Reflection on Colour Studies – Assignment 3

I feel like I have learnt so much during this section of the course but still only scratched the surface in real terms.  Having not really attempted colour mixing with paints etc. before, I now feel much more confident in trying out new mediums for my mark making and drawings which can only be a good thing as I have had a tendency to play it safe.  I have a greater understanding of colour schemes and the different effects and moods that can be created by utilising these methods with projects and will now put this knowledge to use when creating new pieces of work.

I particularly enjoyed working with the fabrics and yarns and feel that this was where I had the most successful outcomes and also gave me the most inspiration.  I found the watercolours quite difficult to get to grips with but I really liked the softness of colour quality that was achieved so would like to delve more into trying to improve my skills in this.

I found the collage exercises interesting and saw the value in completing the different colour schemes.  Although not my favourite medium, it did increase my understanding through practical application and it was a good way of creating inspiration for new projects from a perhaps overlooked source.

The making of the Colour Resource Book was by far my most enjoyable project so far, and I would definitely like to make some more books.  Originally I wanted to create a fabric cover for my book, but after experimenting with primary colours and paper paste I decided on the latter.  This is definitely something I would like to revisit, ad perhaps utilise for future assignment submissions.

Colour Resource Book

I was really excited to get started on this assignment and start experimenting with book designs and covers.  I have seen and been researching different book binding and covering techniques.  Because the work I will be including in the book will sometimes be bulky I need to create a binding technique that will allow the pages to take this.  Japanese book binding seems to be the best idea for me as it will allow the pages to take bulkier materials.  I wanted to experiment with different types of covering for the front of my book, based around the theme of colour.  For me the biggest thing I have learnt through my work on colour studies is colour mixing and it has been a real eye opener. I want my front cover to be based around the primary triad and the mixing of the colours and I would like to incorporate some stitch, perhaps some free machine embroidery but I am undecided yet as to what materials to use.  I am going to experiment with paste papers and also having been inspired by the photo of the wallcovering from earlier research with layers of painted fabric stitched together so the different layers can effect the colours beneath.

My first step was to make up some paste for my paste papers.  I made a simple paste from cornflour and water then added acrylic paint to form my three primary colours.  I experimented with sponges, and combs homemade from old store cards and worked on trying to create patterns that blended the colours.  The comb gave a really nice textured effect but didn’t blend the colours as much as I’d hoped, however using a flat edge and applying the paste in a different way I found that I could get a lovely blend from one colour to the next.

Primary Colours painted onto Paper then patterned with home made comb

Paper paste manipulated with old credit card

I really loved the effect I got with the old credit card by blobbing paper paste onto paper then swirling with mixtures of red, yellow and blue.  I did some further experiments with this technique before I got something that I was happy with for the cover of my book.

I started the construction of my book by cutting grey board pieces then covering with plain black paper for the spine and my paste paper for the front.

I wanted to make sure the paper inside was strong enough to hold my work so decided to go for white card, which I knew was going to be quite difficult to stitch and work with but other heavy papers that might have been easier weren’t bright white which was what I wanted.  Before binding my book together I wanted to make sure I had a nice stitch pattern that I’d practised so I did a few designs on white card and played around with the technique first.  I found a nice multicolour embroidery thread that I thought I’d like to use, but as it tends to split quite easily I waxed it first before starting to combine the cover and pages together.

After reviewing my work in Colour Studies and choosing pieces to go in my book I decided to create some further work to demonstrate what I have learnt both through the projects and other research that I have done.  Some of the research I have done has been textile based so I wanted to include these pieces in my book as they relate to the projects, and how my understanding of colour has developed.  I began looking at each piece of work that I had created and decided on the order they should go in and how I would communicate the colours and ideas in each piece.  I wanted to show the work I had done in Gouache Studies, learning about colour mixing so I decided to create a colour wheel and greyscale to include at the beginning of the book as it seemed a suitable introduction to a colour resource book.  My subsequent pages have taken the form of mood boards that hopefully communicate the colour and feeling of the pieces of work and also offer further inspiration.  My woven textile piece in Gouache Studies was really interesting as it was a combination of different strands but woven together to create colours instead of for instance mixing paint to create the same effect.  I decided to have a little experimentation with this technique so I made a little pin loom and used some wools and fibres I had to make a woven rectangle.  I also played around with the difference in colour effects when dark backgrounds or light background are used with woven/knotted embroidery threads.

Moving on to my next pages I had a better idea of the style I wanted my layouts to take.  I wanted each page to form almost a mood board, both showing the work I had completed and also representing the colour schemes, thoughts and ideas; a kind of reference or ‘resource for me to use in the future.  Which I suppose, is the general idea!

