Our Interaction with Color
December 16, 2014
Inspirational Art
Today’s piece pays homage to one of my favorite painter’s of the last century, Wassily Kandinsky, whose birthday happens to be today. Kandinsky is considered the first artist to create purely abstract art and was one of the foremost Expressionist painters, as well as being an artistic theorist. He was especially concerned with our personal reactions to color, as in how we interact viscerally with what we see. He wrote in his book Du spirituel dans l’art (Concerning the Spiritual in Art), “Colours on the painter’s palette evoke a double effect: a purely physical effect on the eye, which is charmed by the beauty of colours, similar to the joyful impression when we eat a delicacy. This effect can be much deeper, however, causing a vibration of the soul or an “inner resonance”—a spiritual effect in which the colour touches the soul itself.”
Isn’t that just lovely?
This necklace was created by Cecilia Leonini of Italy. To honor Kandinsky’s thoughts and not influence your reaction, I’m not going to comment on this piece. How do you find yourself reacting to it, to the color, form and imagery? Do you see what Kandinsky was referring to in terms of our interaction with color?
You can find more of Cecilia’s work in her Etsy shop. I only just discovered her through the Polymer Clay Artist’s Guild of Etsy which I am a member of. If you sell on Etsy and aren’t a member of the PCAGOE, do consider joining–start by clicking here. This group was key in encouraging and inspiring me when I was still new and uncertain, and many are what we affectionately refer to as the midwives of The Polymer Arts magazine, helping to form the concept and vet ideas for its creation and content when it first started out. They are a wonderful support group and a wealth of information and inspiration!
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
Pantone’s Fall Colors
August 26, 2013
Tips and Tricks
I’m sorry I don’t have an actual polymer piece here today, but I’ve had this on my block to blog about since it came out. Pantone distills the color trends and comes up with color palettes for the coming season for designers and artists to use as a guide when developing their product line. With Fall just around the corner, I thought we ought to take a look at what fashion and home decor will be trending color-wise. And beside, they are really beautiful colors this year!
This palette is Pantone’s, but I pulled this particular image from “Brandi Girl Blog” because it’s a great image to print out and keep in your studio if you want to follow the color trends, but also because she’s provided a whole slew of color combinations that you could use to help map out your pieces.
The colors this year are saturated and rather bright, but I think it’s fantastic–perfect for polymer! I have my eye on this particular blue-green-purple combination. Yum.
Do check out Brandi’s page of color combinations, and if you want to keep a close eye on color trends, sign up for Pantone’s newsletter on their website.
Bold and Brilliant Floral
June 4, 2013
Inspirational Art
Working in floral is a license to go all out with color. Springtime flowers are bright, vivid things, competing against all the other bright and vivid colors of the season. You can take a lesson from their boldness: if you are going to get colorful, don’t hold back on just how bold or striking your color combinations are.
This necklace from 2 Good Claymates (Carolyn and Dave Good) has an fairly limited palette, but the saturation and contrast of the color are quite striking, don’t you think?
This is just one example of being bold without having to overdose the viewer with color. Being bright and bold is not about how many colors you use, but how they work together. Think contrast when you are after brilliant color–the darker blue against the bright of the turquoise and the lighter yellow is where this color combination in this piece gets its punch. If you have accents or backgrounds to go along with your bold components, consider toning down those colors so they don’t compete too much. You can see how that works in this necklace, with the leaves here created in more muted greens. They allow the bright flowers to really pop.
I can’t imagine a piece like this not grabbing some serious attention at the next garden party, even amidst nature’s own work!
A Touch of Color
May 11, 2013
Inspirational Art
I wanted to take a moment as we wind up this colorful week, to point out a simple fact about color–how you use color is just as important as what colors you choose. I feel this needs to be emphasized because with all the colorful work we’ve been looking at this week you might think you need to get more colorful or bolder. But the use of color is about how it affects the impact of your piece so you can use a lot or just a little and still have a highly impactful piece.
I think Betsy Baker fully realizes the value of color and balancing it for impact. Here is a series of pendants with barely any color visible, yet the color that is there is very dynamic visually because it is not competing with any other colors and is starkly contrasted against white.
