pink in the 17th century. The verb sense of the word "pink" continues to be used today in the name of the hand tool known as pinking shears.

Dianthus Caryophyllus

  

History, art and fashion in the 20th century
for more look at WikiPeda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink

In the 20th century, pinks became bolder, brighter and more assertive, in part because of the invention of chemical dyes which did not fade. The pioneer in the creation of the new wave of pinks was the Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli, (1890-1973) who was aligned with the artists of the surrealist movement, including Jean Cocteau. In 1931 she created a new variety of the color, called Shocking pink, made by mixing magenta with a small amount of white. She also created a scandal by launching a perfume of the same name, sold in a bottle in the shape of a woman's bust. Her fashions, co-designed with artists such as Cocteau, featured the new pinks.

In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, inmates of concentration camps who were accused of homosexuality were forced to wear a pink triangle. Because of this, the pink triangle has become a symbol of the modern gay rights movement.

The transition to pink as a sexually differentiating color for girls occurred gradually, through the selective process of the marketplace, in the 1930s and 40s. In the 1920s, some groups had actually been describing pink as a masculine color, an equivalent of the red that was considered to be for men, but lighter for boys. But stores nonetheless found that people were increasingly choosing to buy pink for girls, and blue for boys, until this became an accepted norm in the 1940s.

Franz West "Flause" (1998); Aluminium

In 1973, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville created "Pink," a broadside meant to explore the notions of gender as associated with the color pink, for an American Institute of Graphic Arts exhibition about color. This was the only entry about the color pink. Various women including many in the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building submitted entries exploring their association with the color. De Bretteville arranged the squares of paper to form a "quilt" from which posters were printed and disseminated throughout Los Angeles. She was often called "Pinky" as a result.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Surrounded Islands wrapped wooded islands in Miami's Biscayne Bay with 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m2) of bright pink fabric. Thomas von Taschitzki has said that "the monochrome pink wrappings"..."form a counterpoint to the small green wooded islands."

Many of Franz West's aluminium sculptures were often painted a bright pink, for example Sexualitätssymbol (Symbol of Sexuality). West has said that the pink was intended as an "outcry to nature".

Blue

Blue is the colour of the clear sky and the deep sea. It is located between violet and green on the optical spectrum.

Surveys in the U.S. and Europe show that blue is the colour most commonly associated with harmony, faithfulness, confidence, distance, infinity, the imagination, cold, and sometimes with sadness. In U.S. and European public opinion polls it is overwhelmingly the most popular colour, chosen by almost half of both men and women as their favourite colour.

Etymology and linguistic differences

The modern English word blue comes from Middle English bleu or blewe, from the Old French bleu, a word of Germanic origin, related to the Old High German word blao. In heraldry, the word azure is used for blue.

In Russian and some other languages, there is no single word for blue, but rather different words for light blue (голубой, goluboy) and dark blue (синий, siniy).

Several languages, including Japanese, Thai, Korean, and Lakota Sioux, use the same word to describe blue and green. For example, in Vietnamese the colour of both tree leaves and the sky is xanh. In Japanese, the word for blue (青 ao) is often used for colours that English speakers would refer to as green, such as the colour of a traffic signal meaning "go".

Shades and variations

Blue is the colour of light between violet and green on the visible spectrum. Hues of blue include indigo and ultramarine, closer to violet; pure blue, without any mixture of other colours; Cyan, which is midway on the spectrum between blue and green, and the other blue-greens turquoise, teal, and aquamarine.

Blues also vary in shade or tint; darker shades of blue contain black or grey, while lighter tints contain white. Darker shades of blue include ultramarine, cobalt blue, navy blue, and Prussian blue; while lighter tints include sky blue, azure, and Egyptian blue.

Blue pigments were originally made from minerals such as lapis lazuli, cobalt and azurite, and blue dyes were made from plants; usually woad in Europe, and Indigofera tinctoria, or True indigo, in Asia and Africa. Today most blue pigments and dyes are made by a chemical process.