Category Archives: Color

Fall, finally!

Fall

Fall colors at my mother’s.

It’s pretty boring around here–dye, weave, dye, weave, … and work on getting outdoor clean-up projects done. Boxes of shred material will go to the shredder soon, too. The weather is nice right now, so those things are the priority.

I know we don’t have fall color like the northeastern part of the country does, but our fleeting color is still pretty. A couple of hours after taking this picture I loaded it on my computer and realized that for me, the grasses are almost as pretty as the trees. I love trees, but I’m a prairie girl. When I take road trips to the east, claustrophobia sets in. It’s so frustrating to not be able to see areas off to the side of the road!  Here we have wide open spaces, not like farther west, but still mostly open. In fact, I’ve heard visitors from the northeast say that they feel so exposed. By the way, to get the full effect of the picture, click on it. And speaking of grasses and prairie, that’s my next weaving project.

Yarns

What about these colors!

So, here are the fruits of my labor so far. The WashFast dye colors from left to right are:Turkey Red, Magenta, Red, Tiger Lily, Chinese Red, Deep Purple. All were dyed at 1%. I dyed the red and magenta first, and they were disappointing to me. But I continued on and gradually came to like these colors. The really interesting part will be to start mixing colors. The blues and another purple will be next. Dyeing in this way means that I can use the same water over and over, which not only saves on water, but also on all the additives that go into the pot.

Where’s a blue zebra when you need one?

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Drawing

The design

Here’s the drawing of what I’m working on, except that I decided to make all the solid blue stripes the same size. I had to do this because of the way I measured and wrapped the zebra stripes, based on another design entirely.

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Weaving

The Weaving

Here’s the piece being woven. Now I’m not so sure about those solid stripes, at least not sure about the color. In the drawing, they are a darker blue, but when I put those yarns and the zebra stripe together, they didn’t look good. I tried several other colors and decided to just go with the blue you see. If I really don’t like it when I take it off the loom, I’ll do some surface embellishment. What I am happy about is the zebra stripes themselves. They are really weaving up nicely. And easily. Of course, it took lots of sampling before the right warp width could be found. Then I was worried that after weaving all the bottom magenta portion, that those zebra parts wouldn’t fit. So, yippee! AND I am to the top of the design, ready for the next color block.

Update

This turned out to be a horrible piece, which I can see from the drawing that it was destined to be. My only possible defense is that I really wanted to practice ikat.

Yellow to violet

In that very large abstraction book  that I checked out from the library, Abstraction there was a piece titled From Yellow to Violet by François Morellet. It was a kind of squared spiral, with yellow in the center going to violet on the outside line. That got me thinking about all the colors in between. The handy Color Schemer came out again. Linear In “Mixer” I chose a yellow and a violet. The default gives you 52 colors, in this case from yellow to violet. I changed that to 21 and this is what I got. Notice that there are lots of browns and some not very interesting colors in the middle of this. Then I happened to notice the drop down menu beside Path. Evidently I’ve never done that before, but there are three choices in all: linear, radial clockwise, radial counterclockwise. Radial-counterclockwise The example above with the not-so-interesting colors is the linear path. Left is the radial counterclockwise. When they say radial, they are meaning on Radial-clockwise the color wheel. Here is the radial clockwise. Both of these schemes are interesting to me, maybe even a little exciting. These color palettes look like they could be for the abstraction book. I love them! After all, they have purple.

Busy, busy

Colors-color-aid

Color aid papers

©Sherri Coffey-Illusion

Illusion

The latest piece was cut off the loom yesterday and I plan to start the finishing of warp ends today or tonight. Force myself. I have started a series of yoga classes and hurt my back last week. I have no idea what I did to cause that because nothing hurt or felt bad during class. Plus, I seldom have back issues. Today, on the way home, I had a long list of errands to do. That idea was scrapped quickly. I was trying to do these things during the lunch hour– on a FRIDAY! Fridays are always crazy. What was I thinking!

This afternoon I plan to play around with color, since that was successful for me before. Gettin’ out those Color-aid papers. Who knows? I may even cut them!  Above is the finished result.  When I look at this photo, though, I realize all over again that I need to get to the photographer. Or get some lights. Or something…

 

 

Another ode to color

Do you notice color everywhere? Pattern? I do. I love color! And I find myself noticing lines, shapes, etc. all the time.

The other day I was in Chili’s to get a to-go meal when I noticed the wall in front of me. And even though there were other people waiting with me, I got out my phone and took a picture. That kind of thing can get embarrassing sometime, but I really love the colors. Make a great rug! Each one was painted on an individual board, maybe a 1 x 4.

We all know who/what Pantone is, right? I say an article in the NY Times about the origin of that ever more famous color system. Interesting how the idea was sparked, and boy, do I have sympathy with the task the inventor had–mixing the beiges of women’s hosiery. Now, not many days go by without some reference to Pantone. Wish it wasn’t so darn expensive!