These pendants are both calm but bold at the same time. It’s very powerful, really. So, you see it isn’t about how colorful your piece is but what you are trying to convey and how you can use color to help you make a statement or design a piece to come off just the way you intend.
Guest Post: Radiate!
May 9, 2013
Inspirational Art
My dear and darling friends Tracy Holmes and Dan Cormier are helping out a tired and worn out publisher this week by guest posting for me today. I wanted to write up something about their color projects for our color theme this week but Tracy graciously took the writing upon herself and Dan put together the fun image of the cubed color project they conducted for Synergy 3 (they are such incredible idea people!) So go ahead and ‘radiate’ with them …
When I invited artists to participate in a project that combined the diversity of polymer clay with the almost uncountable possible configurations of a Rubik’s Cube, I gave them a few guidelines. While each artist was welcome and encouraged to showcase their own skillset and sing in their own creative voice, this was, primarily, a project about colour. “Please,” I suggested, “Keep each of your six sides within a clearly identifiable Pentaradial Palette.”
A what?
Through this project, and through my workshop and seminars at the recent Synergy3 Conference in Atlanta in March, I introduced a new approach to colour that I’ve being playing around with; a new way to explore and understand it, in theory and practice. In my world, a ‘Pentaradial Palette’ is a group of colours that radiate from a single, central place to create a cohesive collection of related hues. Basically, it’s taking a standard ‘Colour Wheel’ colour and, rather than chasing it around in circles as one of six, moving it into the middle to become a single ‘Hub’ for the other five. Whether you start with RYB or CMY (that’s another discussion), for this discussion, can we all agree that Green is a Secondary colour? Good. So, here’s what my PC3 artists got as their ‘Pentaradial Palette’ grid guide for the Green side:
With the right recipe (concept + clay + courage), mixing custom colours is easier than you think. But having said that, if you’re not quite ready to go DIY with the CMY, there are plenty of prêt à porter spokes already on the pre-packaged polymer clay colour wheel. Starting as recommended, with the purest and simplest of Hubs, here’s what nine of my PC3 artists did with their Greens:
As a polymer clay artist and teacher, I think it’s best to work towards work that features a personal palette, rather than one that relies on colors that are right out of the package. And, as my color-courageous Cubists discovered, it’s amazing how quickly adding just a little of ‘this’ to a package of ‘that’ will shift the starting hue away from something everyone recognizes, to something that is so much more ‘palettably personal.’
So, whether you’re going Green, mellowing Yellow, seeing Red, feeling Blue, shifting Cyan or mixin’ it up with Magenta, stop spinning your wheels. Grab a color, start there … and radiate!
Follow Tracy & Dan’s color adventure on their Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/TheCuttingEdgePolymerClay
Naturally Formed Color Palettes
May 8, 2013
Inspirational Art
I have always found that one of the most fascinating and astonishing places to study color and find inspiration for combinations is in natural elements. Not just in the outdoors, mind you, but all things naturally formed. This may not seem like news but have you ever stopped and studied the actual combinations of color not just inherent in any single thing but even the combinations that occur naturally. Have you ever seen a rock including the tag-a-long bits like lichen, moss, rust, etc. that had clashing colors? Did you ever look at the shade of green in the leaves surrounding a colorful flower and think “That color green so doesn’t go with those flowers”?
Maybe I’m just a little odd but for years I would go on hikes or to zoos and actually try to find poor natural color combinations. I have seen a few that weren’t to my taste but by all I know of color theory, they always work. How does Mother Nature do that?
Drawing inspiration from natural color combinations is just another way to bring fresh ideas into your studio but that is also the trick … keeping it fresh. The thing is, you don’t have to be literal. You may love the autumn colors of the changing trees but that doesn’t mean you can only use those colors with leaf and tree motifs. Take the colors where they’ve never been before.
Peacock colors are extremely popular but so many of the applications are replicating the feathers as well. No need for that. Do something completely feather free. Here Chris Kapono goes wild with the peacock colors but with a very unfeathery pebble-like appearance in her Little Peacock Book Box.
