JWD Publishing Blog

 Greetings Everyone!

First, before thinking about color, if  you are a quilter, I want to share something that excited me this week—-besides snow! A few days ago I clicked onto our JWD homepage  and found a SURPRISE awaiting me—–something I have been wanting for a very long time.  To celebrate my happy-day feeling that’s lasted all week long, JWD is giving  patterns to 5 happy quilters. If your’re interested, go to our homepage to see what I am so excited about—and see why I picked 5 happy quilters. Then let me know what you think of our new feature ……….and if you want one of those patterns, which one? I’ll announce the pattern recipients in the next post.   (By the way, if you are a quilter and want to receive all of JWD’s blogs, do become a fan.) 

Also, one more thing—-I’d love to hear what has made you really happy this week—-big or small.  Thanks for letting me share with you.  Happy smiles to you! 

Now on to color! 

Celebrating Shades

We have been talking about cool color shades these past two weeks. Now it’s time to explore a selection of these shades on your own.  Select  2-3 pure-colors that you really like—pure colors that fall within the cooler section of the color wheel.  So, any color from green to blue to magenta will work. Consider selecting pure colors that do not lie too close to each other on the wheel. For instance, you might choose a green such as aqua green, a blue like cerulean blue, and purple. By spreading out your choices, you’ll see how the shades differ throughout the wheel.

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Greetings Everyone,

Sometimes it’s the little things that excite us and give us a happy smile on our faces. That is the case for me today. I clicked on the JWD homepage this morning and I found a SURPRISE awaiting me—–something I have been wanting for sooooooooooooooooooooo long.  (Thanks David & Christina.)

To celebrate my happy-day feeling at JWD, I want to give 5 happy quilters a free pattern. If your’re interested, here’s what you do:

Go to our homepage to see what I am so excited about and why I picked 5 happy quilters rather than 4 or 1 or any other number. Then go to the JWD Comments and tell us what you think of our new feature (please do rave!) ……….and tell us which one of these you would like to have.

Then tell us what has made you really happy this past week—-big or small. The winners will be selected on Friday.

Happy smiles to you!

Joen

Greetings!

I hope you have had fun searching shades in your stash and at your favorite fabric store this past week. If you did this little exercise, you have probably come to the realization that shades are sparse in your collection.  If you missed this earlier post about shades, do visit this first shade-scale post. I suggest you head for it either before or after you read this post, preferably beforehand.

As mentioned in the earlier post, all shades belong to the shade scale—a group of colors that are made in the same way: by mixing black with a pure color. In this post I show a range of shades made from a selection of pure colors that mostly lie on the cooler side of the color wheel.  Also I used a simple traditional quilt block design to illustrate a few concepts when using shades as your artwork’s featured color scale.

Let the Color Wheel Guide You

The placement of pure colors around the color wheel is an important factor when thinking about using shades. Here are some hints:

1. The pure colors along the top of the wheel are the lightest colors. These pure colors have more shades in their families than any other colors do.
2. The pure colors along the bottom of the wheel are the darkest colors. These pure colors have less shades in their families than any other pure colors.
3. Colors that lie in the middle section on either side of the color wheel, such as red and aqua green, are middle-of-the-road in their lightness and darkness. They have about the same number of shades as they do tints (whitened colors).
4. A pure color’s placement on the color wheel gives you hints on how you can use your colors most effectively.
5. Most warmer, lighter shades will provide more brilliance and vibrancy than those shades that are cooler and darker.
6. Cool, darker shades create richness and deep shadows. They also help to ground the design.

A Sampling of Shade Scales

In each of these samples (below), the pure color, a range of shades, and black (or black with a touch of the pure color) has been included. When working with a design featuring shades, do consider using the pure color to give a little extra spunk of brilliance or vibrancy.

Extra note:  If you are working with a really dark pure color, such as violet, blue-violet, or red-violet, consider adding a few of the pure color’s darker tints too. This will give you a wider value range. You will see why this would be advisable when you see the darkness of the violet shades in my little designs at the end of this post.

 GREEN

As these shades darken, they are usually called dark green. Pure green and the lightest of its shades can appear luminous next to the darker shades because green is relatively warm fairly middle-valued. 

