Radiating Variety

August 11, 2019

Would you say you creatively lean toward symmetry or asymmetry? Although humans are innately attracted to symmetry, we all lean towards one or the other when it comes to our aesthetic preferences. However, symmetry, which represents order, is generally found to be more pleasing to the brain than asymmetry but, interestingly enough, symmetry alone cannot make something beautiful. That’s because that orderliness can get rather boring.

This is not to say that symmetry is automatically boring, because it certainly is not. It’s all a matter of how much energy the other characteristics of that symmetrical design add to it. However, there is a kind of artistic prejudice against symmetry out there sometimes. It’s this kind of default line of thought that symmetry is not only boring but a kind of cop-out in design, that it is something primarily employed by the inexperienced and unskilled aspiring artist. That always struck me as really ridiculous. Did they think that Mother Nature should rearrange the flowers, the growth of crystals, and the patterns of butterfly wings? Because they are all symmetrical and yet, these are some of the most beautiful natural things in our world.

So, make note that it’s not symmetry that makes a design boring, it’s a lack of energy in the design. Making exciting, energized, and intriguing symmetrical work can actually be challenging so when someone does it well, it can be quite impressive. Asymmetry has an innate sense of energy simply because it is off-balance and our brain, the way it is, always thinks things are moving towards balance and thus sees asymmetrical design as something in flux. So really, asymmetry might be considered a kind of a shortcut to an energized design although, in truth, both symmetry and asymmetry have plenty of challenges to contend with when designing.

There is one type of symmetrical design, however, that does have both balance and energy almost automatically included. This is the beautiful radial symmetry seen in nature in everything from starfish to flowers to snowflakes. Its energy comes from lines or a progression of shapes moving out from a central axis. The movement in this kind of symmetry is strong and directional but it can still verge on the boring if the radiating lines do not have variation.

Let’s look at some examples of beautifully done radial symmetry.

 

Going Around the Axis

We see radial symmetry in polymer all the time, particularly in kaleidoscope canes. The process of slicing and reassembling the canes with the same point in the pattern arranged at the center creates radial symmetry. There aren’t necessarily radiating lines in these canes, but the mirrored shapes tend to create points or a kind of visual growth outward.

Here’s a beautiful five-sided kaleidoscope cane – yes, symmetry can have an and odd number of sides because the design is still consistent around a central axis – whose parts have a sense of growth moving outward. This is by the very adept cane artist Lana Fominicheva of LaFom on Etsy.

 

A more direct production of radial symmetry can be created by building with a collection of elements such as in this quilled cane design by Meg Newberg of Polymer Clay Workshop.

Cool canes, right? You can get Meg’s Quilled Cane Tutorial in her Esty shop and get to making your own as soon as you download it!

 

Radial symmetry that is neither straight nor separate lines or progressive shapes can still create energy and interest while still staying symmetrical and beautifully balanced as seen here in this locket by Ola of PinkLaLou on Etsy. The crossing over of the lines in the central image are highly energetic and flow out more than burst out from the central axis but flowing lines are still energized only in a calmer, perhaps more elegant, way.

This is a locket created with filigree and cold enamel, not polymer. At first, I thought maybe the design in the middle was cold enamel, but I think it may be an image under resin. Cold enamel is a pigmented semi-translucent resin created to look like traditional glass enamel. If you love the look of enamel but have neither the equipment nor the patience to learn that amazing craft, cold enamel might fill the bill for you. But in the meantime, you could start a radial symmetry design with the right graphic using a liquid polymer image transfer.

 

Okay, so now that you’ve seen a few examples, would you say this next piece below is radial symmetry? Scroll down before reading on and just take a quick peek. Its looks like it is, right?

Well, technically no, it isn’t, but it has all the initial markers with a central axis from which elements radiate outward in a similar pattern. However, nothing is actually symmetrical from one side to the other. Our brain perceives balance because the progression from the center feels consistent, going from radiating lines of inlaid polymer to an even boundary of solid silver to a filigree of swirls and set gems that fill the outside perimeter. But all the elements have an irregular placement, especially in the stones and swirls outside of the focal center but also in the thickness, pattern, and coloring of the inlaid polymer. So, this pendant echoes radial symmetry without being symmetrical thus giving it a tremendous amount of energy without feeling chaotic. Pretty cool!