 

 

Collage – A Messy Corner

It wasn’t difficult to find a messy corner to take a photograph of as inspiration for this collage exercise, they seem to be everywhere!  Once I had a picture I printed it off and went on the hunt for coloured papers to match the colours in the photograph.  My local Art Shop has a wealth of different handmade papers and patterned papers and I also had some bits and pieces already so soon had enough to start creating.

My first project was to make a simple collage based on my photograph.  I thought the best way to do this was to simplify the shapes first.  The picture was easily split up into blocks so then all I had to do was simplify the colours so that only  the most prominent were used.  I split the photograph into sections and picked out colours in each section to use.

Photograph of a ‘Messy Corner’

Simple Collage

My next project was to create a collage with an unusual colour scheme.  My initial thoughts were to put colours together that wouldn’t necessarily go together or in other words clashed and gave a sense of unease when placed next to each other.  I liked the idea of keeping the dimensions and style of block shapes, I felt like I would be able to control the colour more easily that way.  I used colours that were already present in the original photograph including the use of metallic.

Unusual Colour Scheme

Complex Colour Scheme

The final collage in this series of three was ‘Complex’.  I pondered this for a while, thinking about what could constitute a complex collage/colour scheme.  I thought about the picture in its original form and thought that this in itself was complex as it was messy and unstructured.  I thought I could introduce some different patterned paper as well to make a more complex piece.  I decided to use the structure of the photograph in more detail to create this collage and as you can see, and also added newspaper print to give it another dimension.  I’m pleased with the effect of the Complex Collage, adding the different shapes to create the shadow and reflections of the plastic in the original photo I think worked really well.

The next phase of Collage Studies involved choosing one of my previous pieces and making a further three collages, including Monochrome, Black and White, and Multicolour.  I wanted to be able to recreate these quite simply but also see the effect of changing to monochrome and black and white would have on the composition, so I decided to go with my unusual colour scheme collage.

I scanned the image into the computer first and changed the colours to a greyscale image so I could get a sense of tone.  I managed to find some nice papers to create my black and white image with but wanted to get a more accurate tonal quality to my Monochrome collage so decided to paint papers to use in that piece.

Black & White Collage

Monochrome Collage

It was quite interesting to see how some hues were so close together in value and saturation when painted in monochrome.

My final collage was to be Multicolour, able to use patterned papers and given some freedom from the original form.  As I had been using geometric shapes and cutting with scissors for all of my previous collages I decided to try ripping my papers instead and create something based around the original structure but with a totally new dimension.  I found some lovely floral papers with texture designs on them that I found interesting so based my Collage on flowers in a hedge.

I wanted to keep the dimensions and shapes identifiable from the original but not have it so regimented into blocks and give it a wild hedgerow feeling.  I kept the colour palette simple as there is already a lot going on.

This is the last project before I start my Colour Resource Book.  After working through all of the projects I have loads of ideas about experimenting and exploring further, so I can add content to my book.  I feel like I have learnt a huge amount about colour but that it is only a very small beginning to my studies.

 

 

Watercolour Studies

I was excited to try watercolours as it is a medium I don’t have very much experience of. I gathered a variety of glass bottles and jars with different shapes, colours and textures and started to play around with the composition.  I opted to have a totally white background for the objects so that I could focus entirely on the colours coming from the glass.  I took photographs of the different layouts, but I feel that they don’t really look the same as they did whilst looking at them due to the shadows cast by indoor lighting at this time of year!  I’m not going to post any photos yet as I am waiting to mount my work inside my colour resource book so will add some images then.

I found it quite easy to achieve the colours I needed by colour mixing, I played around with the paints a little first to get used to the medium.  I found it more tricky to be accurate with the composition of my stripe designs – where there was colour and where there was not.  In retrospect I think I have included too much colour in some places, and an absence of colour or space is needed.  I’m pleased with the designs though, and I have tried to be creative using different layouts for the stripes by looking at the composition in different ways.  The overall colour palette that the glass compositions created was pleasing so I am going to produce some colour chips to go alongside my designs in my colour resource book.

Creating Colour swatches for line designs

Still Life Glass Composition

Getting used to using watercolours!

Yarn Wraps – Colour Studies

My brief was to find an Old Masters painting and create a series of yarn wraps to convey the balance of colours in different sections of the piece and their relationships with one another.

