The Basic Colour Wheel (with Lucia Fraser)

Rob Bell:
I got stumped when I sent Ceramist.

I wanted to say Ceramist.

Lucia Fraser:
That is what you should have said.

Rob Bell:
This time, we explore Jono's sketch that sets out the basic colour wheel.

Lucia Fraser:
It's very instinctive how I use colour, but I was interested to look at the colour wheel and see that my palette is strictly on one half of that wheel.

Jono Hey:
The colour wheel, this is one of the most simple models of colour I remember learning a long time ago.

In some ways, colour can just be like, pick whatever, pick what you like.

But the colour wheel is interesting for me because it gives this order.

Tom Pellereau:
My wife Lucia is a big fan of your kind of colours.

I always have a joke when we're thinking about redecorating a room.

So which version of blue grey are we having in this room?

Rob Bell:
Hello and welcome to Sketchplanations, The Podcast.

For centuries, scholars have studied, hypothesised and argued where language comes from.

However, in 1866, at their newly formed headquarters at 45 Rue des Ecole, in the 5th arrondissement of central Paris, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned any existing or future debate on the origin of language, deeming it a topic unsuitable for serious study, given the shortage of direct empirical evidence.

But whilst the origins of language may be shrouded in uncertainty, today it's widely accepted by academics and otherwise that the conclusion of language is the podcast.

Experts agree that it can be refined no more.

That through regular, entertaining, episodic bites, the harmonious relationship between mouth and ear has been perfected.

And who are we to argue?

I'm Rob Bell, proponent of the Bow Wow Theory, and joining me once again as we dance the figurative fandango of officiousness, it's Jono Hey and Tom pellereau.

Hello, my friends.

How are you?

Tom Pellereau:
Very well, thank you.

Rob Bell:
Paris, there, I mentioned in the intro, and it's Arrondissement.

Jono Hey:
What does that mean?

Rob Bell:
They're little districts within the centre of Paris that kind of breaks up the city administratively more than anything else.

But what I kind of knew, but I reminded myself about this when confirming where the Linguistic Society of Paris actually is in the city itself.

It's in the 5th Arrondissement.

And I reminded myself that the Arrondissement of Paris, they're kind of structured in this snail shell spiral, starting in the middle, and then it spirals clockwise outwards from one right round to number 20.

And it does about, I think there are about three layers, three loops, if you see what I mean.

Very cool.

And then it started making me think about other cities, other towns' layouts that are of interest.

There's the canal rings of Amsterdam.

You guys both have been to Amsterdam.

There's kind of, again, concentric rings of canals there.

There's a place in Italy called Palmanova, and now this is, I'm not sure if it's medieval or not, the village itself, but it's formed on top of a hill in a nine-pointed star shape, the walls, for defensive, military defense reasons.

Tom Pellereau:
I thought you were going to say that it's shaped like a pavlova.

Rob Bell:
That would be good.

How would that?

Tom Pellereau:
Sort of crumbling in on the outside.

Rob Bell:
How would that manifest itself?

Tom Pellereau:
Just a mess in the middle.

Rob Bell:
And then I stumbled on Savannah in Georgia, in America.

So a city in the south.

And it's, when you look at it, it's a block system, a traditional block system of a city, with avenues and streets, is that right?

But there are all these little square parks dotted all over in rows.

And around each of those parks, they had something called wards.

And they were kind of split up administratively, so that you'd have all the amenities that you need inside each ward.

And you'd have this kind of public green space in the middle of them.

It's worth checking out on Google Maps as well.

Any knowledge of interesting town or city layouts that you boys have, Tom?

Tom Pellereau:
So Jono and I actually both lived in a city called Ypres in Belgium, which was kind of almost the epicentre of the First World War in some respects.

Was known to many as wipers, because it rained a lot.

And it got so badly bombed and destroyed in the war, the massive cathedral in the First World War, the massive cathedral in the centre got completely smashed to the ground.

And it was decided by the higher beings that after the First World War, wipers should be left as like a memorial to the First World War.

And it was sort of agreed that they would not rebuild this cathedral.

It would like be a kind of, you know, a museum almost.

And the local people were like, no, no, we want our cathedral back.

So they rebuilt it sort of from the ashes, so to speak.

And it does look like quite a mess.

They then built a fantastic cenotaph just on the outside.

And every, is it every single night, Jono, they still play The Last Post every single night.

They have two or three trumpeters who will play, you know, that incredible piece of music.

And they have a little ceremony to kind of mark, you know, to honour literally millions of people that died nearby.

Rob Bell:
So what does a cathedral look like?

Does it look like a newly or newer built cathedral?

Tom Pellereau:
It looks like it's been put together from smashed bits of stone.

Jono Hey:
It's a very cool place there, if you get a chance to go visit.

Tom Pellereau:
It's amazing.

Jono Hey:
It's lovely to sit out in the square there.

It's interesting that one came to mind.

I was thinking of it's not exactly a funny layout, but San Francisco is stuck on this peninsula, and having lived there for a good number of years.

And it's so hilly.

There's like the seven hills of San Francisco or something.

And yet the streets are more or less laid out as if there were no hills at all.

And so it's just like somebody just came down and said, we're going to build a road due east-west, and it happens to go up the very side of this huge steep hill and then back down at this impossible angle.

And we're just going to keep plowing on regardless.

And it's such a funny one because in the UK where the streets were so much older and just sort of evolved a bit more naturally, they just follow the contours of the hill in San Francisco.

I'm having none of that.

Literally like we're just going to draw a grid on the end of this peninsula and have it.

And that's just why you get those impossible angles and crazy steep, crazy steep hills.

Rob Bell:
Well, yeah, it's iconic, you know, those car chases in the films down through the streets of San Francisco.

Tom Pellereau:
That's the bash down the slope and then there's a straight flat road.

Rob Bell:
Sparks.

There's loads of YouTube stuff of people doing it on skateboards and all sorts of mad stuff were in wheelie bins.

There was that, was it Sony Bravia ad as well when they dumped those tens of thousands of coloured balls down the streets as well.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

That's what comes when you completely ignore nature.

Just go for it anyway.

I'm going to go for this.

There's another one that reminds me again, it's not like a particularly exciting layout.

It's just basically somebody's done a grid, but it struck me because it's on the end of, it's on the edge, sorry, of this, something called the Salade Iuni in Bolivia, which is a giant, absolutely enormous salt flat, incredible place to visit.

And San Juan is this tiny little village on the edge of that, which is basically in the desert.

And it's desert and it's completely flat in all directions.

And yet they've put like this grid.

And so whichever point you stand, you can basically look north, south, east and west, and it just goes into nothing in every direction.

Rob Bell:
Well, your perspective just goes off into a point.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, because they've just got a grid in the middle of a flat plain.

And so you look north and it goes off, you know, there's 20 houses and then it's endless desert.

You look south, 20 houses, endless desert, same left and right.

So it's a weird sort of place.

It's like it just vanishes into the desert.

It's a cool place to be.

It never happens in the UK, right?

It's too bumpy, it's too hilly.

There's always a curve.

There's a bend.

There's a little hill there that's just flat.