This necklace, of course, is a Liz Hall creation. Liz has been one of my polymer heroes since nearly the beginning of my exploration into the material. She combines precious metal clay with polymer inlays, adding in stones, glass, and other shiny bits here and there as well. Her openness to other materials allows for this broad range of exploration in design and yet she has a very distinctive style. If you look closely at her work, you’ll see every regular pattern and design is just a touch off, including the pendant that opens this blog post. That’s part of her signature style. Simple but effective.

 

Of course, the most quintessential of radial symmetry design is the mandala. Much of the radial symmetry we see could be considered mandalas of sorts, if we are just speaking of the geometry of it. Mandalas are, however, traditionally a reference to a kind of spiritual map, one that was originally meant to be a model for the organizational structure of life, in both the physical and metaphysical sense, and consisted of a square with a circle and four T-shaped gates, one facing each side of the square. But, as you might have noticed, that definition and the base design has been broadly extended. As long as the design has a regular structure organized around a unifying center, it seems to be generally accepted that it can be called a mandala.

We see these mandala structures in polymer pieces created with cane slices a lot but it is also readily achieved with layered polymer elements like these layered ornaments Kay Miller used to make. She’s off focused on dimensional greeting cards now but we can still enjoy the images of her perfectly designed and finished ornaments.

 

Mandalas are certainly not relegated to polymer when it comes to artwork. And it’s not just about those dot painted rocks that are all the rage now either. Take a gander at this gorgeous mandala brooch created by Jima and Carlie Abbott of Mixed Metal Jewels.

So… do you use radial symmetry in your work? If you don’t or haven’t done much of it or simply haven’t thought much about it, maybe it’s time to try it out. It can be very meditative. See for yourself!

 

Best Laid Plans

Well, this week I was going to start casually working on plans for future publications and new projects between physical therapy and catching up on sleep, but chaos reigned here at the house. Again. There was light at the end of the tunnel when we suddenly went from being a couple of days from finishing the house renovations to a couple of weeks.

The appliances were in and the final painting had commenced but then we discovered that the floor had a problem along with more damage than was anticipated so instead of simply repairing our flooring around the construction areas, we had to tear out nearly half the flooring in our house! Talk about frustrating! And depressing. And nerve-racking. Blah.

But, long story short, we worked it and persisted until we found something we could afford and miraculously ended up with this gorgeous acacia wood flooring and a crew that rushed in and got it all taken care of pretty much in one day! It was nuts. There were so many guys here, it was like ants in the house. But it was by far the best work done on this whole project. Here is my husband Brett, just super excited about his new floors, in our nearly done kitchen.

 

I’m pretty sure his expression will change when we sit down to pay the bill though. But at least we can drown our sorrows over a glass of wine in a gorgeous new kitchen.

Or a glass of seltzer in my case. My metabolic issues are dampening my potential to celebrate or drown my sorrows in my family’s traditional Irish way. No sugars including alcohol for me for a while, not until my metabolic issues are under control and it’ll be minimal even then. It’s sad but it’s really nothing compared to what some of my other friends are going through right now. All you wonderful people … take good care of yourselves! I don’t want any more troubling health news. Ok?

On the positive side, my arm is much better even after this one week with minimal computer time. It is starting to hurt now though, but only because I keep forgetting to not type! Three decades of writing for a living and it’s hard not to use the keyboard when pain is not there to readily remind me not to. I’ll learn!

So, the word now is that we should have our house back in a week. Then I can start cooking properly and really button-down on the new diet regimen I have. So, keep your fingers and toes crossed for us as I will keep good, positive energy and prayers flowing out to all of you with challenges going on right now.

Have a beautiful, creative, and inspiring week!

Splitting the Difference

April 21, 2019

Happy Easter or Chag Sameach or simply happy Sunday to you! I wasn’t sure I was going to get this one out between holidays and family and wrapping up the latest issue of The Polymer Studio (there has been a slight delay with the printer so we still have time to get you on the list for the first shipment from the printer if you subscribe or pre-order before Monday night  … go here to get yours) and picking out shower and floor tile (yes, there is a tad more drama at Tenth Muse headquarters, a.k.a. home, which I will expound upon at the end for those of you find it humorous to see what craziness I’m steeped in.)

