I'd like to share with you this evening a post about the infinite world of colour mixing. I
chose this topic because in the past I have dabbled in making watercolour charts,
mixing just 2 colours, while on a botanical art course. I am a
very simple soul, and gain great delight from playing with colours and
setting them out in rows. They are so useful to refer back to when you
need specific shades or hues. I felt very happy to interpret this theme using some of my favourite PaperArtsy stamps from Ellen Vargo.
Step One: First
of all, I made lots of charts starting with one fresco colour and
gradually adding one drop of the second colour until I finished with the
second colour. Every time that I completed one chart I was buzzing and
thinking, "mmmmm, I wonder what these two colours will look like." Here
are a few samples, but there were quite a few more.
Step Two: My
first project was the 3D flower. I chose to use the chart on the
extreme left which is Vanilla, through to Captain Peacock. I painted
strips of the graduating colours onto PA smoothy card and stamped my
"petals", which are really leaves. The stamps are EEV04.
Lots of cutting
out and gluing and finished off with a Wendy Vecchi blossom which I
painted with Vanilla. I mounted the flower in a box frame....things
always look so much better in a frame! Taking a pic without glare was
tricky.
Step Three:
Next, I selected more stamps from the Ellen Vargo range. EEV05.
Such an
exciting collection of lines and dots. For this piece I chose Pumpkin
Soup, through to China. This one is in a "re-purposed" old book which
measures 6.5" x 9". I simply painted a selection of the colour mixes onto a
white gessoed background, leaving a few white spaces and then had fun
stamping the shapes with Black Archival over the top. I finished with a
word cut from a magazine.
Step Four:
Another set of Ellen stamps. This time, EEV10.
Because the stamps are
floral, I decided to paint a landscape background. Again, I worked in my
old book. I began by sketching out a few fields and cut various papers
to match.
I
then painted the background using the same colour palette....Pumpkin Soup through to China and tried to get distance by making the foreground
darker. Next, I stamped my chosen flowers onto smoothy card and painted
them using the same 2 colours. I added them to my landscape, added depth
by drawing around them with grey pen and used one of Ellen's sentiments
to finish off.
I
recommend making colour charts as it is so relaxing, therapeutic and
above all, so useful for future reference. Also, it guarantees that your
colours match beautifully... a bit like a prize everytime at the fair. I
hope that I have inspired you in some way to play, create and enjoy the
qualities of PaperArtsy frescos.
Thankyou for indulging me, Hazel Agnew, aka @craftroomgran and found on my blog "Mellifluous Meanderings"
Wow Hazel, the colour charts are such a great reference tool that's for sure! And I love how you have turned those swatches into a way to help you pick what to use for your other pieces too! Such an awesome idea! Great tips and tricks. Thankyou ~Leandra
We would love to see how you interpret this Colour Mixing topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #14: Colour Mixing, on this page HERE.
All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post.
All
links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your
choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Colour Mixing link will
close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Aug 7th 2016. The winner will be
announced 2 hours later at 19:00.
Tonight I'd like to share with you this evening with a post about mixing and using complementary colours.
I
love experimenting but frequently play safe with my colour schemes and
use colours near each other on the colour wheel. I find monochromatic
and analogous palettes really pleasing to my eye but wanted to get a bit
more savvy in using opposite or complementary colours in my work as
I've had mixed success probably more by luck than design! I
admire Dina Wakley's use of white space with pops of colour and thought
I'd try and combine this modern fresh look with beautiful vintage Ink
and the Dog mini images. These are a perfect size for ATC's, but in this
instance I've used a playing card size which is slightly narrower to
create my 'When I grow up' shadow box frame.
Step One: The images and background stamps I've used are Ink and the Dog Mini 03, Mini 04, Mini 11, Mini 12, Mini 23 and Mini 29 and I thought a blue and orange colour scheme would work best with these. 4 strips of Smoothy stamping card have been base coated with Snowflake fresco acrylic paint, then I used the gorgeous Glass Blue which is a translucent and mixed a little China
in to give some opacity. The technique I've used is the card scraper
technique or faux printed look (see Kim Dellow's you tube video here). I scraped less on each piece as I went along.