Rob Bell:
And most things have happened organically, all right?

Although I was having this discussion recently about actually about Newtowns in the UK and Milton Keynes, probably the most famous or the largest of Newtowns, fact check, all roundabouts, right?

So more the kind of block grid system that you find in more modern countries.

So when you start from scratch, that kind of higgledy-piggledy bends and roads going all over the place, the spaghetti, random spaghetti-type look maybe wasn't the most efficient.

And the block system prevailed with hundreds and hundreds of roundabouts, which, interestingly, is where I learnt to drive.

Jono Hey:
Very good at roundabouts.

Rob Bell:
Very good.

Jono Hey:
It's funny, though, isn't it?

I always think that if you design a town from like first principles, it doesn't necessarily mean it's as good to live in.

I always think like what's a fun town is like I think of Italy or something where you have these little hilltop things and all the streets are higgledy-piggledy and they go in different directions and you keep finding little alleyways and these steps up here and this one winds around and then you just get something, get a view, you know, like that's kind of more exciting than I guess I can get.

Tom Pellereau:
Definitely more exciting when you're on a holiday.

I don't know if it's like as handy if you live there and just kind of go, I'm trying to get to work.

Jono Hey:
Lost it again.

Rob Bell:
Well before the advent of things like Google Maps or maps on your phone that you could carry around with you, it is quite easy.

It's a lot easier to navigate in a grid system, right?

Than in an organically grown city or town.

Tom Pellereau:
I remember, obviously, having grown up in the UK, streets are quite short because they sort of are higgledy-piggledy and when I first went to Santiago in Chile, I was going to this place and it was sort of on this road.

I was like, oh cool, it's on this road.

That road goes through the middle.

Oh, that'll be easy.

I didn't sort of clock the fact that it was like house number 5032.

I was like, well, you know, I was like at one or two and it was four or five miles down this road.

I think I eventually got in a bus.

I'm never going to get there otherwise.

Rob Bell:
Fell asleep, ended up at 10,000.

Well, listen, however your town is structured here in Podsville, call us traditional, but we like a beginning, a middle and an end.

That was the beginning.

Let's delve into the middle, the meaty, cheesy, salad-y, finely seasoned flavour of this sandwich.

Let's podcast.

This time, we explore Jono's sketch that sets out the basic colour wheel that displays primary and secondary colours and the relationships between them.

Now, this topic was spurred on by an intro chat we had a few episodes back, when I asked Jono and Tommy about their favourite colours, blue being the most popular favourite globally, as it turns out.

And in that short chat about colour, Jono told us that, surprise, surprise, he'd done a sketch on the colour wheel, and we figured that'd be a great topic for a whole episode, so here we are.

Now, Jono will probably be the first to say that there's way more to the science and the nuances of colour than presented in his sketch, but that's why the word basic is included in the title.

So you should be able to see the Basic Colour Wheel sketch as the artwork for this episode on your screens now, but if not, or if you fancy a closer look at it, I'll include a link to the sketch in the podcast description where you can see it in its full glory on sketchplanations.com, and I'll also link to any other interesting references we make in the discussion.

As ever, we'll be going through the postbag of your correspondence with us at the end of the show, and if you'd like to get in touch with your thoughts and your stories about any of the topics that we cover on the podcast, you can send your emails to hello at sketchplanations.com.

Thank you, Tommy.

Or you can leave us a voice note by clicking the blue microphone button on the podcast website, sketchplanations.com/podcast.

Right then.

So this is the point where I usually ask Jono to describe the sketch and tell us why he wanted to conclude it in his collection.

But first, there's more pressing matters at hand, because on this episode, I'm delighted to say that we're joined by artist and ceramist, Lucia Fraser.

Now, Lucia studied for her honours degree in Fine Art at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

She's since exhibited her work in galleries right across the UK and has collaborated with iconic British design brands such as Hobbs and Heal's Furniture.

I'm also very pleased to say Lucia is a friend of mine, and I'm very proud that I have a few bits of her work in my house, up on the wall and in my kitchen cupboards and on the kitchen shelves.

Suffice to say, I'm a big fan.

Lucia, welcome to the podcast.

Lucia Fraser:
Hello, thank you for inviting me on.

Rob Bell:
I got stumped when I said ceramist.

I wanted to say ceramicist.

Lucia Fraser:
That is what you should have said.

Rob Bell:
That is what...

Lucia Fraser:
Ceramicist, yeah.

Jono Hey:
What were you thinking?

Lucia Fraser:
You could have just gone with potter, would have been easier.

Rob Bell:
Potter, artist and potter.

Okay, well, I'm not going to re-record that because...

Tom Pellereau:
It's quite funny.

Rob Bell:
You probably thought, what is...

I looked it up.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, it is quite a funny word to say, if you look at the spelling.

It is quite a hard word to say, don't worry about it.

Rob Bell:
Well, I prefer ceramicist to ceramist, yeah.

It's helpful if you can say what you do.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, it does help.

Rob Bell:
Lucia, we're going to get on to talking about the colour wheel in this episode, which is why we thought it would be great to speak with you, someone who conscientiously works with colour every day.

You should probably say now that whilst listening to this podcast, you can get a very good idea of Lucia's work by visiting our website luciafraser.com, which I'm sure will help bring to life some of the stuff that we're talking about.

I could have just read out the about section of your website, Lucia, to describe your work.

But seeing as you're here, do you want to tell us the kind of art and the kind of ceramics that you create?

Tell us a bit about that.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, sure.

So I'm kind of mainly using landscape as a starting point.

And then I will take that.

And then my paintings and ceramics, I'd say, end up evolving to be quite abstract in their nature.

But the starting point is having been somewhere that inspires me to want to paint.

And that really comes from, I guess, colour and light, really.

I'd say light is probably the thing that really makes me want to pick up a paintbrush, you know, because it's kind of...

I need, especially, I think when I'm making the work, I need the right circumstances which involve lots of light.

I'm quite interested to chat to you guys about this, actually, with colour in mind, because obviously light is, it provides colour, right?

So, I mean, I can't really paint.

For example, I had a studio recently that I've moved out of, thank goodness, because I just could not paint in there.

The light was terrible.

And I was sort of kind of wondering, what is it?

I've got this block, and I need full natural light to paint, which is interesting.

Rob Bell:
I was going to ask about that.

So you were talking about light and talking about lots of light, but I was going to ask whether it's natural light or whether it's artificial light.

Lucia Fraser:
And actually, it really helps if it's kind of coming in through say, a roof light.

So it's kind of coming down from, yeah, it's very, I think it's when I'm working on a canvas, I always work on the wall.

And it kind of, it really affects how I paint.

It really does.

It's so interesting.

Rob Bell:
So without that light, you do feel a kind of blockage.

You don't feel that that creativity is flowing as much for you.

Lucia Fraser:
I had a light prison and I was kind of finding that really interesting.

because a lot, the palette I work with tends to be the cooler colours, so sort of purples, blues and greens and paints.

And so I tend to avoid primary colours, I tend to avoid more bold kind of, I think, well, we'll go on to that.

But yeah, it's just all very interesting to me.