So, have you ever been in the middle of a busy, stressful, crazy, chaotic day and then all of a sudden you just are coming up with new art projects from out of nowhere? Well, yesterday I was in this ginormous tile shop, putting white tiles against dark tiles and smooth stone surfaces next to busy mosaics trying to see what works and, of course, being so design focused, when it didn’t work I would ask myself why, and when it did, I asked myself why as well. (My mind is like a three-year-old… Why this? Why that? Why…?) This led to considering how I pair up surfaces in my own artwork. The fact is, I don’t do a ton of it, but I do really like it.

I think this also came to mind because I had the pleasure of online chatting with Kimberly Arden, a potential contributor for a future issue, and she showed me some of her pendants and earrings which are often a split canvas – one side is busy with canes or extruder veneers and one side is a lightly textured black with a flower or other form laid on it in using just a few canes, like the one you see opening this post. So, I’m there comparing tiles and thinking about her pendants which got me thinking about how often we pair up surfaces in art and next thing you know, I’m writing you this post with all this in mind. That’s how these themes happen!

So, let’s just ponder the idea of having two different surfaces next to each other on the same canvas or form. How is this done to in a way that still creates a cohesive piece and what are the different ways this can be applied?

 

Splitting the Canvas

Two or more different surfaces on the same canvas or form is a great method for creating contrast but like any other element, two surfaces that are not alike do have to have some kind of connection to make them work together in a piece. Yes, that connection is there physically when the surfaces are within the same framework in or attached to a singular object, but that is not usually enough. The best way to ensure a connection is to have at least one design element that is the same or very similar.

For instance, both sides could be the same color but very different textures. Olga Bulat does this in this necklace. Making it monochromatic keeps us focused on that texture and that difference which creates the energy in the piece.

 

Now, Olga could have had two different colors in the above piece but the colors themselves would have had to have some commonality. For example, both sides could be pastel, or both might be similarly bright. They could even be next to each other or completely opposite each other on the color wheel (because complete opposites also connect in our mind as being related but in an opposing fashion, if that makes sense. Think how much green and red there is at Christmas time. It works, color wise, right?)

Below is an example of using different colors but with the same texture so that there is commonality in the texture, but at the same time, the colors are also completely opposite (a dark, rich, warm brown versus a light, colorless, cool gray). These opposites are paired in our mind the way good and evil, young and old, and night and day are paired conceptually.

This is the genius of Meisha Barbee who also puts the canvas split on the horizontal (notice how many of the examples I show you today are split vertically – vertical has a lot of energy but it doesn’t mean that vertical is right for every piece.) Just changing the color however does not give the work a ton of energy so she adds a band of multicolored spots. I added a few more examples below the first pendant so you can see the various ways she pairs up the competing sides of the canvas. She uses large bands to separate when the surface pattern is subtle but goes for a simple slim line on the one with a bottom half already busy and full of extruded canes slices.

 

And speaking of changing up directions, you can also change up the point at which they meet. It doesn’t have to be a straight line or a simple curve Here is a simple design, actually done in terra-cotta, offered by a website called Tradenimbo. The zigzag line splits up the two sides with enough energy to carry the simple graphic look. Note how the pendant is the stronger design between it and the earrings, with the dots being a place of focus and rest for the eye as it jumps back and forth between the two sides.

 

Juxtaposing two different surface designs doesn’t mean it needs to be on the same canvas facing the viewer in the same direction. It could be on something three-dimensional so that the viewer has to walk around to compare. Or take it a step further and have a different surface on the front and back or get really ingenious and make it a curved surface so you can see both sides at the same time as Arden Bardol does with these whimsical earrings of hers.

 

You can also contrast different surfaces by creating one surface on the outside and another on the inside. Martina Buriánová did that here with two surfaces contrasted in pattern and treatment, yet with similar or highly contrasting colors which make a strong connection between them.

 

 

Splitting up is Not Hard to Do

If you find these contrasting surfaces interesting, click on any of the above artist names to see additional pieces for further inspiration. Then get to work trying your own!