Step Two: I
decided to make a monochromatic background for one of them (far left)
and then use blue and a blue green to complement the orange. For the
monochromatic one, I've also used white -snowflake to create tints and
black - Little Black Dress
to create shades which I used to stencil some circles on. I've already
knocked back the one on the far left with snowflake to create a more
subtle base for the stamped images and create more white space to rest
the eye.
Step Three: Where
I've usually gone wrong in the past is in trying to use equal amounts
of all the colours, so this time I've made the second one predominantly
blue, the third green and the fourth orange, all with small amounts of
the other colours still in there. For the blue green shade I used Caribbean Sea mixed with a little Captain Peacock. The blues and greens overlapping were fine but the orange, a mix of Yellow Submarine and Tango didn't,
mainly because it's a translucent, so they look like they have been
mixed together. So to get around this I brayered white over some areas
before I added the orange. I had also been scrapping any remaining paint
on to brown gummed tape to use around the outside of the box, this was
inspired by a recent Jo Firth Young post here.
Step Four: Next to see where each image looked best before stamping in Cobalt Blue archival Ink. Once trimmed I used Treasure Gold in Florentine around the side of the card.
Step Five: The frame was a sturdy box I'd salvaged and coated in snowflake. I added some stamping to the border before adhering.
Step Six: I
masked off and stamped a border strip on the inside in blue archival to
match the outside border. To create depth and visual interest I used
foam pads and small tubes of card to support the cards at different
levels.
Think this is my favourite image, I even managed to get a touch of orange on the starfish.
I
really enjoyed exploring this topic, creating something vintage with a
fresh twist, something I want to keep developing. I've generally felt I
had a good eye for colour but found it interesting referring to the
colour wheel and seeing what I think of as orange or blue/ blue green
isn't always the true colour but slightly further around on the wheel
and why it could alter your final result. Blues seemed to suit the sea
theme but you could try the opposite, orange and yellow orange to
complement a blue, or use other complementary colours such as red and
green, violet and yellow. Enjoy exploring the colours you have and see
what beautiful hues you can create. Ruth x Blog
Ruth this is such a great explanation of complementary colours, and a really great tip with the snowflake layer before the orange. Love that tape idea too! Thanks so much for sharing, particularly on a colour combo that can be a tad tricky to execute! ~Gillian
We would love to see how you interpret this Colour Mixing topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #14: Colour Mixing, on this page HERE.
All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post.
All
links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your
choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Colour Mixing link will
close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Aug 7th 2016. The winner will be
announced 2 hours later at 19:00.
Well hello everyone, Darcy here with a brand new topic. We have had a couple of exciting weeks, but now it is time to get back to our challenges. This time we are going to explore colour mixing. There are two ways to approach this subject, firstly the actual mixing of colours to create another colour; but also the mixing/placing of colours within a project.
Of course colour has been used throughout history, with many civilisations experimenting with and developing pigments. The Egyptians used colours not just as decoration in their homes but also as cures for ailments. There are records showing the Chinese practiced colour healing too. These principles are still used today in colour/light therapy. As the modern era became more curious it was found out that when light passed through a prism it did not come out white but instead was split into 7 colours. We now know these as the Spectrum. Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet.
It was Sir Isaac Newton who conducted these experiments and after joining the two ends of the spectrum into a spinning disc he effectively invented the colour wheel.
Colour has many positive uses, people work better when surrounded by certain colours. In hospitals they use soothing colours to help patients rest. Even cosmetic companies use colour therapy to determine which colours look best. You know yourself which colours look good on you, which ones you like to have in your house. We know instantly when certain colours or even shades of colour make us happy. Colours can be warm or cool, they can dominate or support, they can make you feel energised or restful. Part of this is predetermined by the colour, but some is also very personal to you. Humans are very good at knowing when something looks good or not quite right, or makes us feel happy or not, but often we just don't know why. Unless you understand a little about colour theory it can be difficult to pinpoint just why something appeals to us. Colour wheels are so very helpful, as are colour swatches and I would urge you to make samples of all of your paints, it saves so much time when choosing colours. The primary colours are Red,Blue and Yellow. These are designated as the primaries as they cannot be made by mixing any other colours. All other colours are derived from these three.
Here you can see that when the primaries are mixed we end up with another 3 colours, Orange, Purple and Green, these are the secondary colours.