Take nature’s challenge and find some natural color combinations that strike you and see what you come up with in your studio. Keep your camera at the ready … you never know when nature will bring you the perfect palette.
Today’s piece pays homage to one of my favorite painter’s of the last century, Wassily Kandinsky, whose birthday happens to be today. Kandinsky is considered the first artist to create purely abstract art and was one of the foremost Expressionist painters, as well as being an artistic theorist. He was especially concerned with our personal reactions to color, as in how we interact viscerally with what we see. He wrote in his book Du spirituel dans l’art (Concerning the Spiritual in Art), “Colours on the painter’s palette evoke a double effect: a purely physical effect on the eye, which is charmed by the beauty of colours, similar to the joyful impression when we eat a delicacy. This effect can be much deeper, however, causing a vibration of the soul or an “inner resonance”—a spiritual effect in which the colour touches the soul itself.”
Isn’t that just lovely?
This necklace was created by Cecilia Leonini of Italy. To honor Kandinsky’s thoughts and not influence your reaction, I’m not going to comment on this piece. How do you find yourself reacting to it, to the color, form and imagery? Do you see what Kandinsky was referring to in terms of our interaction with color?
You can find more of Cecilia’s work in her Etsy shop. I only just discovered her through the Polymer Clay Artist’s Guild of Etsy which I am a member of. If you sell on Etsy and aren’t a member of the PCAGOE, do consider joining–start by clicking here. This group was key in encouraging and inspiring me when I was still new and uncertain, and many are what we affectionately refer to as the midwives of The Polymer Arts magazine, helping to form the concept and vet ideas for its creation and content when it first started out. They are a wonderful support group and a wealth of information and inspiration!
If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.
I’m sorry I don’t have an actual polymer piece here today, but I’ve had this on my block to blog about since it came out. Pantone distills the color trends and comes up with color palettes for the coming season for designers and artists to use as a guide when developing their product line. With Fall just around the corner, I thought we ought to take a look at what fashion and home decor will be trending color-wise. And beside, they are really beautiful colors this year!
This palette is Pantone’s, but I pulled this particular image from “Brandi Girl Blog” because it’s a great image to print out and keep in your studio if you want to follow the color trends, but also because she’s provided a whole slew of color combinations that you could use to help map out your pieces.
The colors this year are saturated and rather bright, but I think it’s fantastic–perfect for polymer! I have my eye on this particular blue-green-purple combination. Yum.
Do check out Brandi’s page of color combinations, and if you want to keep a close eye on color trends, sign up for Pantone’s newsletter on their website.
Read MoreWorking in floral is a license to go all out with color. Springtime flowers are bright, vivid things, competing against all the other bright and vivid colors of the season. You can take a lesson from their boldness: if you are going to get colorful, don’t hold back on just how bold or striking your color combinations are.
This necklace from 2 Good Claymates (Carolyn and Dave Good) has an fairly limited palette, but the saturation and contrast of the color are quite striking, don’t you think?
This is just one example of being bold without having to overdose the viewer with color. Being bright and bold is not about how many colors you use, but how they work together. Think contrast when you are after brilliant color–the darker blue against the bright of the turquoise and the lighter yellow is where this color combination in this piece gets its punch. If you have accents or backgrounds to go along with your bold components, consider toning down those colors so they don’t compete too much. You can see how that works in this necklace, with the leaves here created in more muted greens. They allow the bright flowers to really pop.
I can’t imagine a piece like this not grabbing some serious attention at the next garden party, even amidst nature’s own work!
Read MoreI wanted to take a moment as we wind up this colorful week, to point out a simple fact about color–how you use color is just as important as what colors you choose. I feel this needs to be emphasized because with all the colorful work we’ve been looking at this week you might think you need to get more colorful or bolder. But the use of color is about how it affects the impact of your piece so you can use a lot or just a little and still have a highly impactful piece.
I think Betsy Baker fully realizes the value of color and balancing it for impact. Here is a series of pendants with barely any color visible, yet the color that is there is very dynamic visually because it is not competing with any other colors and is starkly contrasted against white.
