Monday 16 August 2021

2021 Topic 10: My Favourite Colour TOPIC INTRO

2020 Topic  10 - My Favourite Colour


Hi everyone, Keren here. My favourite colour ? Well if we were talking MY favourite colours- it would be a mix of  Red Bus, Banana, Aquamarine, Cerise and...make that the whole rainbow! Without wanting to want to teach you all to suck eggs, I thought I'd pop up the colour wheel and use it as a platform to talk about colour and ideas with colour. We all get times where the ideas aren't flowing and perhaps we're in a colour rut. Maybe bookmark this post and when you need a creative poke, try out a new collection of colours and see where it takes you creatively.



Let's start with the basic combinations; primary. zingy reds, bold blues and bright yellows. When I'm thinking about that selection of colours, I'm drawn to Mondrian - a great example of a primary scheme.


I thought this was a beautiful example- with cream rather than yellow and rust rather than red specifically.


Wondering which colours would work?



If we go to a more subtle collection of colours - something like the secondary scheme: using green, purple and orange.


Corrie Herriman did these fun tags using a perfectly secondary scheme.


There's plenty of PaperArtsy colours that might work.



There are a couple of options with tertiary schemes. We'll continue with the triadic schemes.


Firstly, the Red/Purple, Blue/Green and Orange/Yellows.


This canvas from Elizabeth Borer is delightful; a plethora of colours with a slug of this tertiary scheme.


I love the almost neon quality of the colours in this trio of amazing tags.


Or the Blue/Purple, Orange/Red and Yellow/Green.


This beautiful journal page from Linda Cain has the triadic scheme with some extra colours. I haven't stuck rigidly to the specific schemes but I hope it's giving you ideas.


Corrie Herriman has some small art journal pages in this blog post, sticking more closely to the original colour scheme I listed.


Those schemes were all triadic (the colours being at equal positions away from each other on the wheel). Now we can look at complementary colour schemes; anything that that has the colour directly opposite it on the colour wheel.




This sumptuous quilting stocking by Darcy Wilkinson shows just how impactful two colours can be (of course you can add tones and shades too).


Then there's split complementary.. think of a 'y' on the colour wheel..


     

These stacked wooden blocks from Lotte Kristenson are wonderful and this is also one of my favourite Christmas colour schemes too!


We can also think about analgous colour combinations; colours that are next to each other in the colour wheel.

Using pink, purple, orange and red makes this an analgous scheme of sorts (minus the blue) and Lauren Hatwell dials up the fantastically quirky style too.


We can't forget about the monochromatic colour scheme either. A simple enough concept although making choices that include colours with the same hues will give the most cohesive effect.

Who can forget this wonderful printed collage piece by Pam Thorburn, making an arresting image of a woman?


Ruth Mescall created an intriguing series of dominoes (using blue also) and it's amazing how just slight changes in hue can still create difference.


The last (although this list isn't exhaustive) group of colours - which you'd be well within your rights to argue with me that these aren't colours is a grayscale scheme.

Amanda Pink was the first artist I thought of for this scheme (and the monochromatic one for that matter). Here's an example (with a little blue sneaking in).


I was initially tempted to approach this colour post focusing on all of our stamp designers and seeing what their typical colour schemes are- and whether we could adequately pigeon-hole them! Think of one of your favourite designers. Can you picture a typical scheme from them? Maybe we'll look at that another time. 

If you fancy creating your own colour schemes for future reference- how about grabbing this superbly useful set designed by Everything Art which you could bundle together to make a reference pack of colour schemes.



Colour brings...colour to our lives!! Imagine a greyscale world; it wouldn't inspire us in the same way. I hope that thinking about combinations of colour might inspire you to try a new combination. I certainly want to try and dial it down with the colours I use, but I can also feel some neon colours calling my name!

If you want to create along with us while we explore this topic, please share your makes on our social feeds so we can follow along. Instagram @paperartsy or why not join us and post in the PaperArtsy People Group on Facebook. Make sure you tag us in your contributions, we love to see what you get up to in your creative world!

  

2 comments:

A Pink said...

Such an insightful and interesting read , Keren and some fabulous inspiring artwork too .
Thanks o much for featuring one of my pieces -so honoured and humbled not only to be featured but to be called an 'artist' too ! Means alot.
I smiled when I read that I came to mind when you think of the 'grayscale / monochromatic scheme' - you got me there , for sure ��. I'm a sucker for those colours , absolutely .

Thanks for all the work you put in to these posts - both the researching and sourcing and the writing up. hugs x

Miriam said...

What a great topic choice. So many possibilities. Great inspiration to start it off.