Friday, June 27, 2008

If You're Trying to Paint a Picture But You're Not Sure What Colors Belong

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I'm taking a "Design Your Own Fair Isle" class this weekend taught by Janine Bajus, and after Day 1 my brain is about ready to explode. Not in a bad way, in a "WOW" way. Today's class focused on color, and our first exercise was the value swatches above. What I learned from this exercise is that I can distinguish between dark and light values pretty well, but I have no concept about what's in the middle. My swatch is the blue one at the bottom of the frame. See the sharp line between the third and fourth colors? That's my "area of opportunity". It's not my only area of opportunity, unfortunately!

We also swatched a ton of colors inspired by photos that we picked out--28 or 29 colors in my case, two at a time. Some of the combinations in my swatch look good, and some look scratch-your-eyes-out terrible. Overall, the colors are not cohesive in the swatch, and even though the colors all relate to and work in the photo, some / many of them will have to go. Getting the color right is definitely going to be a challenge, in a good way, and working through Janine's design process is really, really interesting.

Tomorrow we focus on motifs, so tonight I'm looking through books of patterns--I'm looking forward to the next steps (even though it means getting up really early for a Saturday).

5 comments:

Jessica said...

I took this class with Janine at Madrona (just this one day). I wish I could have managed to do the three day class this time. I can't wait to see what you work on next.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, her blog is in my bloglines mostly for the absolutely gorgeous color knitting. What an inspiration her knitting is. I am sure she is a great teacher. I'd take a class from her in a skinny minute, you lucky dog!

Enjoy your class today and report back again!

Ang

LizKnits said...

Looks so very interesting! Hope you have great fun again today and come home with lots of ideas.

Anonymous said...

I would LOVE to take a class with Janine. She is such an inspiration. I'll be watching to see what you do in class.

Anonymous said...

That sounds really interesting.