I was quite excited to start this piece of work and get my hands on some fabrics again. I trawled the internet to try and find a painting that I found interesting in both colour and composition.  The term ‘Old Master’ is generally attributed to artists that were significant before the start of the 1800’s and although I appreciated the beauty and technical abilities of many of the paintings I couldn’t find anything that was right for me to use in this project.  Then I came across Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Strictly speaking he is not pre 1800 but from what I can gather he is classed as an Old Master.  I thought his paintings had a purity to them but also quite a Bohemian feel.  The vibrancy of his use of colours and the composition of his paintings connected with me. There were a few paintings that I shortlisted before making my final choice.

The Roman Widow

Monna Vanna

A Christmas Carol

Persephone

I finally made the decision to use ‘A Christmas Carol’ as I felt it had a nice mix of colours and I liked the rich regal tones.  It felt a bit odd working on something festive in January but I thought I would be able to produce some beautiful yarn wraps from it.

I went to my local art and craft shop with my printed copy of the painting and chose several different yarns, ribbons and cords that I thought matched the colours and qualities in the picture. I came out with a very big bag full, some were the same colour but different thicknesses, textures and opacity, as I wasn’t sure which would ultimately be the best so I experimented with different combinations before I completed each wrap.

 

I decided to start with a yarn wrap that represented the whole painting so thought the best way was to slowly work my way from the bottom of the picture to the top so I could get all the colours in.  As with all of the yarn wraps I have done, I tried different thicknesses and textures of yarns and ribbons and did little practice runs before securing them down to the card.  My other yarn wraps are based on the face and neck, the woman’s coat, the musical instrument and the wallcovering in the background.

Looking at the picture this closely has really opened my eyes to the different depths of colour in each little area, trying to recreate these small but important details was challenging. In some cases I used very fine thread to add a little colour to try and recreate the effect in the painting, whilst still keeping the overall balance of colours correct.  I’m pleased with the results and think the richness of colours comes across well.

Designers & use of colour – Colour Research Point 1

Voyage Decoration is a home interiors company.  They have different collections to suit a variety of tastes and styles, but the designers seem heavily inspired by nature as the collections reflect this.  The way they control their use of colour differs from collection to collection.  The voyage couture and natural living ranges tend to be mostly monochromatic in greys and natural colours using metallic and texture for accents so here the design is highlighted and perhaps the most important feature.  Other collections which are strongly connected with nature, use this as a basis for their colour schemes and palettes.  This is where the design and colour scheme become interdependent, with each aspect being as important as the other.

Marimekko is a Finnish design house producing clothing.  Their designs are simple and quite geometric in shapes.  Their signature seems to be simplicity when it comes to colour, using monochromatic colour palettes with accent colours (in this case orange and pale pink).  Pattern and texture on the clothing is minimal allowing them to control the use of colour.

Mary Katranzou is a fashion designer who uses bold colours, stripes and pattern to create contours and shapes in her clothing designs.http://www.marykatrantzou.com/collections/ready-to-wear/pre-fall-2016/runway  There were a lot of this designers pieces that I thought had a great use of colour, however I chose to look at this one because it was a really good example of the way the use of colour and design links together to create the shape and appearance of the garments.  The use of the light coloured edging draws our eye to give the appearance of perfectly balanced shoulders and hips.  The red colour and shading on the jacket although printed give a textural 3D effect combining with the vertical wavy lines on the blouse to create height/length. The designer shows us here how the use of pattern and colour in clothing can change the appearance of body shape, and the controlled use of minimal colours accentuates this.  Here, the design and colour use go hand in hand, as different colours would alter the appearance of shape and size.

Wallace Sewell are a British design duo producing woven scarves, throws and cushions.  They use blocks and stripes of colour and geometric patterns in their woven products and use these shapes to control their use of colour.  There seems to be a theme of using complimentary colour schemes for accent in various palettes.

Cole & Sons produce designer wallpapers.  As with interiors, there are lots of different collections depending on style, taste, colour palettes and schemes.  There are William Morris style prints and Esher inspired wallpapers, and modern geometric designs.  There was one design that caught my eye because of the use of colour.

cole & sons geometric wallcovering

With simple use of vertical and diagonal stripes the layers of colour create the diamond and triangular shapes.  The colours interact with each other in such a way that give a three dimensional effect.  Each layer of colour is important as without it we would not have the geometric shapes that give us the end design. This would require extremely careful colour planning from the designer so in this sense both colour and design are interdependent.  This piece of design is almost like a lesson in colour mixing and it is fascinating studying it and trying to figure out how the colours were layered up!