I wish I was a bit more knowledgeable about why I choose the colours I choose, but it is just very instinctive.

Rob Bell:
Well, do you know what often I find, I wonder stuff and then on the podcast, we talk about it and it turns out, okay, yeah, I could maybe understand that a bit more.

Who knows, by the end of this podcast, Lucia.

Lucia Fraser:
You might help me produce a new collection.

Rob Bell:
That little grey, wow, that would be amazing.

The Sketchplanations collection.

Yeah.

Okay, the colour wheel.

Jono, let's go to you.

Can you describe what the colour wheel is and maybe tell us why you wanted to create this sketch?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, as you say, this is the basic colour wheel.

This is one of the most sort of simple models of colour I remember learning a long time ago.

For me, I really like the structure of it because I think it's quite, I don't know, I think it's quite interesting.

In some ways, colour can just be like, pick whatever, pick what you like, but the colour wheel is interesting for me because it gives this order.

And then there was also, as I learned from art teachers, like a bit of logic to where you might use this or that, a bit of science behind what you were picking.

And you can use your intuition, but you can also inform it and help elevate it using some knowledge.

And so the colour wheel is focused on the three colours, the primary colours, the red, yellow and the blue.

And what's nice is if you put those around a circle in between the red and the yellow, you get the secondary colour of orange.

And in between the red and the blue, you get the secondary colour of purple and so on with green at the bottom.

And so you end up with like a here's a little triangle of my primaries.

Here's a little triangle of my secondaries.

And then you also end up, because you've got a circle, that these things are, you have opposites, which are the complementary colours.

And so this is where you have colours which are sort of opposite ends of colours.

They're complementary because they're really distinctive.

And I remember my art teacher sort of saying, like, you know, if you want, if you've got something that's quite yellow and you want to have a real nice contrast with it, we'll try using purple instead, because that's at the opposite end of the colour wheel.

It's the complementary colour for it, for example.

And so for me, I don't know, before the colour wheel, colours are just colours.

I just pick this or that because I like it or I don't.

And so it just gave a bit of structure to what was otherwise very unordered in my mind.

And I quite liked it.

And sometimes going, OK, can I use a complementary colour here to create a bit of contrast, for example?

But that's that's what it is.

That's why I do it.

Rob Bell:
And do you use it with with Sketchplanations sometimes?

Do you kind of just check in with the colour wheel?

Jono Hey:
Not specifically, but I do have a palette that I drew from my own show.

I also got some some feedback on it from a designer who helped me create the set of colours.

And I work with, generally speaking, a really limited palette, which I quite like in the sketches.

It sort of limits me.

But you do want things to be able to stand out and draw attention to this or draw attention to that.

And making sure I've got in my palette colours from different parts of the colour wheel is really helpful.

Rob Bell:
And let me just check this.

Is the idea that within that structure of the primary colours and then you mix primaries to get secondaries, you can keep going in that and basically you can mix any combination of your primary colours to get any other colour?

Is that the theory?

Jono Hey:
I mean, that's the idea with primary colours that you mix them together and you get all of the other colours to my knowledge.

I mean, you can add, this is why it's the basic colour wheel, but we haven't talked about like saturation, for example.

And obviously you can add white and you can have lighter colours of these and darker colours of these.

And so, but you put all these together.

Yes.

I think in principle you get every colour.

Rob Bell:
Brilliant.

Lucia, back to you.

Are you conscious of the colour wheel and the relationship, the kind of scientific relationship, the structured relationship between these certain colours in your work?

Lucia Fraser:
Well, not really, to be honest, like I say, it's very instinctive how I use colour, but I was interested to look at the colour wheel and see that my palette is strictly on one half of that wheel.

So I'm kind of blending red and blue to make like various tones of purple and pink and I guess adding white there as well.

But I sort of stick very within that side of it.

I was thinking about it and how you respond to colour.

I mean, to me, red is such an angry colour, so it's used very much for like warning, stop, kind of like alert.

And for me, I don't want to communicate that at all with what I'm making.

So I guess maybe that's why.

Am I consciously doing that?

I don't know.

Or is it just something that I'm naturally drawn to?

I don't know.

Jono, do you have colours?

What colours do you find that you're drawn to?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I don't know.

I usually think about it as, and this is because I'm drawing and I'm sketching all the time, is I've got essentially a fairly plain view that I'm working with, and then I want to be able to pick out and lift certain areas with brighter colours.

And my palette started from my pens that I had, right?

So I had a really nice red and a really nice green, and I've got a decent blue, but the blue doesn't contrast as much with the black, so I'm more likely to use the other ones.

But that's because I'm coming from a pen.

I don't have like a beautiful...

Lucia Fraser:
You're not mixing.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Palette, yeah.

I mean, I guess I could, but that's sort of where the aesthetic comes from, I suppose.

Rob Bell:
And Tommy, I was looking at the colouring involved in your branding, because on your website, what I picked out was, there's a bit of pink, there's a bit of peach and black.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Is that correct?

Tom Pellereau:
In our branding, it's gradually changed over time.

It started as quite black and white, in a kind of Chanel, kind of trying to be quite classy.

And then we found that was quite harsh.

And so we've moved through a number of different pinks.

And recently, a lot of our electronic products have rose gold, which has been an incredibly popular colour in the last few years, and going more towards a kind of pinky version of that to give softness.

But the majority of my products are, you know, the aesthetics is already done by my designer.

I don't get much involved with colour, actually.

In some respects, I find colour quite daunting.

Very tricky, frankly.

I have my trusty four-colour pen, which is the colour of a lot of my work, my personal work, on my sort of sketches, which is your basic red, green, blue, black.

Interestingly, I've started using a remote, one of these sort of e-inks pads, which I really, really like, except it can only do black and white or grey and white.

And I actually find I'm struggling a little bit with thought in the fact that I can't have any other colours other than grey and white, which I feel a little bit like I've started to go back to paper and pens.

Coming back to the colour wheel, what I didn't realise was some of the complimentary ones here.

Like, I don't know if you guys remember the sort of iconic Golf, the Ford GT40, which was the Le Mans car, which was in that blue and orange.

It's an incredibly beautiful sports car.

And I always thought that that was really random combination.

And no doubt it's because it's on that complimentary colour opposite.

Rob Bell:
Interesting.

You should mention that, Tommy.

So I went through a whole load of brands earlier and looked at the different colour choices they've used.

And there are a lot that have chosen the complimentary colours.

Orange and blue for me is Luton Town.

Of course.

Interestingly, Fanta.

And then, but also the complimentary red and green.

You've got Heineken.

There's also Stop and Go.

You know, just like traffic lights, Stop and Go, red and green.

And then yellow and purple.

I think you mentioned that earlier, Jono.

You've got the LA Lakers.

You've got Taco Bell, Thai Airlines, FedEx.

It's a bit more purple and orange, but all that kind of stuff.

But then you do get quite a few brands who use two primary colours.

Bang, bang.

And the red and yellow, Lucia, you mentioned red and yellow together earlier about colours that you tend to stay away from.

Those brands for me are really memorable.

It's like McDonald's, Burger King, Kodak, Shell, Red Bull, DHL.