Here is a simple series of steps you can try right now … A Cane Split Canvas:

  1. Choose a cane (or a few canes that go together) and pick a base clay in a complementary color.
  2. Roll a thick sheet of the solid color and apply canes to just one section, trimming or lining them up to create a boundary between a cane side and a solid clay color side.
  3. Burnish the canes into the clay sheet so the surface is smooth.
  4. Then, texturize a similar sized section next to the canes. You can use something as simple as sandpaper or add lots of tiny dots with a hand tool or stripes or lines or whatever you like, but I think you will find it more successful if the texture is very different from the canes. So, for instance, if you applied a series of flower canes with dots in the center, don’t texturize with dots but rather create something quite unlike anything in the flowers, such as a lot of orderly vertical lines or go for the randomness of a filter sponge texture. The cool thing about applying texture here is that if you don’t like it you can burnish it away and try something else.
  5. Once you have a texture that you like, use a cookie cutter, first as a frame to find the section to cut that includes the two sides– it doesn’t have to be half canes and half texture. In fact, 1/3 to 2/3 will probably look nicer in many cases. Move your cookie cutter around to see what you like.
  6. Once you find the section you like, cover it with plastic wrap and cut with your cutter.
  7. Your new split canvas form can be used as the beginning of a more complex piece or punch a hole at the top and you have a pendant or the first of a pair of earrings.

Now, if you want to splice together two different sheets of clay onto the same piece, you might want to check out this tutorial by Samantha Burroughs.

You may also want to take a look at the first issue of The Polymer Studio for the great tutorial by Julie Picarello who has a beautifully simple way to splice together a mokume gane slice and simple textured clay.

Got any great split canvases of your own? Share it with us by leaving a comment or a link at the end of the post!

 

Now for the Great Tile Adventure

Story time! For those entertained by the little dramas of my little life.

So, as you might have read in previous posts, we have been forced to do a kitchen renovation earlier than planned, in part because of a drain that collapsed under the slab on the kitchen side. The bad news came when the plumbers came out to plan the job and determined that the drain in the master bath was about to go as well so in addition to the kitchen, we have to tear out the shower in the bathroom. Oh, joy!

Actually, we were kind of happy about this because we really dislike that shower. It’s like a tiny tile covered phone booth, which is great for singing in but, not big enough for even a tiny mobile recording studio to make that worthwhile, it’s otherwise rather claustrophobic feeling. This is not to say that the news and the added cost to the budget didn’t give me a few more gray hairs, but I won’t be sad to see that go.

So, after spending two hours in a tile shop yesterday, mostly searching for just the right basic white but still subtly veined tile (veins in a cool, not a warm gray on a cool but not bright white – we are both artists so the color conversations have been quite intense) to go with our more dramatic accent choices and coming home and putting every tile sample we bought up against the wall, and not finding any to be quite right, I went into my studio for something and there in my stack of tiles on my studio table was the exact pattern of tile we were looking for. And I’ve been curing clay on it for the last six years! Now we just have to see if we can find eight full boxes of it somewhere!

Here I am giving my better half the not so great news that our ideal tile came from my studio stash and I don’t remember where I got it. But at least we know what we like!

I’m also, by the way, designing and making our kitchen backsplash which will, of course, have polymer in it somehow. So that should be exciting. Especially the part where I have to figure out how to carve out the time to do actually make that happen. But I will!

So, with my head full of tile images, I say goodbye to you for now. Have a wonderful rest of your holiday weekend and a great coming week.

The Contrast Conundrum

What would you say is the area of your craft that you most need to work on? Is it a skill that you want to acquire or improve? Is it simply getting yourself to do more work more often? (I know that’s one of mine!) Or is it some particular approach to the work that regularly seems to baffle you?

For me, I have always struggled with contrast. It’s not that I don’t like contrast, I just tend to like it done subtly. But if I am too subtle, the work lacks energy. On the other hand, if I consciously push it too far, it doesn’t feel like a genuine expression of mine. So, the idea of contrast is often on my mind when I am working.

First, let me correct a misconception that some people have. You do not have to have a high contrast in your work to create a good design. There can be little to no contrast in a piece and it can still have a beautiful design. Contrast is about the degree to which elements such as color, texture, pattern, shape, size, etc. are dissimilar or alike. Like anything else in design, good use of contrast comes down to making an intentional decision about how you will use it in your work.