If your go to the article, be sure and read the last few lines. And if you want to see how real color geeks think, look at the comments below the article.

 

Smile, it’s MassKara

Image:Masskara festival1.jpg

Source

This really has nothing to do with anything except for the colorful costumes. I occasionally read a blog called Live in Full Color, where I found the reference to MassKara. The Wikipedia info is here.

I completed a huge task (for me) over the weekend. Finally I cleaned the hard drives of two computers. They are loaded in the car and will go to Goodwill soon. Last Thursday I discovered another task (to go along with about a million others) that needs to be done. My niece got married and was having the reception at the Community Arts Center. The Texas Artists Coalition is mounting a members’ exhibit, allowing two pieces from each member. I thought I would take my pieces when I went to the reception. Sadly, I discovered that the hanging board wasn’t with the piece. I couldn’t find it anywhere. All of this work has remained in this condition since I took down an exhibit over a year ago—a symbol of my state of mind for the last year. The task is to unwrap all those pieces and get them organized. Fun, huh?

Those catchy colors again

This caught my attention today in ArtDaily. How could it not? Of course the yellow ribbon dominates, but then the eye travels to the small red section in the bodice. Below is the quote from the article. Again, I want to go to Philadelphia. Seems there are many other exhibits to explore besides this one.

This fall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presents an overview of Ronaldus Shamask’s unique multi-disciplinary approach to fashion, honed over a 35-year career. Ronaldus Shamask: Form, Fashion, Reflection explores the evolution of the designer’s creative process and includes clothing as well as life-sized “architectural” fashion drawings, dance costume sketches, and video clips of fashion shows and dance performances.
More Information: http://artdaily.org/index.asp[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

Also on view, I think all the time, are the Constantine Tapestries. These are so large and so old, I don’t think they move them often. I saw them there several years ago. http://www.philamuseum.org/galleries/EuropeanArt1500-1850#gs22

And then there’s this. I was so taken in with the shape and color of this piece that I didn’t notice its handle and purpose. This is from an exhibit at Browse and Darby featuring the work of Nicholas Rena. Evidently the pieces were commissioned by the gallery. All I can say is Wow! I would love to have one of these. By the way, the above piece also comes in other interior colors. I’m glad, since pink is not my favorite. Take a look at the other pieces and enjoy colors and the contrasts.

Cerise and fuchsia

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Funny—I had a discussion today with my hairdresser about cerise and fuchsia. Should I mention that she’s from England? Anyway, I had to look it up. After all, they are colors! When I see that purple-y pinky color, I think fuchsia, but after briefly reading a couple of things, I not sure there’s much difference between the two. What about you? Or maybe I just had the two mixed up. According two the above images from Wikipedia here and here, cerise is what I consider to be fuchsia. Does this Happy Chair have fuchsia or cerise?

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Happy Chair

And how do you pronounce cerise, which by the way, comes from the French, meaning cherry? My very British hairdresser says sherise. And just in case this subject has not been beaten to death, here are some pages to see images.

A guide to color

 

House & Garden cover, 1948 Color palette:

I got this “guide” here, but it’s also on Pinterest. Notice that it’s from 1948. And interesting take and a break from the ubiquitous color wheel.  Remember my small rant? I really don’t spend a lot of time on it, as I know many do. My attention span is only so long! But since I am spending a lot of time looking at paint chips and paint sample boards, it’s interesting to find colors on Pinterest. I found pictures of rooms painted with colors that I’m considering. That’s helpful. I kind of know what I want to do with the walls, but the floor covering escapes me. I have carpet currently and like it…but, right now, I think I may have to go with wood. It’s like denim and jeans; it goes with everything. On the other hand, it’s noisier, shows dust bunnies more, and is more expensive. What to do, what to do…it’ll come to me. In the meantime, has anyone ever painted an interior wall mural? I found one I love, but that’s for later.

I want to stay here…

For those of us who love color….wouldn’t you love to stay here? This was an old Holiday Inn, which has been remodeled to become the Saguaro Hotel in Palm Springs. Wow! What a great place to return to after a busy touristy day. More pictures can be seen here.

And speaking of color, I am experimenting with choosing colors for the next piece. I usually go with my gut, but I am going to try using guidance in the form of this tool. Then, if something doesn’t seem right, I’ll go back to my gut.image

I’ve mentioned Joen Wolfrom and her quilts before, or maybe it was just that beautiful color wheel poster, which hasn’t yet been moved to a more accessible spot. So, I’m going with this tool. Joen mentioned Laura Nownes who is writing about using the Color Tool on her blog. It’s written in three parts. Here’s a link to the first part. By the way, the Color Tool may be available locally, but if not, it’s Amazon has it. Don’t they have everything?

How do you choose color? Do you ever finish something and realize that one of the colors just doesn’t work?