You see it, it's just bang, right in your face.

And then, if I think of a...

Jono Hey:
Probably not what you're going for with your artwork, I guess.

Rob Bell:
No, but...

Jono Hey:
It's a bang, right in your face.

Rob Bell:
But then a yellow, but then yellow and blue, the combination of yellow and blue primary colours, things like Ikea and Corona, they're not as, when you see them, they don't have the same effect as the red and yellow brands.

I didn't think in terms of just what that did to me.

It's coming back to what you were talking about, red, I think, Lucia, being that colour that does, for a lot of people anyway, it means, or it represents anger and I don't know, kind of a, I don't know, what does it, what else would you say?

Tom Pellereau:
Danger.

It's sort of blood, isn't it?

It's all those.

Jono Hey:
But I have to say, I think brands are interesting, right?

So brands are different from art, because the brand colours have to serve all sorts of other functions as well.

Rob, you and I, I don't know if you remember, we were chatting about Decathlon recently changing their brand colour, and they just basically went to a slightly darker blue, as far as we could tell.

Yeah.

And there often, you're also looking for like contrast, for example, like how can, how does this, how does this stand out?

And can I write with white text on this?

Can I write with black text on this base colour?

That kind of thing.

So I think brands are often doing other things.

And one of the examples I was going to think of when I, when I thought about colour was when I was at the start of Nutmeg, and we were trying to develop a brand from scratch for this company.

And we, me and the designer put together a bunch of versions of the website and the logo in lots of different colours.

And it's very clear that, like, it's, colours are very cultural as well, because I think we probably have that association with red, but red can also mean, like, lucky in other parts of the world, right?

And it can mean very different things depending on where you grew up and how you see it as you're growing up.

And so we did a bunch of, like, versions of this logo in the website and we were trying to decide which one it was.

And somebody was like, yeah, red is definitely the colour of innovation in this industry.

And then blue is supposed to be very trustworthy.

So if you're a bank, maybe that's a great one, because you want people to trust you with your money.

So, you know, we're calm and we're on top of this.

And then I put it out to a poll and it came back green.

And that's why that makes green.

But I just think that everybody brings different opinions to this and difference, yeah, like their own feelings from when they grow up.

And it's very cultural.

Rob Bell:
It is subjective, isn't it?

Yeah, totally.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
I want to ask you a little bit about the media that you enjoy using.

because I know you're, I indeed, I have a lovely great canvas on the wall next door, which is my pride.

So can you tell us a bit about the media that you that you often use with the, especially with your painting?

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

So painting, I work with inks and they're water-based.

So I mix up powdered ink.

It sounds a bit strange, but I layer the canvases with the ink and then I'll use household bleach to strip the colour out, which then leaves behind a kind of almost like an ethereal.

I mean, your painting, Rob, has this growing on in it quite a lot, the kind of, if I pour the ink down the canvas and then I will put the bleach on in the same way, but it will strip certain areas of colour out, but leave behind just very echoey sort of like marks that, it just happens to be what I'm trying to say about the landscape.

So I fell on it as a technique and I've just stuck with it.

So it's quite unusual, but it works.

It works for me.

Rob Bell:
It's gorgeous.

There is a kind of mysterious element to it.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
I find myself getting lost in it sometimes.

Lucia Fraser:
And I think it depends on the time of day that you're looking at the paintings.

Rob Bell:
And the light, I guess.

Lucia Fraser:
As to how, the light, basically.

The light changes how you see them, which I like, so they're kind of evolving throughout the day.

Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
How did you happen upon the bleaching idea?

Lucia Fraser:
Well, actually, yeah, I say I happened upon it.

My A-level art teacher showed us how to do it.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Lucia Fraser:
I think you just get lucky sometimes with who teaches you.

And she taught me about bleach.

And then I just, I loved it so much.

I think we were, at that point, we were drawing with it, with a stick, that you kind of put your base layer down and then you sketch with the bleach.

So, I mean, honestly, everyone should try it.

It's really fun.

Rob Bell:
Nice.

Jono Hey:
I was going to say this.

Actually, I distinctly remember being like, wow, this is brilliant, doing art A-level and doing everything in reverse.

So, it was like you painted the whole paper first with ink and then drew with the bleach.

And it was so, I don't know.

I remember for me, it was really interesting because I'd always done pen and pencil stuff.

And that's just always, it's a white surface and you're drawing the dark.

And then when I was drawing with bleach, it's the opposite.

I'm like going, right, what's light here in this picture?

And how can I lift that out?

And it was really, really a fun experience.

And it makes a beautiful, beautiful effect.

Lucia Fraser:
Really good, isn't it?

Yeah, I feel it a lot more freeing because I feel like there's less to lose.

You're kind of taking away rather than putting down.

So if you're feeling nervous about drawing or painting, you know, putting down a mark with a dark colour is quite overwhelming sometimes.

So I like the removal rather than the application, if that makes sense.

Rob Bell:
Nice.

Jono Hey:
It's like a sculptor where you take away.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, if you're kind of taking away.

Rob Bell:
And woodwork is the same.

You're taking away.

Oh, I've not thought about it like that.

That's good.

That's good.

Lucia, one of the coolest things that I know you did was your residency in Iceland.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, that was amazing.

Yeah, I think that really changed how I paint in terms of with the bleach as well.

It just because I was there in midsummer, so we had 24 hour light.

And when it was obviously the light was just a huge part of my time there.

I just couldn't get over it.

I was out there at midnight, pacing, pacing around, just marveling at how light it was.

Rob Bell:
And the landscape and the seascapes are pretty awesome.

Lucia Fraser:
Oh yeah, I mean, I think, of course, of course.

Yeah, I mean, it's breathtaking, but I think what happens is the quality of light changes the colour of everything there.

Everything's so much more vivid.

And they have this, I think it's an invasive species, but it's the lupine, like it's a blue flower, but it's kind of gone everywhere.

Probably isn't that good for the ecosystem, but it's beautiful.

It's like this, so it adds this extra tint.

You know when you go to the Woodland, at the moment actually, or just past it, the Bluebell season, and you see these sort of carpets of blue, and it really affects how you're viewing the landscape, because you're kind of getting this, almost like this sort of strip of blue in your vision.

And it's the same in Iceland.

When I went, it was like that.

So you have the blue blue sky, the blue sea, all these different types of blue, and then the blue lupines.

I hope I'm saying that right, it could be lupine.

We'll see.

Anyone?

Rob Bell:
We'll see.

Anyone?

Bellymo.

Yeah, I'll take lupine.

because you talked about the fact that you prefer being in the cooler range of tones, colours.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

I mean, I'm adverse to any of the warmer colours.

I just can't paint with red or bright yellow or bright orange.

I can't really touch those colours.

They almost give me some kind of eeby-jeebies.

I don't know what I do.

Rob Bell:
It's cool, isn't it?

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
I wonder why that is.

because I know, I mean, I've, I can't have known that about your, about your work.

They're probably, the furthest I've seen it go is probably in some of the ceramics that you've done, where you've pushed in, you've pushed the pinks a little further, maybe.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, but just like a splash, not like a full on, it's like a very pale pink.