We recently saw the release of the new Everything Art stamp which handily has a couple of colour wheels all ready for you to colour in. You can have so much fun creating a number of combinations.
Once you have your primary colours and secondary colours you can create the next level which are the 6 tertiary colours. Each of these is made by mixing one primary and one secondary together. Very quickly our wheel grows until we have the 12 colours of the wheel.
From here the possibilities are endless, not only can you carry on mixing hues to create new ones you can also create tints, tones and shades. To tint a colour we lighten it, these colours are often called Pastels, and they are created by adding white. To create a shade, we add black, this darkens the colour.
Now we can create tones, these are the most pleasing-to -the eye combinations. They are subtle and complex, as there are several stages of mixing involved. To achieve tones you need to add both black and white which of course is grey. Tones are very effective in altering the intensity of a colour. Achieving the right one for the job can be time consuming, and not a little frustrating. Get used to creating colour wheels, swatches and of course taking notes. Don't assume that you need equal parts of 2 colours, in fact what you are really creating are recipes. You can be very intuitive, add a dab of this and a dot of that, mix in a blob of something else and voila! you have your colour. Many happy accidents are created this way, but what if you want to recreate that colour? If you make notes about how big or how many your dabs and blobs are then you can make that colour again and again. There are many colour mixing books available, but really all you need is a chart that you can fill in as you go. So now you have your colours, and your mixed colours but how to use them? which colours will mix well within a project? This leads us to colour schemes.
Monochromatic schemes use any tint, tone or shade of just one colour. In this example the tints, tones and shades have all come from red.
Analogous schemes are made up of 3 colours that sit next to each other on the colour wheel, One of these is a primary and the other two are secondaries or tertiaries. In this photo the analogous scheme is made up of blue, blue-green and green. Within this scheme you can also use any tints,shades or tones that result from these colours.
Triadic schemes are made up of 3 colours that are equally spaced from each other on the wheel. Here we have blue, red and yellow. When you first think of those 3 colours you may think bright and clashing, but start to customise them with tints, tones and shades and suddenly they look perfect together.
The next scheme is a Tetrad scheme, this consists of 4 colours from the wheel. There are two types of tetrad, one is a square, the corners of which land on 4 colours. The other tetrad is a rectangle, again the 4 corners land on 4 colours. This one is a rectangle tetrad, and it combines the tints,tones and shades of Yellow, Red, Violet and Green.
Complementary schemes are also called harmonious schemes, these are all about opposites. Take one colour and combine it with the one that is the exact opposite on the wheel. A warning with this colour scheme though, while the opposite colours work brilliantly next to each other, if you try mixing paints that are opposites you will always get mud. So be careful, and let one colour dry before using the other one next to or over the top, that way you will see the harmony between the colours and not get mud. This is a beautiful abstract using blue and orange, these colours lie directly opposite each other on the wheel.
Finally there are Split Complementary schemes. These are similar to the opposites above. This time take one colour then move across the wheel, but instead of using the exact opposite, take one colour from 'each side' of the one that is the direct opposite.
So how do you do colour mixing with PaperArtsy Fresco paints...
Frescos, of course, follow the same principles as explained above, however, as the colours are not arranged in the same way as traditional artist colours (quinacridones, Pthalos with the typical colour names) you end up with some very interesting results and a wider variety of colour options as you are starting from a different place than you would with traditional artist colours. This can be a very exciting process.
We have a great post coming up this week from Liz Borer explaining how to do this in depth, but for now be aware that the translucent paints will behave differently from the opaque, and both offer up all kinds of combinations and options, brightness and vibrancy.
We have always told you in basic terms that translucent paints are ideal for colouring in, as you do not lose the black stamped outline, however, translucent paints are also perfect for colour mixing.
If you start with Glass Blue, Bougainvillea, and yellow submarine, mix those to make secondaries, then add nougat, chalk or other pale shades, you will get some stunning colour variations. Try the same with a deeper blue (Inky Pool), or Red (London Bus) and use Pumpkin Soup as your yellow the results will vary again.
It is a great idea to keep charts of how you make these colours, then you can figure out how to get back to them again in the future.
There are so many beautiful colour combinations, and so many pieces of art that showcase the schemes so well. This is a complementary scheme.