For instance, high contrast tends to be high-energy and bold while moderate contrast comes across often as refined or restrained, and little to no contrast tends to be quiet and reserved. These descriptors are not always true because the level of contrast plays differently depending on what design element is being contrasted and how it works with (or against) other characteristics in the work.

Okay, enough jabbering on about these abstract concepts. Let’s look at some examples and get those little gears in your head turning as you ponder how you use contrast now, or how you would like to be using it.

Compare and Contrast

One of the most common ways to develop high contrast, especially in polymer, is with color. From canes to mokume to silkscreened veneers, high color contrast is the only way to have the effect of some techniques even show. But at the same time, minimal color contrast with little value change can result in lovely but subtle marbling, it helps support the dreamy feel of blended alcohol ink techniques, or allows us to showcase texture or form while color is relegated to a supporting role.

One of the most foolproof ways to use color for contrast is to go black and white. But if you go that extreme, you will probably need to heavily play up other design elements such as form, pattern, line, or texture. Or, you can put other colors into play.

That’s basically what Lynn Yuhr did with this earring and pendant set. The primary high contrast is a black border surrounding a white background. That’s simple enough, but then she throws a variety of colors in there, both warm and cool ones from across most of the color wheel. Then she goes for contrasting shapes by including both the softness of circles and the sharp angularity of triangles. Not only that, (this is really a piece all about high contrast!) she includes both solid shapes and thin lines. Some shapes are floating and unattached while others are overlapping, and some lines are solid while others are dashed. Often, this much variation can become chaotic and ungrounded but everything here has clean, defined and very graphic edges and she only chooses 2-3 variations of each design element. But the most grounding aspects are the black frame holding it all in and the swath of white being the common “floor” that this is all scattered on. It is energetic and yet contained, fun but still sophisticated. You can see, in the opening image, that she uses a similar approach but goes for full washes of color as the background, for slightly less dramatic contrast.

 

Have you ever been told to not wear plaid with polka dots at the same time? Well, you can if you play it right, pushing the contrast by adding even more pattern to your outfit so that is an obvious intentional choice. You’ll often find this approach in the work of Louise Fisher Cozzi. This necklace below has many different patterns. Some are very regular, while others are more organic. Most are rather busy but then there are those strings of solid pieces with nearly no pattern but for a slightly uneven glaze of color. Regardless of all these contrasting patterns, they have a connecting commonality in their circle form as well as being in a limited range of color saturation (pureness of color), giving what would otherwise be a cacophony of visual texture, a necessary cohesiveness. The result is a sophisticated kind of fun, sure to draw a bold, gregarious, and fun-loving buyer to this work.

 

Tactile texture can also be used as a contrasting mechanism in your design. An easy way to achieve contrast with texture is to have a smooth surface and a rough surface. It could be as simple as part of the work being highly polished and part of it sporting a matte finish. You can create textural contrast without going for the smooth versus rough by having two types of rough surfaces. That still contrasts if a bit more subtle.

The gorgeous Jenny Reeves earrings below, a metal, rather than polymer example (although there are plenty of folks who do similar texturing in polymer) has plenty of contrast although it does not jump out at you. The matte silver on the sides of each circle contrasts with the rough reticulated metal but not jarringly so. The matte finished silver moves to rough silver moves to rough gold so that there is only one level of change between each of those three treated sections of the circles. This somewhat gradual change diminishes the impact of the contrast resulting in a softer feel. Imagine how this would have looked if it went from matte silver to rough gold without the transitional section? It would have a very different feel.

As I mentioned, going for low contrast has its place and advantages. Dorota Kaszczyszyn doesn’t generally go for high contrast, but that is probably because she focuses primarily on her imagery and creating the forms and textures to bring her fantastical adornment to life, as is evident in her Water Dragon necklace here.

It’s not that contrast doesn’t exist in this piece – there is certainly contrast in texture, especially on the wings, going from a dimpled cap to a feathery brush below. However, all the surfaces have some kind of hand tooled texture, minimizing the contrast in that regard. The colors also have a minimal contrast, going from silver to a similarly shimmery brush of color using an interference green/purple powder, a color scheme echoed even in the focal shell on the dragon’s back. This low contrast gives the necklace, and her creature, a quiet grandeur, but it is not bereft of energy, instilled with a light but rippling liveliness through the texture and the flow of the shapes.