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

Lucia Fraser:
I think I'm trying to evoke a sense of calm and escapism.

I don't want my paintings or ceramics to be punching you in the face with colour.

I want them to be soothing.

That's why I make art because I'm trying to soothe myself.

So that's the effect I want them to have when they go out in the world.

I hope that's how you feel about your painting.

It's calming.

Rob Bell:
It certainly is.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

So I think colour is a massive part of that.

If I did those paintings in monochrome or bright red and yellow, they just wouldn't work.

Rob Bell:
Where it would be a very different vibe you get from passing it or standing in front of it and looking at it.

Lucia Fraser:
It would be communicating something entirely different.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Like you're going to go out and start a fight or something.

Jono Hey:
Not long ago, we spoke with Franc Cinelli with music.

He was talking a similar way about what he tried to do with the music to get across a feeling with it.

It's interesting to think how yours, you might have music that's soothing, but a painting that's soothing.

Lucia Fraser:
I have to listen to really soothing music whilst I paint as well.

Yeah.

I have to be in a certain mood.

I can't paint if I'm stressed or thinking about something else too much.

I have to get into the zone and then that's when they happen.

Like I say, in the environment as well, it matters.

Yeah.

It's all about that kind of flow state that you can get into.

Tom Pellereau:
Lucia, I'd love to know your thoughts on colour with ceramics, because I did quite a lot of ceramics at school.

And one of the things I find so frustrating is you didn't really know what the colour would be afterwards.

Rob Bell:
Good question.

Tom Pellereau:
because it changes so much.

So I wonder how that works for you.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Do you mean it changes once you've fired it in the kiln?

Tom Pellereau:
And it can change a lot.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

I mean, you can't, when you glaze a piece, you can't look at that colour of the un-fired glaze and no, really, that's just no representation at all of what it's going to look like.

So you have to do a lot.

Well, what I do is I test, I just test all my glazes and then look at them, how they interact with the other glazes on top of each other.

I have to just do hundreds of tests and then eventually, I'll get my sweet spot and then I'll just, and it does become a lot more scientific, so it's quite laborious.

But then when you do find those two glazes that overlap and create that sweet spot, then it's brilliant.

But it isn't like painting, you don't really know.

You're just going in blind, really, into the kiln.

The pieces are, I mean.

Rob Bell:
But then when you bring those test pieces out, is it sometimes like a really big surprise as to what's happened?

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, it's really fun, actually.

It's kind of magic.

You can get some really amazing results, but like I say, you don't really know what you're going to get into you.

because they can, I think if you layer one glaze on top of another, but then reverse that order, then you'll get a completely different mid-colour, if that makes sense, where they overlap.

Yeah.

Depending on which order they've gone on top of each other in the kill, if that makes sense.

Yeah, wow.

Jono Hey:
It's really good to embrace it, because I can imagine that being extremely frustrating at the same time as being like, wow, this is magical.

Magical is a much better way to think about it.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

Also, some glazes, depending on how thick they are in the pot, when you're mixing, it's only water to be a certain consistency.

They have a single cream is the consistency you're looking for.

If you don't get it quite right, then the colour might come out completely different.

So I have done dinner set orders, for example, because I make plates for eating off as well.

I've had a whole set sent back to me because the lady said the pink wasn't quite the right pink.

That she had of an original plate of mine.

So that can be really frustrating because obviously someone's version of this is the other thing I find interesting about colour is we don't really know how we're all seeing colour individually.

Her version of the pink that she wanted, I thought I'd hit it, but I hadn't because obviously she had a certain sensitivity towards pink.

She really wanted it to be a certain type of deep pink.

And I didn't get it right, you know?

Rob Bell:
But then I'm assuming that that is obviously kind of a tone and colours that she's really sensitive to, that she obviously responds very sensitively to, to be able to pick that up where you hadn't necessarily picked that up.

Lucia Fraser:
No, well, I thought it was okay, but no, it wasn't right for her.

So how we're seeing colour is subjective.

Rob Bell:
I was going to say I struggle with certain boundaries between greens and blues and teals and turquoises and some sometimes, something that's blatantly green to someone like a flip-flop or something.

I said, well, that's blues.

No, that is definitely green.

I do struggle in that area.

I say struggle, maybe the only area I struggle in is trying to communicate what that is and to many people, I'm getting it wrong in inverted commas.

But that's how I see it and that's how I interpret it.

So I guess, to your point, that it is a very individual thing.

Jono Hey:
We definitely have that here with me and my wife.

From time to time, she'll be like, can you put my blue trainers in?

Oh yeah.

She's got these grey ones.

Do you know these grey ones?

And there's definitely a red jacket that I think is orange.

She always thinks it's red, but there's like two jackets which are quite similar.

It causes some friction at times.

I said, why have you put this one in?

Tom Pellereau:
That's what you asked for.

Lucia Fraser:
It's green.

Jono Hey:
No, it's grey.

Lucia Fraser:
My dad is actually colour blind.

So he sees, particularly he mixes red and green.

So he sees red as green and vice versa.

And that's how it was discovered at school because he was asked to paint a flower, and he painted the petals green and the stem red.

So it's interesting that those two colours can, that's where you fall down as a colour blind person.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it was interesting, Rob, when you mentioned about the red and green, because there's that...

Tom Pellereau:
Red and green should never be seen.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, very true.

Red and green should never be seen.

So I do think about that when I'm, if I'm doing my sketches, for example, that if I want two things to be differentiated, because they're different types of things on the sketch, I shouldn't use red and green to do that, because somebody will see them as the same, and they won't get that at all.

But it's still sort of boggles my mind that traffic lights are like red and green, like the one most important place to actually make sure that people really know what's going on.

At least there's a top and a bottom, I guess that's what you do, right?

Tom Pellereau:
And they could never merge it together, because you could easily make one light that would do all three colours, but they could never do that.

It has to be top, middle, bottom.

Rob Bell:
So is that the most common difficulty in colourblindness then?

Red and green, mixing those up, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
I would say so.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

Okay.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Okay.

Jono Hey:
It's a good point.

I hadn't thought about that with a single traffic light, because it's the only way it's differentiated is the colour.

You just can't have that, which is why having three lights on top of each other gives you a position.

You just use white lights and just have three lights, for example, and that would be just as good if you were colourblind.

Rob Bell:
In the distance, you've seen a white light at the top.

Is that in the top?

Is that in the middle?

Is that at the bottom?

I think the sister we've got is actually turns out pretty good.

Jono Hey:
Somebody's talking about it.

Lucia Fraser:
It seems to work.

Jono Hey:
What about blue?

Could have a blue.

Rob Bell:
The other thing I was going to talk about, because one of the things in nature that always makes me stop in my tracks and look is like an awesome sunset.

And I was down at the coast this weekend where you just get better sunsets because you can see further.

Your landscape or your seascape is much, much deeper and much wider.

And those, I'm going to say hues, is that the right word?

And tones that come out.

Jono Hey:
I like colours.

Rob Bell:
I'll stick with colours.

I've got tints, shades, tones in front of me here on my notes.

