Color Study Series

After my recent popular post about color theory and the irrelevance of the color wheel relating to fabric selection (Click here to read it!) I decided that I would follow up by doing a Saturday series of posts relating to color study! 
Why?
Because there is no way for quilters to shortcut the process of learning about color. The color wheel isn't some magic tool that will gift you with years of knowledge of color and its use in quilt making! That comes with lived experience, so if you are eager to improve your color and fabric selections to make magnificent quilts take some time each week to actually study color in the world around you!
So, for the foreseeable future Saturday posts on the blog will focus on color study!
Here is my first color study example:
I took this photo last week whilst hiking. It is an Australian "Wattle" flower, wattle is an acacia variety.

The wilderness is vast array of colors and its 'wildness' is akin to the relationship between colors! Colors are like wild animals running amok in the jungle! You can try to tame them, you can let them run wild or you can find a balance and simply explore how best to use them to suit your individual aesthetic preferences appreciating their wildness and working with it!

If you are one shade off with a color selection it can make a difference between having a great quilt and a spectacular quilt! Why? Because contrast is another vital element in fabric selections. Your color selections can be high contrast or low contrast such as in low volume quilts.

In this color study we see the fabulous yellow of the blossom teamed with a grey\green foliage and the red\brown soil of the forest. This palette is common here in the flora of forests in Western Australia.

I've created a digital scrapbook for color study,  here's the "worksheet" page I designed.  You can download an editable MS Word version or a printable version on my website if you want to try color study.  

I'm confident with my colour choices for quilt making but color study is still fun because it generates colour palettes I can imagine using in quilts and I can refer to the scrapbook any time if I'm pondering color palettes for a project.  

Examples

Here is a fun quilt mock-up that illustrates a similar palette of three colors in a quilt with a balanced palette where no one color is vastly dominant:

NOTE: the EQ8 quilt design software doesn't always have the color I need so I try to pick something similar as needed to illustrate a point.
Then in comparison a mock-up that shows the red/dirt inspired color as the background and the yellow and green as feature fabrics:
And remember you can always throw in a neutral background fabric to diffuse all that color if you prefer!

Weekly Color Study Task

Take a photo of something beautiful you see this week that catches your eye
Analyse the colors that are dominant in the photo (stick to 2 to 4 colors depending on the photo)
Imagine quilts/sewing projects featuring those colors (you can imagine fabrics in solid or print)
I have added a new page to my website for my Color Study Resources so pop over there now to download the Color Study worksheet in either a printable or digital format, the digital format which uses MS Word also has a tutorial available to help you get started!





 

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