Norma Starszakowna creates hanging textile installations.  She works with silk organza and uses historical buildings and walls as her inspiration with many of her pieces including graffiti and text.  Her colour use is taken from the natural hues she observes, so uses a lot of earth tones and greys with the use of shading and texture too produce accents and points of interest.

Paul Smith – clothing and accessories designer.  S/S16 Collection – Uses mainly dark colours for the capsule collection with the use of primary colours for accent.  The designer extends the primary colour palette to include green, orange and turquoise and controls the colours by keeping them in blocks and accessorising with the dark to create impact.

Vlisco is a company I have encountered before in an earlier part of the course.  They are a Dutch company produceing wax resist prints inspired and designed for the African market.  Due to the processes involved in the printing  and layering up of colours a lot of the designs seem analoguous.  Other patterns have a triadic colour scheme, with geometric patterns and inspiration coming from African national colours.

Ptolemny Mann is a designer that creates hand dyed and woven pieces for the home, and creates installations for corporate and business use.  She seems to use complimentary colour schemes, she dyes the fabrics so they gradually change or fade and give a ‘dip dyed’ effect so explores shades of the same colour.  She also uses geometric designs with triadic colour schemes in various colour palettes,

 

Online Colour Apps Colour Research Point 2

Looking at online digital colour resources was quite interesting.  I think that the resources I looked at are something that would be useful for me as I progress through the course and will use this research as a point of reference depending on the project at hand.

Adobe Color CC

My first impressions were ‘What am I supposed to do!’  After clicking around for a bit and getting into the swing of things though, I found it was a relatively easy tool to use for making colour palettes in any format you want.  It was quite easy to pick colours and generate your own custom palette, or generate colour schemes based around your first colour choice, i.e. complimentary, monochrome.

Mudcube Colour Sphere

Although similar to the Adobe sphere, this tool gives you the colour numbers and allows you to manually adjust the hue, luminance and red,green,blue balance.  I can see this tool being useful as a learning aid, showing how to balance your mix of primary colours to achieve a certain hue.

Color Hailpixel

Quite a fun way to build a colour palette if looking for inspiration, point and click.

Color Hunter

Here you can get a colour palette from an uploaded image, I couldn’t get it to work however but it could be good if you are trying to colour match.

Colrd

Quite a nice application for sharing ideas and colour palettes across the web, you can also create colour palettes from pictures. Good for getting inspiration.

Extending the Pattern of a Fabric Sample

After sticking the fabric onto my heavyweight paper I sketched out the pattern that I was going to paint before mixing the colours and testing them out next to the fabric.  I’m really pleased with the outcome.  It was hard to tell whether the colours were alright until the paint had time to dry out properly, but I found this sample pretty straightforward although close up on the painted sections you don’t get the close woven texture that you see on the fabric.

With my next natural coloured fabric I wanted to get the detail of that texture because that was why I had chosen it as a sample in the first place.

This piece took a few attempts.  I would get the colour right, but then not get the texture coming across in the painting, and then get the texture but the colours were wrong! I eventually managed to produce something I was happy with and this is the result.  The colours aren’t spot on as I found it very difficult to replicate. The layers of woven cloth are so close to each other that they effect the way the colour appears depending on how closely you look.  It did say in the brief to try and be creative with the way you extend the pattern, but as I found the painting challenging I decided to keep it simple.  Overall I’m pleased with my attempt, I would perhaps like to try and produce this again at a later point and get a better colour match.

 

Choosing fabric samples and colour matching.

Starting out I found that finding materials was more involved than I thought. Finding fabrics that only had a few colours was quite difficult and also I had in mind that I would also have to paint and extend the pattern of the fabrics, so didn’t want to get anything that was beyond my painting capabilities.  I’m not confident with painting as a whole so didn’t want to overcomplicate things.  I managed to find two samples with colour and another two neutral fabrics with an interesting texture/surface so began mixing colours to try and match them up.

My first attempts were ok, but not right so I decided to make a little bit of time to research colour mixing and leave the samples alone for the time being.  I started reading ‘Colour, a workshop for artists and designers’ by David Hornung and did some of the first exercises with my primary and co-primary colours. I made achromatic greys and darks, mixed them with primary colours to see the affect it had on the hue and vibrancey.  Doing this changed the way I saw the colours in my fabric samples, and how I could achieve them.

I drew out my squares and started mixing colours, using the darks and greys I had produced earlier and got some really good results, also a lot of not so good ones! The colour samples were pretty straightforward once I got going but when I got to the natural fabrics it seemed to become a lot more difficult again to get the colours right.  In the end though after a lot of perseverance I think I have got a good result with the colour matching and am pleased with the layout.