Those colours, I just find that they're absolutely magnificent and sometimes they're really rich, but other times they are very faded.

And is that something that you also play with consciously in your art, Lucia, about in some areas or in some places having quite deep colours, but then others having it more faded or maybe even the contrast between the two on the same piece?

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, it's a lot about contrast.

You do, for me anyway, I don't want to paint an entirely muted piece because I'm trying to depict something a bit more suggestive.

I do work a lot with horizon lines, you know, that they kind of blur into each other, but there is always a starting point, like I say, which is one brush stroke with a dark, dark colour, and then that will always remain as a kind of focus.

I think you're...

Rob Bell:
I was going to say on my piece, I know exactly where that is.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, there's always a horizon line somewhere.

Rob Bell:
I will include a link to my piece of Lucia Fraser's art that I have.

I'll include a link to that in the podcast description so people can see that.

But yes, there is a distinct, no, it is distinct in a way, but you're not looking for it.

Lucia Fraser:
It's not obvious.

I think it's just there.

It's a presence, isn't it?

It's like I'm not trying to say, look, this is the point where the sky meets the sea.

It's just a suggestion.

Yes.

It might move as well because there's been many layers, so depending on the light.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Can you actually remember it?

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

You're painting.

Rob Bell:
I'm intrigued.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Wow.

Lucia Fraser:
It's a good one.

I remember the good ones.

Jono Hey:
Lucia, I was looking last weekend, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, we had this, was it the weekend before?

Lucia Fraser:
Ridiculous Northern Lights.

The Northern Lights.

I just, I am speaking.

Jono Hey:
I was also thinking, I knew we were speaking coming up, and I was thinking how they reminded me, these beautiful photos of the Northern Lights, of the sort of colours and the effect and the way it made me feel when I saw a lot of your paintings.

I know they're slightly different palettes, but.

Lucia Fraser:
No, that's really nice to hear.

Yeah, thank you for saying that.

I actually have never seen the Northern Lights, but it's weird that I can say I'm inspired by them, if I haven't actually seen them.

But they are, I mean, I was just flat out asleep that night, and I'm so upset because people are posting photos of the Northern Lights above my head in my village the next day.

Rob Bell:
Oh, and you're kidding.

Lucia Fraser:
No, I know, so I really missed out there.

But I have to go back to Iceland for that, I think.

It's a good excuse.

Fair enough.

Jono Hey:
I needed somebody to literally just drive around the streets like an ice cream van and wake everybody up.

Hey, guys, once in a lifetime chance, outside your window right now.

Gutted.

I've been thrilled.

Tom Pellereau:
Jono had a great story about that night.

Jono Hey:
Well, we went out for the next night because there was a chance that you might see the Northern Lights the next night.

And so at eight o'clock, we were like, oh, you know what, it's cheaper than going to Iceland.

Let's all get in the car.

And we drove up to a Downs and slept in the car till 3am.

And no, with the kids.

Yeah, with the kids.

Tom Pellereau:
He drove quite a long way.

He drove up to near me.

Lucia Fraser:
We really tried.

Did you not see them?

Jono Hey:
And they didn't know they were none.

They were all I kept searching like, you know, are there going to be any light?

All I could see was people posting beautiful photos of the previous night.

It was just fast asleep.

Nobody told me.

But it was worth a try.

Tom Pellereau:
Did you say there were like hundreds of people in the car park when you arrived?

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Yeah.

We were not the only people who had the idea of going and park in a dark field to see the Northern Lights.

Tom Pellereau:
That's for sure.

Rob Bell:
So another thing in nature where you do get this effect on colour, and Jono, I know you've got a sketch on this.

I've beaten you to it, is atmospheric perspective.

Right?

Do you want to explain that, Jono, briefly?

Jono Hey:
I can do.

Atmospheric perspective was something I'd witnessed so many times, but I'd never thought about the logic of it, and I never knew what the name was.

Rob Bell:
So an example of atmospheric perspective.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

The classic example for me is standing on a mountain ridge on a slightly hazy day looking into the distance, and if there's lots of ridges, the ones in the distance fade out and essentially become the colour of the sky, whereas the things closer to you, the ridges closer to you, are much more vibrant and deep in colour.

They actually have colour, and at the end, you basically got sky, and so atmospheric perspective is the interference in light between you and the distance, and you see that the colours become more muted as you go into the distance, and it's a beautiful effect as well.

Also reminiscent of Lucia's painting.

Tom Pellereau:
I agree.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I agree.

Lucia Fraser:
Oh, thanks again.

Rob Bell:
I sat at the top, Lucia.

We're fans.

Lucia Fraser:
That's actually a site that really does make me want to paint.

I mean, it's almost kind of annoying because it looks better than my paintings will ever look in it.

I just kind of want to...

Rob Bell:
Bloody nature.

Lucia Fraser:
Sometimes I should just go into photography.

This is too good.

Jono Hey:
It's just one nature made earlier.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

What am I trying to do here?

It's just there.

Tom Pellereau:
Can I ask you a question about an observation I have with colour and generations?

So my wife Lucia is a big fan of your kind of colours, blues and greys and muted tones.

And I always have a joke when we're sort of thinking about redecorating a room.

I'm like, okay, so which version of blue grey are we having in this room?

This sort of thing.

It may be a touch of pink here.

And I don't know if it is as a result, but my kids love bright colours.

So all their clothes are like fluorescent yellow, fluorescent green, they love a football top, which is a really bright, vibrant colour as well.

And I kind of think back to generations before us where avocado baths were a thing.

Like people would genuinely choose that.

And nowadays all our baths and our stuff are white or silver.

And I wonder, is it like a rebellion thing about our parents that my kids want really bright colours because they live in this very natural world or that?

So I suppose, did your palette come from that?

Are your parents very bright colours?

Do you have an avocado bath, for example?

Or, you know, and do you think this is a cycle of that happens?

Lucia Fraser:
Maybe, although I was just thinking, I think it's a lot to do with, in terms of interiors, it's a lot to do with trends.

I think with children, it's more about, you know, children are much more, they feel more free, they feel more bold, they want to play, and those colours suggest all those things.

And orange and yellow are very sort of, like, you know, bright, cheery, you know, that's how children tend to sort of, their natural disposition is that.

Whereas, I think as I, I don't know how, I can't really remember how, what my favourite colours were when I was younger, but as I've matured with my art as well, I've sort of, like I say, what I'm trying to do is create something that's soothing and more like soft and gentle, and I guess that's where I'm going with my colour choice.

Rob Bell:
But you don't, but you, I'll make a statement and then I'll ask you if you feel it's true or not.

But you don't feel that you're affected by trends in your artwork?

Lucia Fraser:
No, no, not at all.

Yeah, I mean, I remember being at, doing my art degree, and I was asked, why are you using blue and purple, like pale blues and purples and pinks all the time?

Why are you doing that?

You know, and I just said, because they just speak to me.

I thought, they're the colours I want to use.

Well, do I have to explain myself?

You know, they really wanted me to explain it.

And I actually couldn't.

And I wish I could in a way, but it's just an instinct.

Rob Bell:
I think that is fair.

There's so many things that I do or that, you know, I have preferences one way or another.

