Monday, January 28, 2008

Further thoughts on colour or why did I freeze?

Thankyou for the encouraging comments on the colour piece.

Jacqui, I am not sure what, if anything I will do with my year's worth of challenges (at this stage I am very keen to keep up and produce 24 - time will tell!). At the moment they are just hanging around my loom room - currently my stitching room - being decorative! As I roam around all the exciting textile blogs I look at journal books and folios that have been made from samplers and think maybe? Yesterday I considered the possibility of a 2009 calendar - maybe just using photos or scans of the embroideries would be more practical. I wonder how many other people not producing quilt blocks have made a decision on how to handle these pieces already.

Now my colour question! As a weaver I have been weaving long enough to very well know that using two or more different values of a particular colour can give a fabric ever so much life. In the last three years I also have become fascinated by the almost unexpected colour interactions that can occur when one uses fine enough threads and different colour combinations with a single draft. So I am surprised that it took me so long to realise that I could combine the threads in equal or unequal proportions to give an effect I might find acceptable. Having said that, I have spent quite some time trying to work out why the palette of DMC skeins on the table did not appeal to me. Is it I just need more practice? Was my right brain completely turned off? Is it because I am so new to design for embroidery? I just don't know! Since my wardrobe is full of shirts and jackets mainly in colours that range from red-violet to blue-green I am totally puzzled by my inability in deciding how I might use that particular combination. It makes me wonder if I was alone in suffering from this dilemma.

When I first began to weave I was not comfortable with colour and would have happily spent my life using only white and cream threads. I worked hard to overcome this attitude - especially after someone made the comment "You need to be born with a colour skill - it is something that is impossible to learn!" Well, that was a real challenge and from that day on I was determined to do what was necessary to disprove that theory. After a three day workshop on colour with Sharon Alderman I read everything I could find on colour theory and spent hours just playing with coloured threads of different shades and size. So by now I am quite comfortable, indeed, very happy, to use colour when I weave. In the next post I will try to load some 4 colour double weave photos.

1 comment:

Jacqui said...

Who on earth thought ' "You need to be born with a colour skill - it is something that is impossible to learn!" even colour blind people can appreciate some colour, so those of us who can see colour should have no difficulty with colour, it just we chose not to deal with.

Yes to a degree I would agree that colour theory should be taught but what about all the painters and artists before us who didn't know any colour theory but just got on with the job.

I think the problem with the colour scheme Sharon provided was that, it was out with of the range lot peoples experience with colour, people tend to stick to tried and tested forumlas they like, even professional artists get stuck in this rut.

Also, I suspect people are seeing different tones on their PC screens so a lot of variation occurred. I must admit that the DMC colours given were not the ones I saw on the screen. So maybe Sharon should just give us the DMC colours she is thinking off as this would a more accurate reflection of the colour scheme she is thinking about.

anyways that is my thoughts