Color Explorations

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Photo of a gerber daisy I took today.

Today’s been very exciting for me… I’m spending my birthday realizing a goal of mine- to be in the ongoing, long-term coursework at the Gail Harker Center for the Creative Arts.  I started in “Studies in Design, Experimental Machine and Hand Stitch Level 200” yesterday.

We mainly have been working on color theory and dyeing the last two days.  The photo above is a great example of color.  You probably know and can see how the complementary colors of blue and orange make this photo extremely vibrant.  But the photo also works well because it has red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow, and yellow green.  The spectrum of the color wheel from yellow-green through to red-orange are all included, which are analogous colors.  Also, the blue, red-orange, and yellow-orange combine to make a split-complementary theme.  Now, if the colors were all in the same proportionate amount, it wouldn’t be nearly as effective.  but the dashes of yellow-green and red-orange really help the photo POP!

A few of my embroidery threads and yarns that I’m hand-dyeing.  The dye is wet on the thread here and will look different once it has been rinsed out.

 

Beyond playing with dyes on paper and practicing color schemes, we started hand-dying our thread today.  I played around with variegating between colors, from dark to light in one color, and with using a split-complementary color scheme on the thread.
Some of my notes and a color study of creating neutrals from
complementary colors (Red-Orange and Blue-Green)

Tomorrow we will get started on dyeing our fabric and hopefully get to stitching.  I have three more wonderful days of this session… then it’s home and off to set up the Tieton, WA “Salsa!” exhibition, which will be opening Memorial Day weekend.  I’m pretty confident that I’ll be freemotion quilting as soon as I get through my show opening!

 

From my sketchbook- Creating shades by adding black to a pure color (orange) and mixing a triad of
Yellow-Green, Yellow-Orange, and Violet

 

 

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7 replies
  2. Stella Nemeth
    Stella Nemeth says:

    That class sounds pretty wonderful. I've taken a couple of Craftsy classes on color and I tend to just fall asleep. I really don't want to do dyeing but your threads make me jealous. I bet they turn out wonderful.

  5. SAMARA
    SAMARA says:

    That is the coolest thread/fibre I've ever seen. I want to wear it as a necklace!!! have a great week. You sound busy. Lovies, Samara

  6. Ann Bowman
    Ann Bowman says:

    I am really looking forward to following your blog. I am new to Quilt/Fiber Art and have just recently finished my first piece called "Sunflower Delight". I am also new to blogging so I have several learning curves to work on including FMQ. You are probably really busy but I would invite you to take a peek at my first try, http://annsplace-dahlitsa.blogspot.ca/

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