I can't tell you why.

Tom Pellereau:
That you can't explain.

Rob Bell:
No, it's just how it is.

Tom Pellereau:
Keep those to yourself, maybe.

Rob Bell:
That started going a bit weird there.

Is there anything anyone else would like to add on our chat about colour and the colour wheel before we round off?

Jono Hey:
When I was at Nutmeg, the founder was a brilliant guy.

He had a friend who was an artist.

And instead of like the traditional thing of putting your photo on the website of like, here's the team, he got his friend to come in and paint little portraits of everybody.

And his friend was amazing at just sitting there 20 minutes, paint your portrait.

And I had an interesting chat with him while I was trying to sit still for it, because I've always drawn with like pens and pencils.

And so I typically think of things in lines and he was painting with colour and blobs of colour.

And so looking for areas of colour.

And it was just, I remember being, finding it quite striking.

It was such a different way of approaching things to me.

And he said, it's quite interesting.

Like if you're drawing a face, you can draw like the outline of the face and the ridge of the nose.

But like, you know, there's no line in the middle of your cheek necessarily.

So we, you know, how steep does the cheekbone need to be in order to warrant a little pen line.

Whereas if you're going with colour, you just go, you know, there was no outlines in what he was painting.

It was just like, just look for the colour and I just put it there.

And I just think, I remember thinking, oh, that's lovely.

I wish I was doing that.

And why am I, I'm, I've got a pen and it's easy to do stuff with it, but I'm like conjuring these lines out of nowhere.

And they're, they don't exist.

Like there isn't a line there.

I've just made it up and put it there.

Whereas there isn't that in the paintings, the work that I've seen of yours, which is a really different approach.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, I don't really like lines.

Rob Bell:
You used to do pet portraits, didn't you?

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, I did.

Rob Bell:
And that's like a similar thing there, where you just happen to find the colour, right?

I mean, I saw them, they're brilliant, they're great.

Lucia Fraser:
Oh, yeah.

I mean, thank you.

I did leave that behind as a career choice, but...

Rob Bell:
Yeah, fair enough.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, but the...

Rob Bell:
We don't have to bring it up, if you don't want to.

Lucia Fraser:
Cheers, Rob.

Jono Hey:
Tell me all about it.

Lucia Fraser:
I could make good money doing that, but no, it's more about, I was just using charcoal and shading a lot, so, yeah.

Yeah.

That was how I was doing that.

But actually, I don't really like, I don't like the process.

It's sort of to prescribe, you have to get it really right.

Rob Bell:
Yes, whereas yours, as you said at the very, as you said at the very beginning, it's about your interpretation and your memory of, of an environment and of an emotion.

Lucia Fraser:
The feeling and, yeah.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Lucia Fraser:
A mood.

Yeah.

It's almost like, the presence of something is more important than the actual depiction of it.

And that's what I'm trying to sort of paint, if that makes sense.

So like the presence of the sea and how you feel when you're there, and the presence of a mountain, you know, looming over you.

That's kind of what I'm trying to get across.

I'm not trying to like sort of paint the actual lines of the ridges.

Although, again, like we said earlier about the perspective, what was it called?

Jono Hey:
Atmospheric perspective.

Lucia Fraser:
I mean, I have seen paintings that do really like exactly depict that, and they are amazing.

But for me, I'm just sort of, I'd rather look at it in person and then have a painting that's kind of my version of how I feel when I'm there.

Does that make sense?

Rob Bell:
It makes perfect sense.

Lucia, do you have anything coming up that you'd like to plug at all, anything we should be keeping an eye out for?

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah, I mean, I'm actually working on ceramic paintings as my next sort of collection relief.

That's my big project at the moment.

Rob Bell:
Ceramic paintings?

Lucia Fraser:
So what I'm creating, yeah, so I'm making big tiles as big as I can get them and putting them in the kiln and glazing as I, you know, using the glaze in the way I use paint a bit in terms of the mark making.

But so far I've had almost 100% breakages.

So if anyone knows how to fire large tiles without getting cracked and I'm told that I need to use, I'm going to sound really unprofessional and like I don't know what I'm doing here, which is sometimes really true.

I'm told that sand in the kiln will help, so that because it's such a large surface area of ceramic, it needs to move when it's firing and they just keep cracking right down the middle.

But they look great.

Jono Hey:
Tom could probably solve this for you.

Lucia Fraser:
Yeah.

What do you think, Tom?

Tom Pellereau:
That's a very, very good question for someone who's much more skilled than I, but certainly it sounds like it's the heat distribution and someone must have solved it before.

Lucia Fraser:
It's weird because I can make plates and they're okay.

I think it's because it's thicker clay and it needs to move more.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I'm going to try sand next.

Rob Bell:
That's amazing, Lucia.

Lucia Fraser:
Okay.

Rob Bell:
Where's the best place to kind of keep track of that?

Is it at luciafraser.com?

Lucia Fraser:
My website is my name, so luciafraser.com.

And then I use Instagram to kind of regularly update people with what I'm doing.

Rob Bell:
And what's your Insta handle?

Lucia Fraser:
That is at Lucia Fraser.

Rob Bell:
There you go.

That's where you need to go, at Lucia Fraser and luciafraser.com.

And you can buy prints from your website as well, can't you?

Prints of your artwork.

That's where you need to go.

Lucia, thanks so much for coming on and talking all things colour.

Lucia Fraser:
Thank you again.

I've really enjoyed it.

It's been great talking to you guys.

Thank you for having me.

Rob Bell:
I've genuinely learned loads of stuff from that discussion.

I don't think we've hit the brief of answering your why.

Lucia Fraser:
No.

Rob Bell:
So I'm sorry about that.

Lucia Fraser:
Light prisms.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'll go elsewhere for that.

Rob Bell:
We can workshop it elsewhere.

We'll workshop it elsewhere.

But I do feel quite inclined to go next door now into my front room and just have another good look at my Lucia Fraser artwork up on the wall.

So in fact, I'm quite excited to do that.

So let's round off this episode quite quickly.

Until the next time we say yellow, I'll take it as red that you're all doing well and not feeling blue.

If you feel inclined, please do give us a rate and a review.

We'll be back in just a sec with your correspondence since last time.

And remember, you can also email us on hello at sketchplanations.com.

But for now, thank you for listening.

Go well, stay well.

Goodbye.

And we're back to have a little look through this week's and we're back to have a little look through the post bag.

So the last episode we recorded was about Goldilocks tasks.

And we've had an email from Simon.

It's a great email.

He covers loads and loads of stuff in here.

I'm surprised we didn't bring some of this up in the podcast itself.

I will reveal what I mean now.

So Simon says, Sport is a great example of the Goldilocks zone.

I was explaining it to my climbing buddy last night.

And that's a really visible example.

The climbs are graded and get progressively more difficult.

The easiest climbs can be fun, but get a bit boring quickly.

Whereas the hardest climbs are just too demoralizing.

The sweet spot is where a climb is challenging enough, but doable.

Absolutely.

I mean, bang on, let me carry on with the email before I delve into that little bit with you, Jono.

