COLOR CONFIDENCE, PART 2

Today I'm delving into part 2 of my take on becoming color confident in fabric choices. In the interior design world, there are many principles of design that we learn in our studies. But I am not going to delve into those or attempt to teach you the principles of design as it just gets too technical. After all, our purpose here is to learn to effectively select colors and fabrics to go into a quilt so that we will love it in the end. Today I'm going to talk about color and value in general. The hue of a color is its name and the primary hues are red,yellow and blue. Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a hue and you get different values by mixing and matching other colors with it. A tint is the color with the addition of white. A tone is the color with the addition of black. The intensity of a color refers to the purity of the hue. I hope that is simple enough. Lets talk about black. A pure black is vibrant and clear. Adding other colors, such as beige, can make it muddy. Interior designers have long known that black is a great accent to use in a room design. A room without black can be very bland. Look around in your own home and see what black highlights you might have that you weren't even aware of. A picture with a black frame, the black fireplace surround, black appliances in a white kitchen, a black granite countertop, a black lampshade, a plaid fabric with a black line through it. Its something you may not notice until you start looking for it. I often use black in my quilts as it creates a neutral place for the eye to land and accents the other fabrics. Above is the first block that I made for Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt. Bonnie provided the suggested colors for the quilt and then I selected my own colors from my stash and purchasing additional. Black was one of Bonnie's constant colors and the blacks I chose were solid, one with a small white dot, one with a green leaf and one with purple swirls in it. Without the addition of the black, this block would be a boring mess. Another change I made to the block was adding a solid purple center where Bonnie had suggested a 2 color 4 patch. I preferred using the solid for something for the eye to land on. You can find out more about Bonnie's mystery quilt by clicking on the Grand Illusion link on the right of this blog. Looking at the block can you identify the lights, the mediums and the darks? The lights are the white and yellow, the medium is the green plaid and Most of the other colors are darks with a similar intensity of hue. Intensity refers to the purity of the hue. HOpefully, I've helped you make some sense of these terms that are prevalent in the quilting world. Until next time, happy quilting. Carol