Memorandum Monday in colour

I enjoyed creating with colourful yarns over the weekend - colour inside very much needed as the weather was grey much of the time - still grey and wet this morning as I look out the window.

At my crochet, knitting, cake and coffee group on Saturday morning we were chatting about colour preferences when putting together several colours.

some prefer to use a range of shades within the one colour

some like to use a range across 2 colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel

some - including me - like to include a contrast - a colour on the opposite side of the colour wheel

What is your colour range preference - does it differ when thinking about clothes, interior decor and making things?  I like to include contrast in all of these and rarely go for shades within one colour.

And what was I making you ask - inspired by a piece I saw a the makers faire - a sunny piece to hang in my living room

 

Hoping you all have a good week with some sunshine

Pretty feet

I love shoes in many hues (and rhyming!).  I have several pairs in red and purple but my new shoes for summer are lime

I knew I would buy them when I 1st saw them in the shops but wanted to wait until the weather would allow me to wear them.

I was delighted to purchase lime shoes for 2 reasons.  First because I had a lovely pair of lime shoes about 5 years ago, when I was in NZ

and secondly, and I know this may be controversial, I think lime goes with everything.

How about you, do you love your shoes to zing with colour or do you prefer them to quietly do their job without drawing any attention?

Playing with colour again

I’ve been playing again with the design seed palettes and multi layer flowers that I posted about last week.

I was interested in the different impact when I use the same palette but place the colours in a different order and created some pleasing pairs which I then placed together



and I thought the design called out for words

I think I could create a great series of cards this way.  Any suggestions for quotes that would work well with these images?

a joyful afternoon playing with colours

I was reminded recently of the fabulous resource of colour palettes on design seed – each drawn from a beautiful photo.  As I looked through the archive and admired the new ones that popped up on my blog reader I wanted to do something with them, to have a play with the colour combinations.

Quite separately I took a photo of a carnation that is on my shelves because I loved the shape and structure and with the black background I knew it would be easy to extract in PSE

The I had the creative lightbulb –use this shape to create a multi layered flower that I could then apply the colours to.

It worked [I turned the flower image black and white then copied 4 times so I had 5 layers and made each layer progressively smaller and rotated each the same amount clockwise – then applied a different colour to each layer using a design seed palette to select the colours]

And then I tried another, and another, and another, until I had 21 !  Totally addictive and creatively rewarding and I only stopped to make a cup of tea.

I put them all together on one page and I love the repetition of shape and form with the lovely range of colours.

Do you have a favourite?

YELLOW

On my walk by the river today I decided to pick a colour for a photowalk – I chose yellow and was delighted at how much I found, both in plants and manufactured objects.  Putting them together in the collage I was intrigued by the range of yellows that I’d collected. 

I think I’ll do this again with other colours over coming weeks.

its all about the colour

I went to a weaving workshop last week for some creative play.  The workshop was set up as ‘here are the materials – go have some fun’.  The host said that the process of weaving was easy and that the creativity was in the choice of colour and texture and that she always enjoyed seeing how different the pieces were at the end of a workshop based just of different colour choices. 

There were lots of bags of wool of varying textures and colours and we all had fun rummaging to find several to start off with.  I'd brought some pieces of paua to incorporate and chose purples and reds for my piece.

The looms we were using were strung over a wooden picture frame with clits cut top and bottom to hold the thread – very simple and effective

The weaving process is easy which meant we all had time to chat and give advice to each other on which yarn to choose next.  None of us at the workshop were normally yarn crafters but all had fancied a dabble in a different medium for a few hours.  The piece soon built up

I left all the ends hanging and dealt with them at the end but next time I’d either weave them in or leave a tail on each piece to create a fringed edge.  We all managed to fill our frame in a little over the 2 hours allotted.  We cut the strings at the back and tied them tight to keep the weave tight.

I decided to put mine into a frame, with the glass removed, which meant that all the ends are hidden behind the back piece and I didn’t have to fiddle with finishing them off – a stage that I’ve often stalled at.

The previous photo is  a better reproduction of the richness of the colours. 

I’m very pleased with my piece and had a fun afternoon playing with a different material.  Now I’m thinking of using up some of my embroidery floss stash on some small woven pieces.

has anyone else dabbled in weaving ?

the writings on the wall

Purple – my favourite colour – is the challenge this week at Twinkle Twinkle and I’m using another of the more political Dr Seuss quotes with my digi art experimenting.  Having chosen this quote, the phrase ‘the writing is on the wall’ kept circulating in my head so I used it as a pointer in my play and it seemed to go well with the power connotations of the colour purple.



The background used several gradients then a wall texture and grunge brush from ShadowHouse creations.  The font is stencil and the hand drawn box is from Ali Edwards.  As always I’ve used bevel layer style too – in this series it is the one effect I’ve used every week.

I’m really going to miss this series when the challenge ends – I might have to do some more on my own if there are more colours to use.

When you have some online browsing time have a look a the wonderful range of creativity that is posted weekly in responce to this challenge – you will find the linky list here.

playing in blue

I’ve been on the lookout in blogland for a challenge where I can play with some of the digiart or collage aspects of photoshop elements to make a book of prints containing some of my favourite Dr Seuss quotes. The new 10 week summer colour challenge for works in any medium, being run by Kirstin on Twinkle, Twinkle, seemed ideal. 

As you can see, first up was blue.

I used the gradient tool; filter texturize, erasing with grunge brushes, impressionist brush and the bevel layer style.