 

A Contrasting Evaluation

If, after seeing the ways you can work with contrast, you feel inclined to play with the way you use this design element, you can do so with some simple exercises.

Color is pretty easy to start with. Starting with a color combination you commonly use or tend towards, replace each color with the same hue but choose colors that are much darker, brighter, lighter, or subdued than the other colors. You will want the colors to have at least one characteristic in common (like they could all be very saturated or all be very light or they could all have a bit of black added to them) to keep the combination cohesive. You could also simply take out a bunch of blocks of clay and create several color pallets by shuffling them around – one high contrast, one meeting contrast in one low contrast. See which one you like the best.

If you want to better understand your options in color, grab Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani’s Color Inspiration book, or for a more condensed overview, grab your copy or get the Summer 2017 issue of The Polymer Arts which is all about Color! (We still have that 33% off 3 or more magazines sale going on and you don’t need a promo code for it now.)

You also can do a self-evaluation by grabbing a few of your favorite pieces, as well as a few pieces that weren’t successful, and looking at the difference in contrasts in the following areas:

  • Color
  • Texture
  • Shape/form
  • Size of forms or motifs
  • Pattern

See if you can identify where contrast worked well in the successful pieces and maybe where it could have been improved in the less successful ones by simply imagining increasing or decreasing contrast in each of the design elements listed above.

If you’re one of those who likes to make lists, copy these five design items out onto a piece of paper (or into an Excel sheet if you like those) and for each piece you have, identify whether the contrast is low, medium, or high for each design element. Then if you look at your evaluation list, you may find that you always have low contrasting color or high contrast in pattern, or vice versa or that, in general, you don’t work in high contrast or you never try low contrast. Whatever you’re not seeing a lot of, try to consciously create designs that push you out of your comfort zone.

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, I don’t like to push high contrast in my work so it may seem funny for me to ask you to do something that goes against your norm, but I was only able to determine my preference because I did exercises like this. Push yourself like this can really help you discover a lot about yourself as an artist.

But if you’re more of the low-key, intuitive type, just keep contrast in mind next time you’re at the studio table. Like any design consideration, your work can be improved simply by being aware of whether you are making conscious decisions about design. If you are now more aware of contrast, you may find you’re able to more easily identify why a piece may not be working by checking the contrast and asking yourself whether low or high contrast or something in the middle would best serve what you’re trying to express or the type piece you are trying to create.

From Behind the Scenes

On that note, I am going to go work on the contrast that exists in my life between having a normal living situation and figuring out how to work and live in the beginnings of a halfway gutted house. But I always like a challenge!

I almost have my makeshift outdoor kitchen ready! Grill cleaned and ready for action. Check. Camp stove hooked up to grill size propane tank. Check. Camp table/sink with an actual running faucet via my garden hose set up. Check. Yep … no crazy construction is going to keep me from my creative cooking!

Now I just need to make covers/cozies for my instant pot and my non-polymer countertop oven so they can sit outside more or less protected from the elements. Then … I need to clear space in the studio for the refrigerator. I have always said that one’s studio or office should be as far away from the refrigerator as possible to discourage unintentional grazing so I’m seriously breaking my own rules here! Didn’t I just say I like a challenge? Maybe I should have clarified how much of a challenge I like. *sigh*

I’ll be juggling all this while I am in the midst of polishing up the next issue of The Polymer Studio but have thus far been able to stay more or less on schedule. Just don’t miss out on this next issue!

Issue number two of The Polymer Studio has a wonderful collection of projects for you as well as a tour of Christine Dumont’s studio (so exciting!), an interview with the uniquely creative Cynthia Tinapple, stencil explorations with Debbie Crothers and much more! We would love for you to join us in The Polymer Studio… Just subscribe to get your plethora of polymer fun and inspiration. Your subscription also supports this blog and all the polymer obsessed artists that have helped to create the beautiful content of our publications.

Thank you for your continued support! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and have a creative and inspiring week!

 

 

 

Man-made Handmade

Have you noticed that most people who work in polymer will cite nature as their primary inspiration? Do you, or would you, too? But isn’t it ironic that, as inspired as we are by nature, we work with a wholly man-made material? I’ve been thinking about this because, as I polished up the Polymer Journeys 2019 book, I was making notes on some of the trends and I noticed that all but three people who cited their inspiration said they were inspired by nature. It got me to thinking about why we aren’t more inspired by the man-made world, as rich and diverse as it is.

