2023 Topic 02: Tetradic Colours {by Nikki Acton} with Tracy Scott Stamps

Hi everyone, Nikki (@a2acraft) here with you today for our Quadratic/ Tetradic Colour topic under the Tracks theme.

When I first saw the idea of combining the quarterly theme and the topic for each project I thought it might be a bit difficult, but now I love it. As as long time crafter I have quite a large selection of supplies - and I think this is sometimes a barrier to creativity. I find the focus that these challenges bring aids my creative process and enjoyment.

The theme of TRACKS made me think of routes and paths and patterns. But are these a conscious decision or could they be random?  Incorporating a random element into a pattern seemed a little risky as part of the creation is out of my control.... but I went with it.... and liked how it turned out.

My finished projects are two 6x6 inch wall panels. The pattern of the coloured squares was created using a random number generator (with just a little input from me as you will see later).

My inspiration for this was two-fold. Firstly, Tracy Scott's pattern play is great fun and secondly,  I have an interest in the philosophy of free will (that's a bit deep!) and the concept of incorporating chance into the creative process.

I selected 2 of Tracy's stamp sets - one with squares and one with circles. For the main pattern I have only used 2 stamps (shown above) - but used 2 more later for decoration. This idea would certainly work just with one stamp set.

As the topic is Tetradic Colours - I selected three PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics - Tangerine Twist (FF92),  Bougainvillea (FF93) and Caribbean Sea (FF94) to build my colour wheel. Using a yellow/orange rather than yellow, a bright pink rather than red and a blue/green rather than blue makes the process more interesting and the addition of PaperArtsy Matte Glaze - Fresco Finish (FF52) added another dimension.... more later.

I created my colour wheel and selected four tertiary colours to use. The quadratic or tetradic combination of colours are those that form a rectangle or square on the colour wheel. My 4 selected colours form a rectangle and are shown below.

Here are the initial backgrounds I made by sponging 2 of the colours onto some card (doesn't look that great at this point - but more layers to come). I paired the blue/greens together and the red/purples. I was a little shocked to get these 2 colours using Bougainvillea! Bougainvillea + a little Tangerine Twist = red (or close enough to call it red.)

For my first layer on each of my backgrounds I grabbed a PaperArtsy Stencil by Tracy Scott (PS211) and sponged through with PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic - Chalk (FF83). I used masking tape to make sure I only used the bits of the stencil I needed.

I repeated this on both painted backgrounds.

For the stamping, I chose not to use a stamp platform - but used the stencil lines as a guide. As I was doing 2 identical designs I wanted them to be as similar as possible (as I knew they would be combined). However there are some areas in the finished piece where you can see this was certainly nowhere near perfect!

I used Tracy Scott stamp sets 070 (TS070 and 068 (TS068).

Backgrounds complete - now for the fun part...

Now it was time to 'merge' the blue/green with the red/purple to create the random pattern.  In order to do this I cut each background into 36 pieces. I carefully measured them on the back and marked each square with a number. You can't see it here, but if you do this, make sure you can distinguish your 6 from your 9 etc. - I underlined some numbers to be sure.

Here we go - 72 one inch square pieces ready and waiting.

As there are 36 pieces in each final pattern I decided one colour should be dominant - so decided to select 14 random numbers that I would swap. This gives 22 of one colour and 14 of the other which is very close to the Golden Ratio / Golden Number - often used for compositional design.

I used a random number generator to select these numbers. You can see below that one is duplicated so initially I only had 13.

When I started doing the swap I was shocked that I had a nearly full row of one colour. I know if I had chosen the pattern I would not have done that! There was also a corner with no replaced squares, so this is where I cheated a little and made 2 additions - adding numbers 5 and 12 - to give it a little more balance. (Note - my numbers run from right to left as you look at the front.)

 

I mentioned earlier about my fascination with Bougainvillea and Tangerine Twist. I got a little distracted and played with this further. By adding various amounts of Tangerine Twist and / or Matte Glaze you get some fabulous colours.

The addition of Matte Glaze gives increased translucency and longer drying time (more time to move the paint around). I had added to the backgrounds originally - you can see how the darker green shows through the lighter green.

The best laid plans! I had made my patterns 6x6 inches but when I measured the wooden panels I was going to mount them on they were a slightly different size. So I carefully adhered my pattern to black card - which then allowed me to trim off a few millimetres.

I prepared my panels by painting the border and edge in PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic - Little Black Dress (FF19). I selected some additional squares to stamp from Tracy Scott stamp set 70 (TS070) to create a focal point. I played around with colours here (still using the 4 in the colour wheel). For the 'red' I used one of the examples shown above using Matte Glaze, as the pure colour from the colour wheel was too dominant.

See below where my patterns do not quite line up.

 

Once I had secured the main pattern to the wooden panel, I added my additional elements.

I hope you enjoyed this rather long post. To simplify, I created 2 identical patterns on 2 different colour schemes and then chopped them evenly into pieces which I numbered. I used a random number generator (you could pick numbers out of a hat) to produce the final pattern. This is my interpretation of our Tracks theme - producing a pattern I had no control over.

I am tempted to try this again with the actual pattern (stamped imagery) changing as well as the colours!

In addition this project included our colour theme of using Quadratic / Tetradic colours. I used a rectangle that gave me two sets of 2 colours - ideal for this design. I also introduced Matte Glaze to change the translucency of some of the colours.

What I really enjoyed about this numbers game was losing a bit of control over the finished piece - letting chance takeover! Fancy giving it a go? - I would love to see what you make.

Nikki

Blog: Addicted to Art

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