The font is Boring showers and I added bevel layer style

I bevelled the whole image (move the flattened image onto a new blank file and then apply bevel to the image – works for a drop shadow too).

I think I will print the 10 pieces, glue pairs back to back, punch two holes and add jump rings to make a small book.

living room colours

My thinking for the colour scheme in my new living room also uses a piece of fabric as the starting inspiration. 

I like the warm and muted feel to these colours.  They are basically versions of an analogous strong – green, yellow, orange, red – but all soft and muted or greyed versions.  Not sure which colours I will put where.

I have some fabrics I bought in New Zealand before i left to use for napkins etc

I think they will fit in well, because my table will be in the living room.

colour in my new bedroom

I have to decorate in every room of my new flat so I’ve been thinking about colour schemes a lot.  Purple is my favourite, probably signature, colour so that is what I’ve decided to use.  I found  a nice striped fabric in John Lewis which I will use to cover the bedhead and as the basis of the colour scheme.

The stripes are actually straight – the fabric is draped in the photo.  The ceiling will be in the cream, the floor and furniture will be in the 2nd down (birch veneer).  One wall will be in the deep purple and the other 3 walls in one of the other 2 purples.

I think the creams balance the purples well and I love the deep colour for the feature wall.

Using cream and fawn makes this a classic contrast colour scheme as yellow is opposite purple on the colour wheel – fun to be using all my colour knowledge on such a big scale.

Trying to photograph fabrics in the shop made me realise how much the camera can change the colours I see with me eyes.

my big new project

I just bought a flat.  Just over a year ago I packed up my stuff and set of for some travelling before moving back to Scotland.  I am staying with my sister and parents and have been house hunting near Edinburgh.  On Tuesday I made an offer on a flat which was accepted – under Scottish law that agreement is binding so the flat is mine.  Very excited.

The flat needs new kitchen and bathroom and every room needs decorating – yeah – a big project to keep me busy.  I have piles of brochures that I am looking through and a book of graph paper for plotting room design.

I’m also thinking colour palettes for each room.  I love colour so have been thinking about this a lot and gathering inspiration.

For the room that will be my office/crafting room and the guest room I am using this fabric as the inspiration

  

 

 

I used the fantastic colour site, kuler, to create some palettes. The site has lots of created colour schemes but it will also create them from a photo on your computer (or on flikr).  You can choose bright, deep and so on and also customise your own.  

Here are four that I made from this photo. I’ll be playing some more and using them while looking at some materials before deciding which version to use.

Love this aspect of kuler.  I’ve been collecting other images as possible basics for colour range for other rooms.  I’ll share them as I work on them.

And expect regular postings on aspects of home decoration over the coming months.

 

 

 

all aboard for digi freebies

I’ve joined the monthly challenge at Stuff to Scrap to create a minikit based on a colour palette and theme and then give it away as part of a blog train.  The theme was ‘summer romance’ and the colours blues and greens.  I decided to focus on words to create this kit which contains:

• 2 pattern papers
• 12 word tiles
• 1 title
• 1 set of striped stars
• 1 journaling block
• 3 photo overlays (or journallingblocks)
• 2 ribbons

you can download the kit here.  This is my first time taking part in this blogtrain and I will be very interested to see how many times the kit is downloaded. 
For more loveliness head over to Mommy Me Time Scrapper

colour swatch challenges

I love colour – individual colours and the magic of colour combinations.  I’ve been following a number of colour swatch challenges – often I collect the palette for future use and sometimes I create a page.

This layout uses the May colour swatch from design house digital

(template Cathy Z from Design Your Life.  The rest created using PSE)

That is my hand holding the plate of apple while the birds eat. 

Other colour challenges I follow are stacy julians’ i love color and designer digitals colour challenge. 

Both designer digitals and design house digital have a range of other interesting challenges too.

it's December

this picture seems a good way to welcome December - bright colours and a clear message.  I'm not adverse to borrowing my images from advertisements - this one is for Myers in Australia, I snapped it in a shop window

irresistible colour

In the hardware shop today and drawn to the new colour samples from wattyl because I love colour and because each one is a tag.  So I picked up a handful of colours I love with the idea I will use them for a project. 

Not sure exactly how I will use them – suggestions welcome. Each has a hole so a mini album on a ring seems likely. They are about 5x 2 inches and have writing I would want to cover at one end and along one edge. Perhaps stick a photo on the back of each and then a word on the front?  Or stick them back to back and add smaller photos and writing? 

When I do decide how to use them I will do a post.

love the contrasts

Sculpture exhibition in Auckland Botanic Gardens til February

Which colours to use?

I love colour. I use purple, green and brown pens for everything except very formal things. I dress in colour (mostly brown, purple, red range) and I like to have colour around me.

So when I was setting up this blog I of course needed to decide on colours to use. My default is purple and maroon but I decided to go for something different – I wanted some energy and contrast so that links stand out.

I used a fantastic free feature on kuler which extracts a palette from a photo. You need to register to be able to save palettes and you also need flash player for it to work (free and easy to install).

I browsed my recent photos for some with the bright and energized feel that I wanted and then tried them out. I chose the deep option because I thought those would be easier to read than the bright. You can also customize by moving one of the dots to a different part of the photo.

The palette I’ve used is based on the vegetable photo. You can see the palette I saved from it here. If you want to use the palette precisely then the website gives you the colour formula in various formats eg for paint and for printing.

I could play on this site for hours and a visit always gives me a lift if I’m feeling too greytone.