My curiosity piqued, I did some research and made more notes to see if, for one, my perception was correct in that polymer artists look to nature more than anything and, secondly, to see what things other than nature inspire people. So, the observations that inspiration from nature is predominant in polymer art was upheld by all I looked through. I also found it interesting that, when it boils down to it, nearly everything in almost all art forms looks to be inspired by nature or by man-made styles and designs that themselves were inspired by nature. To see examples of where nature is inspiration for man-made design, just take a look at styles such as Baroque or Art Deco. Flowers, trees, leaves, vines, butterflies, birds, and a myriad of other natural flora and fauna are evident sources of inspiration in the forms and lines of those styles. We might be inspired by the designs of that age but the inspiration is still rooted in nature.

However, I did my best to find pieces that were inspired by man-made objects, scenes, or styles. Let me tell you, it was not terribly easy but just because it is less often turned to does not mean it doesn’t have wonderful forms, colors, motifs, and textures for all of us. Let’s take a look at some of the work created by polymer artists who are inspired by the man-made.

A Gallery of Man-made Inspiration

One of the first people who came to mind when thinking about man-made inspiration was Cornelia Brockstedt. She has had several series such as “Street Life” and her “City” bangles. She also did a series of what she called “graphical studies” in 2015. So I went to her Flickr photo stream to find something to share with you and it struck me that, even with the graphical tendencies and inspiration taken from city life, there is so much organic that shows up in her work. This tended to be true with a lot of artists. This pendant, one of my favorite pieces of hers, was inspired by sidewalks and the grass that grows up from around it. So it was inspired by man-made walkways but with contrast in the nature that is still sneaking in.

 

Another artist who came to mind, even before I started my search, was Sona Grigoryan.  She did a lovely series of polymer and resin pieces inspired by the Barcelona cathedrals and stained-glass windows she sees where she lives.

 

And of course, we have to consider the work of the Georg Dinkel who is inspired by architecture and machinery to the extent that even when he decides to create some creatures, they too look mechanical. He is also, apparently, inspired by literature and humor, as this Don Quixote scene he set up with two of his mechanized creatures hints at.

 

And, when talking mechanical, we certainly can’t ignore the influence of the mechanical from movements like steampunk. From jewelry to sculpture to journals and phone cases, this style is everywhere but it’s hard to say whether polymer found steampunk or steampunk found polymer first. The steampunk monster heart that opened this post is a sculpture by Kimberly Hart who posts under MonsterKookies on Etsy.

Carol Blackburn, whose work is so colorful and graphic, often cites fashion styles and movements as her source of inspiration. I think these fall under her “Missoni” fashion inspired line.

 

Another artist who seems quite enamored of fabric but also of metal and other man-made textures is Nikolina Otrzan. Mostly, she’s just a texture fiend but you’ll notice that her textures generally have a certain uniformity to them that automatically makes them feel that they would be man-made in origin, whether they were intended to or not. Even her shapes, like these tube pieces, reflect a penchant for uniformity that is beautifully balanced with her choice of rough or edge softening surface treatments.

 

So has this got you pondering the possibilities of man-made forms and textures as a source of inspiration for you? I know I’ve been looking at the shapes in my house, the walls in the neighborhood, and the forms on the buildings I pass with new eyes.

Going for Man-made

Freebies

If you want to try a few man-made inspired textures or forms, there are quite a few out there although the quick and free were a bit more scarce. Nonetheless, here are a few pages with related free tutorials. You’ll want to pop the last two URLs into Google translate if it doesn’t automatically translate for you:

Tutorial Shops

Your best sources of tutorial with man-made inspiration are going to cost a couple of bucks, but are well worth it. Here are some of my favorite shops for this:

 

A Bit o’ News

And now for a few tidbits about things going on in the polymer community you might want to know about:

Vote for the 2018 International Polymer Clay Awards!

The International Polymer Clay Association member voting is now open through March 8. Active members should have received an email with a link for your ballot. If your membership has expired please renew at www.theipca.org before March 8, 2019 so that you may vote for your favorites.