There is so much fun to be had with colour, experimenting with mixing paint but also learning which colours sit well with others. The more you play with colours the more you wil discover combinations that you would not normally reach for. Over the next 2 weeks we would love for you to try mixing your paints to create new colours, layer your translucents and learn which ones work and which ones don't, but also try out some of the colour schemes in your projects. Have fun!
Don't forget to follow Darcy and Leandra's pinterest boards if this topic pushes your buttons, you will see plenty more examples to whet your appetite there!
I am really looking forward to seeing what you create over the next 2 weeks! Darcy
Topic 14: Colour Mixing PaperArtsy Blog Challenge
We'd love you to share your ideas and link up your creative response to our current blog topic. Take a minute to read the challenge guidelines below.
All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Colour Mixing link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Aug 7th winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.
1. The challenge is a for you to show how you are inspired by the current blog topic.
Your entry should contain:
- a mention of which post inspired you and why, and
- a link in your blog post to that original post on the PA blog.
The whole concept of this challenge is 'play along with us'. You are encouraged to put your own twist on ideas you see on our blog, do your own thing - whatever grabs you!
2. The link you put on our linky page must lead directly to the specific post on your blog where you have explored the technique/ idea mentioned in point 1 above. Don't link to the home page of your blog.
3. We prefer your challenge blog post is created exclusive to our challenge, but if our topic fits perfectly with another challenge, then you may link to both if appropriate.
4. You are most welcome to use stamps/ products/ substrates you have to hand from a variety of companies, we do not expect you to exclusively use PA products - it's lovely when you do though!
6. You can enter as many times as you like. We don't want to restrict your creativity!
NB. Link closes at 17:00 Sunday Aug 7th (London Time)
7. The winner of the random draw will receive a £50 credit voucher to be redeemed on the PaperArtsy Website. The credit voucher includes VAT and postage. We request that one of your purchases is an A5 rubber stamp. You can add any other items to your basket, but the final total should not exceed £50.
8. Each fortnight on Sunday, the winner will be announced at 19:00 (London time). In the same post, the link for the next fortnight will be posted.
9. It's your responsibility to claim your prize coupon from Darcy.
email: darcydotneedles@hotmail.com
Good Luck! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Hi Everyone, Leandra here with the first of several Saturday blog posts over the next 2 months. This time of year has always been a traditional New Release period, but instead of doing a one-week bombardment, we will do weekly posts through to late September.
Tonight I'm showing you the newest addition from Kasia of Everything Art and her lovely stamps can be found in the Eclectica³ {Everything Art} series.
Before we look at the stamps in detail, let me tell you a bit about Kasia, and also the fist 2 stamp sets, then lower down the post you will see info about set 3!
Kasia along with her partner Jamie (one of our long time stockists, Artist Trading Post) started an online class this year called Wanderlust, you can still sign up through to the end of July.
Each month they have 2 guest teachers who release a couple of videos, and in between, Jamie and Kasia incorporate product teaching and art journalling classes as part of their very detailed programme.
All the information shared is so useful for the budding and experienced mixed media artist alike.
Kasia already has a line of stencils with The Crafter's Workshop, and so we were thrilled when then asked us to make stamps for them to work alongside, and independent of her Wanderlust classes.
So let's take a closer look at the Everything Art stamps...
This year Kasia has released a set every 3 months. Let me remind you of the first 2 sets.
Here is an introductory video from Kasia about Set 1...
I found this stunning piece pinned by Julie Bell on pinterest here, I can't figure out if Jules made it or if she pinned someone else's piece, how fab it looks in layers of encaustic wax!
So here we are, and its time for the newest offering, set 3. This time Kasia has created a stunning colour wheel system, but she uses it beautifully as a mood board too.
How cool is this as a way to create colour palettes for your projects with inks, paints, watercolour, fabrics, patterns, papers etc...
This is a great way to wrap a gift for an arty friend...
Kasia had made this video of introduction to the stamps too...
I really love Kasia's style, she is so explorative and her relaxed loose flowing style is very refreshing. I am certain you will enjoy these stamps, and perhaps you can get cracking with some colour mixing or mood boards with the colour wheels..
All these stamps are available now from your favourite PaperArtsy stockist, as you know, we urge you to support your local independent retailer.