These pendants are both calm but bold at the same time. It’s very powerful, really. So, you see it isn’t about how colorful your piece is but what you are trying to convey and how you can use color to help you make a statement or design a piece to come off just the way you intend.
Read MoreMy dear and darling friends Tracy Holmes and Dan Cormier are helping out a tired and worn out publisher this week by guest posting for me today. I wanted to write up something about their color projects for our color theme this week but Tracy graciously took the writing upon herself and Dan put together the fun image of the cubed color project they conducted for Synergy 3 (they are such incredible idea people!) So go ahead and ‘radiate’ with them …
When I invited artists to participate in a project that combined the diversity of polymer clay with the almost uncountable possible configurations of a Rubik’s Cube, I gave them a few guidelines. While each artist was welcome and encouraged to showcase their own skillset and sing in their own creative voice, this was, primarily, a project about colour. “Please,” I suggested, “Keep each of your six sides within a clearly identifiable Pentaradial Palette.”
A what?
Through this project, and through my workshop and seminars at the recent Synergy3 Conference in Atlanta in March, I introduced a new approach to colour that I’ve being playing around with; a new way to explore and understand it, in theory and practice. In my world, a ‘Pentaradial Palette’ is a group of colours that radiate from a single, central place to create a cohesive collection of related hues. Basically, it’s taking a standard ‘Colour Wheel’ colour and, rather than chasing it around in circles as one of six, moving it into the middle to become a single ‘Hub’ for the other five. Whether you start with RYB or CMY (that’s another discussion), for this discussion, can we all agree that Green is a Secondary colour? Good. So, here’s what my PC3 artists got as their ‘Pentaradial Palette’ grid guide for the Green side:
With the right recipe (concept + clay + courage), mixing custom colours is easier than you think. But having said that, if you’re not quite ready to go DIY with the CMY, there are plenty of prêt à porter spokes already on the pre-packaged polymer clay colour wheel. Starting as recommended, with the purest and simplest of Hubs, here’s what nine of my PC3 artists did with their Greens:
As a polymer clay artist and teacher, I think it’s best to work towards work that features a personal palette, rather than one that relies on colors that are right out of the package. And, as my color-courageous Cubists discovered, it’s amazing how quickly adding just a little of ‘this’ to a package of ‘that’ will shift the starting hue away from something everyone recognizes, to something that is so much more ‘palettably personal.’
So, whether you’re going Green, mellowing Yellow, seeing Red, feeling Blue, shifting Cyan or mixin’ it up with Magenta, stop spinning your wheels. Grab a color, start there … and radiate!
Follow Tracy & Dan’s color adventure on their Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/TheCuttingEdgePolymerClay
Read More
I have always found that one of the most fascinating and astonishing places to study color and find inspiration for combinations is in natural elements. Not just in the outdoors, mind you, but all things naturally formed. This may not seem like news but have you ever stopped and studied the actual combinations of color not just inherent in any single thing but even the combinations that occur naturally. Have you ever seen a rock including the tag-a-long bits like lichen, moss, rust, etc. that had clashing colors? Did you ever look at the shade of green in the leaves surrounding a colorful flower and think “That color green so doesn’t go with those flowers”?
Maybe I’m just a little odd but for years I would go on hikes or to zoos and actually try to find poor natural color combinations. I have seen a few that weren’t to my taste but by all I know of color theory, they always work. How does Mother Nature do that?
Drawing inspiration from natural color combinations is just another way to bring fresh ideas into your studio but that is also the trick … keeping it fresh. The thing is, you don’t have to be literal. You may love the autumn colors of the changing trees but that doesn’t mean you can only use those colors with leaf and tree motifs. Take the colors where they’ve never been before.
Peacock colors are extremely popular but so many of the applications are replicating the feathers as well. No need for that. Do something completely feather free. Here Chris Kapono goes wild with the peacock colors but with a very unfeathery pebble-like appearance in her Little Peacock Book Box.
Take nature’s challenge and find some natural color combinations that strike you and see what you come up with in your studio. Keep your camera at the ready … you never know when nature will bring you the perfect palette.
Read More