Simon goes on to say, so many examples like this in various different sports or in learning any new skill, be it music or in language, DIY, which is great because we did talk about some of that.

And he says, there is also something quite relaxing in the repetitive stuff too, like mowing the lawn.

But if you had to do it all the time, it wouldn't be so relaxing.

Great points, Simon.

Thank you very much for your email.

We didn't really talk loads about sport, did we?

Jono Hey:
We always talk about sport.

We always talk about sport, but climbing is a really good one because it's so seemingly objective in that, here's a wall, what is it?

There's a route, sorry.

And yeah, he's actually right.

You have all of these levels, don't you, where it's graded really finely.

Yes.

And so you get really good track of your progress, not just up the wall, but progress through the levels.

And you see somebody doing something ridiculous at first, like Capitán or something, and you're like, oh, that's completely impossible.

But you work up your ones.

Yeah, it's great.

I love it.

Rob Bell:
I don't know loads about the grading within climbing, but they're numbered and lettered, right?

It's like one and then two A, two B.

And I guess it depends on the climbing walls that you go to.

So it's, but it is graded in terms of its difficulty.

Do you know any more about it?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I know a little bit.

Mostly it's mostly the numbers and then it gets, you know, up to the, you get five point this, five point that, five point this.

And so you can be very clear that, you know, like I'm working on a 5.7, but it's on a 5.11, or this is, you know, this is my only time I've ever managed a 5.10 or whatever it is, you know.

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
Which I think is quite satisfying.

Rob Bell:
But in the small amount of climbing or bouldering that I've done, I mean, Simon's absolutely right.

Once you've done the easy route, it doesn't provide that much of a challenge anymore.

I was gonna say fun, it is still kind of fun, but it's more like being in a, I don't know, like in a kid's playground and going up the climbing frames, like, yeah, I can do this, no problem.

I'm not very challenging myself.

I'm not that scared.

I'm not working that hard.

But you do find that level quite quickly, but give it maybe three or four attempts where perhaps in the first goes, you don't make it across this one particular hold.

They can get to a point, even within an hour or so or a half an hour, where you do progress.

And that, for me, yeah, great example of that Goldilocks zone.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, there's a brilliant business, I think, in the UK called Clip and Climb, with these top rope climbing things.

And literally like a four-year-old can turn up and safely climb these walls and jump off.

And they have all these fixed walls, like 16 of them, let's say, in a place.

And in principle, that might just get too easy for people, but they always have to have three levels.

And so that's another nice thing about climbing, is you can have one wall, but you can have hard ways of doing it and easy ways of doing it.

So if you want, you can go up the easy way.

But if you just do the yellow holds or whatever, then it's like that much harder.

If you just do the red holds, it's even harder.

And so you can make any one wall as hard as you like.

And I think it gives you, like Clip and Climb gives you these three levels.

Like the first thing is if you're four, you just climb up it.

And that's brilliant.

But you can still do it.

Rob Bell:
It doesn't matter what route, just go.

Jono Hey:
If you're 16 or 20 or whatever, and you're like, I'm trying the hardest one now.

It's brilliant.

It keeps people in the sweet spot.

Rob Bell:
Wouldn't it be great if there were means to translate that kind of grading difficulty system into other walks of life and other sports, perhaps, you know, other, but learning any kind of skill.

And I guess if you are being taught to learn any new skill, there will be that progression built into that, into the teaching, right?

So you're not just going to go in at, I don't know, so judo.

You're not going to go up against the black belt straight away.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, but I think there's more room for it.

Like it often strikes me with like 10 pin bowling.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Should do more of this, right?

So if you're if you're really just starting out, you can have like the the bumpers.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
And and you can have the thing where you put the ball on it, rolls it down.

Rob Bell:
And you just shoot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
But then after that, you know, somebody who's been playing for 20 years gets a strike every time is having the exact same course as some somebody else.

I feel like you could you could make that much harder, couldn't you?

Rob Bell:
Like make it narrow obstacles.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Obstacles.

Rob Bell:
You have to jump.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Like crazy golf.

But the pins pins are moving.

I don't know.

I could make it more fun.

Rob Bell:
I like it.

That's amazing.

Business idea.

Crazy bowling.

Anyway, thank you, Simon.

We don't know.

Thank you very much, Simon.

Jono, you've got another one coming.

Jono Hey:
I just wanted to share one from Folk on LinkedIn, who I shared the Goldilocks Tasks podcast on LinkedIn.

And he said thanks very much for that.

I missed the link to the podcast.

Now I've seen your website.

I can listen to it there.

But to be honest, it was a Goldilocks Task to find the podcast because I didn't actually help you get there.

So yeah, thank you for that.

It was a good example of me not actually making it easy.

It's funny, isn't it?

Sometimes you want stuff to be just...

Usually on the web, you're trying to do stuff as easy as possible.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, one click.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
We laid a treasure map.

Jono Hey:
Follow these instructions.

Eventually you may find the podcast.

Yeah, I must do better.

Rob Bell:
We could all do better, Jono.

We can always all do better.

Thank you for that, folk.

And finally, I just wanted to share something that came in on the episode before Goldilocks Task, which was on Sharpening the Saw.

So this was a message that was sent to me on X.

It's from Darius Ski.

And so Sharpening the Saw, just to remind you, was all about taking a break from whatever it is you're doing to refresh and recharge before going back in again so that you can go in with a fully sharpened blade and be as effective and productive as you possibly can.

And so Darius Ski posed the question to me saying, so do you think people like Isambard Kingdom Brunel paused?

And there's a smiley face after it.

So it's taken, it's taken in good will.

And he's absolutely right.

You know, some of the world's most celebrated achievers, we should probably say, probably never did stop to sharpen the sword and were just on it, on it, on it, on it the whole time.

But I didn't know, but I did have to look up exactly the right figure for this.

But Isambard Kingdom Brunel died at the age of 53.

And I know times were different back then in Victorian times, but men and particularly relatively affluent men were living till longer than 53.

So perhaps, had Isambard stopped to sharpen the sword.

Jono Hey:
Recharged a bit more.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Might still be with us.

Rob Bell:
Maybe not.

Jono Hey:
I don't know.

I think it's quite difficult to know that.

Like if you're, you know, there are people who are extremely driven in life and seem to get enormous amounts done.

But on the other hand, you know, maybe they do recharge still.

Or maybe they don't.

I don't know.

Seed on Musk.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I know.

Djokovic.

Exactly.

And if they stop, they're like, it's like sharks.

If they stop, they die.

Jono Hey:
Is that right?

What happens to sharks if they stop?

I don't know.

Rob Bell:
If they stop swimming.

Yeah, who knows?

But yes, it's just quite a witty remark from Darius.

Thank you very much for that.

Listen, that's enough for the postbag this week.

Thank you all for your messages.

Please do keep sending them in in whichever manner is best for you.

On social media, via the website, via email, they're all viable.

So keep them coming in.

Thanks very much.

See you next time.

Bye-bye.

Jono Hey:
Cheers, everyone.

Rob Bell:
All music on this podcast is sourced from the very talented Franc Cinelli.

And you can find loads more tracks at franccinelli.com.