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I am writing this extra Playing with Color post because today I went to one of my favorite blogs,  See How We Sew,  and was delighted to see a post by Laura Nownes on how to select fabrics for a quilt by using the 3-in-1-Color Tool.   Wow!—-Laura’s explanation was so clear, concise, and easy to follow. Since I have not yet discussed this tool on the Playing with Color blog, I thought you might like to read Laura’s post  Choosing Fabircs and Colors—It’s as Easy as 1-2-3,  

Win a Color Tool

C & T has given Laura a color tool to give away. If this interests you, hop right on over to her post to see how to win this tool.

A Few Other Tidbits about the Color Tool

Personally, I love using the color  tool, as it’s so easy and quick to use (I hope you don’t mind me saying this). Besides artwork, I use it for home decor, gardening, and other unexpected activities.

The color tool is 11 years old this year. There are 3 editions out in the world today (we’ve tried to improve on each one). No matter the edition, they all do the same basic color tasks. The one shown here (white background) is from the 2nd edition.

The 3rd edition has a cover with large colorful circles on a black background. This tool includes CMYK, RGB, and HEX  formulas to match the color swatches. Therefore, you can key into your illustrator program the formulas for the swatches you want to use for your quilt, fabric art, or other artwork. This newest edition has a few other changes too. For instance, I re-worked the swatch ratios to eliminate all fractional percentages. Consequently, the swatches are slightly different from the earlier versions, as the ratios used are slightly different.

If you are interested in purchasing this tool, mostl quilt/fabric stores carry it. Also you can purchase the 3-in-1 Color Tool at the C & T Publishing website or from many other Internet sites.

If you are a quilter or sewer ——–

Do venture over to the blog See How We Sew.  I think it is the best quilting/sewing blog on the Internet. It’s both well organized and well-written AND it has a wealth of projects, activities, and ideas to be shared. It is a bi-weekly blog written by four quilters and sewers: Laura Nownes, Darra Williamson,  Jennifer Rounds, and Christie Batterman. They each have their own flair, interests, and specialties. If you subscribe, the post will come into your mailbox on Tuesdays and Fridays.

I’ll be posting later in the week when we continue our discussion about shades.

——Joen

A RARITY—-LUSCIOUS, RICH SHADES

The Shade Scale

There are four color scales in the world of color: pure color scale, tint scale, shade scale, and tone scale. During these next two weeks we’re going to investigate the shade scale.

A shade is created when black is added to a pure color. A shade can be slightly darker than its pure color, almost black, or it can be a color that lies anywhere between these two extremes. Every color that is a shade belongs to the shade scale.

An Important caveat: A shade NEVER has gray in its makeup—even a tiny bit.  If there is any hint of grayness in a dark color’s makeup, it is not a shade. It’s a tone. Only black and a pure color can be present in a shade.  Don’t be fooled into thinking a dark color is a shade because most darkened colors have a hint of grayness in them.

The Changing Colors

When you first add a touch of black to a pure color, the pure color becomes a bit darker. Also it begins to lose its intensity. It is not quite as brilliant as its pure form.  As each bit of black is added, the color lessens its intensity and increases its darkness. Eventually the color will appear almost black—-with a hint of the pure color as a subtle  influence.

You can probably see the effect of the black added to this green.

The color is darker than its pure color, but not dark enough to call it dark green. 

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My New Year’s wishes to you:      Have an uplifting, colorful, and creative  2012!  

Also—–May you challenge yourself to at least one new idea or medium to explore this year.  

Today I am sharing a challenge I made to myself several years ago. I hope my sharing will give you the impetus to begin your own new creative journey in 2012. It doesn’t matter how you challenge yourself or in what format. The important thing is to make a commitment to yourself to explore an idea or subject that will excite you and expand your horizons—-or take an idea or subject that you are enthusiastic about to the next level.

My New Year’s Wish to myself a few years ago:      Rather than the usual New Year’s resolutions I had made in the past, a few years ago I challenged myself to learn photography. I took the plunge by signing up for a one-week workshop across the continent. I was like a duck out of water with almost everyone else in the class being professional or very serious amateur photographers. What an eye-opening experience it was! The week was invigorating to say the least. It charged up my creative battery and it  forced my brain to activate in new ways. Without a doubt, it expanded my creative horizons. Ever since then, I’ve been going on yearly photographic workshops to learn more and to further challenge myself.

This New Year’s Eve I am posting a selection of photographic images. Some were taken during my maiden-journey workshop. Others have been taken since then—-one, Almost Home, was taken decades ago. Admittedly, they are not quilts, but I hope they will inspire you to take your own challenge.

