Now that you are training your eye to see color more observantly and have started keeping a color journal, you’re ready to start creating color palettes with your fabric.
- Select one of the magazine photos with colors you absolutely love and can’t wait to work with.
- Identify the major colors in that photo.
- Go to your stash, and select the fabrics that most closely match those in the photo. You’ll need to audition several fabrics before you get a close color match, so don’t be discouraged if this takes a while.
- Cut fabric swatches for each color in the photo and glue them down to a page in your journal. How do those colors look together? Do they look as stunning as in the photo? If not, ask yourself why? Are your colors lighter, darker, less intense? Try again to match closely the colors in the photo.
Extra Credit: Try variations on single swatches of fabric for each color in your palette. Look for a fabric in your stash that has all the colors from that photo. Or create a more complex and rich color palette by selecting multiple fabrics for each color in the photo, with a wider range of values, from light to dark.
You’ve just experimented with color without committing to a quilt yet! Who wants to spend all that time cutting, piecing and quilting to find out afterwards you really didn’t like those colors after all? Life is way too short!
Now you can decide if you enjoy these colors enough to use them in an entire quilt, if you want to tweak the colors a bit more in your journal, or if it’s time to move on to another color palette.
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Most people have their own intuitive color style, but simply aren’t comfortable or confident using their own preferences in a quilt. Starting today, you are going to look at color differently, more observantly. By recording your likes, dislikes, and color observations, you are coming one step closer to recognizing your own personal color “style” or palette.
Next time you’re admiring a beautiful painting/quilt/photograph/rug (or whatever piece you’re admiring), stop and notice the colors. Really take a moment to ask yourself why you like that floral arrangement. Take a photograph of the flowers in your garden, your favorite coffee mug, or whatever offers up a striking color palette in your eyes, and paste that photo in your journal.
Go through your magazines and cut out the pages that have color combinations you love. Add photographs of your favorite quilts. Look at nature and observe the color combinations. Have you ever noticed that in nature green is a neutral? It goes with everything from orange daylillies to red berries, to blue larkspur to the yellow of lemons. After visiting botanical gardens, hiking on wilderness trails and taking photos on those excursions, I added those photos to my color journal and was amazed at the endless variations of green and combinations with other colors. As you become more observant, you’ll notice that each season has its own color palette, and you can capture nature’s glorious colors in your journal!
This week, be a color detective. Notice colors and color combinations, and start filling up that journal. Don’t feel like it has to be a work of art. It’s a place for you to experiment with color without committing to a quilt yet. Have fun and get busy with that glue stick!
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The best way to approach anything new is by taking small steps. So for your first lesson, you are going to outfit yourself with a Color Kit. That’s it. Don’t worry about what you’re going to do with it. Just gather the supplies. And you thought this was going to be tough, didn’t you? Don’t forget I want your comments to make these lessons great.
Your Color Kit needs:
Blank, large journal (from Wal-Mart or Michael’s)
Colored pencils
Tape
Glue or Glue Stick
Magazines
Camera (digital or Polaroid)
This isn’t meant to be expensive. If there’s an item you don’t have on the list, just pick it up when you can. Don’t stress out about not having everything.
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