What's the color of love? What's the texture of sadness?
Answers to big, dreamy questions like these are subjective and impossible to pin down, but French video producer Thomas Blanchard got one step closer in a new experimental video.
Image by Thomas Blanchard.
In his latest work, "The Colors of Feelings," Blanchard used an array of colors, textures, and movement to present a vivid interpretation of human emotion.
Blanchard described the piece to me as a translation of his current state of mind, which is "thoughtful and nostalgic," adding, "I consider it an analogy to feelings, such as joy, hatred, love, sadness, and so on. All these emotions come and stir together before they soothe and let go."
All GIFs via Thomas Blanchard.
Like waves on the shore, the paint in the video ebbs and flows with vivid colors blending and transforming anew. Presented with ethereal music from composer Max Richter, the piece is tranquil and truly spellbinding.
To achieve the fluid motion, Blanchard combined paint with some unlikely materials — a few ingredients from the kitchen.
He mixed honey, milk, oil, and cinnamon with acrylic paint to create the hypnotic movement.
Blanchard explained, "First I would pour a bit of milk in the plate, then draw shapes from the paint through the use of a syringe."
"I would then pour the [grapeseed oil] with a bit of honey and cinnamon and have the small balls of paint come into shape by injecting paint straight into the oil," he said.
From there, Blanchard blew gently over the concoction to set it in motion.
Amazingly, he completed the entire project in less than 48 hours.
Blanchard shot "The Colors of Feelings" with a DIY setup, using projectors and a Canon 550D equipped with macro rings to achieve the extreme close-ups.
The project came together so quickly that even Blanchard was caught off guard.
"It had a bit of a disturbing feeling considering that my previous project lasted for four months," he said.
(That previous project, a time-lapse of blooming flowers, is pretty amazing too.)
Get in touch with your inner self and watch "The Colors of Feelings" in its entirety.