Almost Home

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It’s a beautiful time of year with the anticipation of all that December has to offer. I am madly attempting to finish a project by Friday noon. I assume all of you have your own deadlines and seasonal stresses to deal with too. Recognizing that we are all maxed out on time and energy, there will be no color lessons this week or next.

In this post I am featuring another  group of quilts that caught my eye at the Houston IQA show this fall. They are each amazing in their own unique ways. Whenever possible, I have added links to the quilt artists whose works are shown. I hope you check out their pages when you have time. (Again, you’ll find black stands with white papers, ribbons, and other distracting objects in front of some of these quilts, which couldn’t be helped. Photos are informally taken with my little Nikon point ‘n shoot.)   Enjoy!

Summer Fantasy by Joanne Baeth, Susan Massini, Dona Ford, Cheryl Carbone, and Louise Page

I absolutely love this quilt.  When my eyes fell upon it, it reminded me so much of a delicate watercolor painting. Later I learned this quilt was a recreation of a watercolor painting by Bev Barmore, Joanne’s cousin.  Summer Fantasy was created by a five-member art group from Oregon. A photo of this painting was divided into five sections. Each member completed one section. Joanne pieced together the sections and then quilted the artwork.

I find this a fascinating group quilt, as it’s not an easily divisible image at first or second glance. Without a doubt, this art group is both talented and skilled. Perhaps this quilt will entice others to create a different group quilt—one that is both challenging and fun.

Now for those of you who love pieced quilts based on traditional roots, this next quilt is a real delight!

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It’s a busy season and much of our energy and time are taken up this month with the holidays, family, special friends, and the celebration of Christmas and Hanukkah. So this is a good time to share a few more photos of quilts from the 2011 Houston Quilt Festival.  No doubt, the actual quilts are more beautiful in real life than what you see in my informal snapshots. The colors shown may not be true to the quilt, but I think the quilts still look great. Enjoy!

Autumn Splendor by Noriko Endo from Tokyo, Japan

If you have been in the quilt scene for a few years, then you will be well aware of Noriko Endo’s glorious naturescapes. They are filled with exquisite textures, subtle colorings, and enticing imagery.  Autumn Splendor fills the bill. It is amazing. Standing in front of this quilt brings you into the scene. The realism is extraordinary.  This particular quilt really speaks to me, as it’s a scene reminiscent of many years of woodland walks. This original design is created with cotton, tulle, and luminescent fibers. If you would like to create your own woodland scenes filled with textures, or if you just want to be inspired by Noriko’s beautiful creations, consider purchasing her book Confetti Naturescapes.

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When Alex Anderson designed her Holiday Lights quilt many years ago, she designed a winner. It’s been extraordinarily popular with people of all ages.  This year has been no exception. The pattern keeps selling and Holiday Lights quilts continue to brighten the homes of people during the month of December.

This year The Piece Corps and Friends chose to make Holiday Lights their selection to raise funds for the Sutter Hospital Quilt Auction to benefit breast cancer research and patients.  The Sutter Cancer Center holds their auction every three years at the Sutter Hospital in Sacramento, California.

The Piece Corps and Friends named their auction quilt Trees of Hope. You can see their finished quilt (above) with several of the fourteen-member group:  Sally Scholz, Barbara Wexted, Martha Flanagan, Della Goss, Connie Seale, and Donna Bays. They enjoyed making this quilt and were extremely happy with the results.

Below are several in-progress photos that you will enjoy seeing. Also, if you are part of a quilting group that might want to make a group quilt for an auction or any other purpose, you’ll be interested in reading how this group organized themselves and how they worked on this quilt.  At the end of this post, you can see Alex’s latest version of Holiday Lights.

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COLOR CASCADE—- It’s a show-stopper!

A COLOR CHALLENGE FULFILLED!

Four of these color-challenge quilts are featured in this post, as well as artists’ thoughts.

This exhibit features a wall of beautiful quilts flowing with colors. This wall of color was a group challenge for the Sewjourners, a group of quilters in Oregon. This challenge was Inspired by the  3-in-1 Color Tool (designed by Joen Wolfrom with C&T Publishing). This group of twenty began their color exploration by each randomly drawing a color card that would determine her featured color.

Today’s post features four of the quilts and the artists who created them for this challenge.  (A later post will include an additional selection of these color-challenge quilts).  Let us what you think.

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