Dan Cormier and Tracy Holmes Online Courses

Dan and Tracy have recently announced the lineup for their 2019 online Master Classes. Check out the present information and sign up for future announcements on their website here.

Polymer Journeys 2019 has been released!
  • Our latest publication, the second installment of the Polymer Journeys retrospective series was released this morning in digital format for those who purchased early or otherwise supported the project. (It was noon PST time if you need to search your inbox or your spam folder if not there.)
  • Print Pre-orders (ordered prior to Feb 27th) will go into the mail a little later than we had hoped but will be shipped directly from the printer on March 6. Our shipment should be our doorstep March 8, so newer orders will ship out as soon as we have them in our hot little hands. Buy yours here if you haven’t yet. (We’ve already sold half our print run so don’t wait too long!)
  • BOGO Half Off! We’ve added special package pricing for the new book … Purchase both the 2016 and 2019 edition of Polymer Journeys with half off the 2016 book, or get both the print and digital edition of the new 2019 book with half off the digital. No promo code needed. Packages available here when you click on the Polymer Journeys book cover here.
  • The Polymer Arts Collection on sale for HALF off! Purchases the whole collection of The Polymer Arts and get HALF off  the entire package – all 29 Digital issues or the 23 Print issues we still have available. If you want to collect them, now would be the time!

Until next week, have an inspired and creative Sunday and upcoming week!

One Element at a Time

February 3, 2019

I don’t know if you have ever considered, or found important, the fact that most polymer art is a collection of elements constructed into a single piece. Yes, I know I am stating the obvious here but consider the fact that most polymer art is put together in such a way as to make the individual elements blend into a cohesiveness whole. Have you ever considered that maybe each element can be its own little piece of art, even if it’s to be a part of something bigger?

If you make the work about each individual elements and not the single composition they are part of, you should be able to give yourself more freedom in the creative process. The idea would be to just focus on the single component in front of you without regard for the other parts it may eventually be joined with. Since you don’t have to consider any other elements you should be able to just let your mind and hands go play. You could, in fact, just create tons of individual pieces and then pull together the ones that you find relate and from that create a finished piece. There would be no pressure to make things work together or fit. Does that sound intriguing?

 

Elemental Artists

There are a lot of artists that do this almost exclusively. When Debbie Crothers creates, a finished piece is usually the last thing on her mind. She is in love with seeing what the material will do and spends most of her time playing and exploring. Once her stock builds up, or just whenever the bug bites her, then she will create finished pieces of wearable art.

Recently she has also been incorporating her love of found objects as you can see in the image above. This is just a part of a very long necklace of Debbie’s. (The whole of which I’ve not seen her posted anywhere but will be featured in the upcoming Polymer Journeys 2019 book. Look for pre-sale announcements this coming week.) Each individual component definitely stands on its own here since each individual polymer and found object component is framed. But you can also see, if you look at her work on Facebook or on her website, that her pieces are almost always a variety show, one that features the results of her exploration and just having fun with the clay.

Another cool thing about this type of artwork is that the viewer will probably want to look at each and every individual component. Just the variety heightens the interest in these kinds of pieces which means the people viewing it will spend more time looking at it and more time appreciating your work. That can really help in terms of sales too because the more time someone spends looking at a piece the more likely they will be to want to buy it.

I think this kind of intrigue born of variety may be the primary draw when it comes to the jewelry of Olga Ledneva. This piece you see here is a bit more dense and has more potential movement than her newer work but I thought it was also a good example of how all these pieces, together, create a textural canvas since they are all kind of dangling on top of each other, and yet, as cohesive as it feels, you still want to look carefully at each piece in the assembly. Olga’s Facebook page and Flickr photostream are good places to look around for other assembled element ideas.

I know those  two ladies make some pretty interesting and complex components but don’t think you have to go to that extent. The individual elements you create in this process can be as simple as punched out squares such as you might see in one of Laurie Mika’s mosaics. I am such a fan of this kind of free-form collage work, one that allows you to simply show off the characteristics you love about working with clay. You can assemble bits of your alcohol ink treated sheets, mokume gane, complex canes, impressed clay components, or hand sculpted forms. A mosaic or even a necklace of just simple shapes can let those treatments and colors shine, each on their own.

Of course, this approach isn’t just for polymer clay. This brilliant green assemblage necklace by an artist known only as Gebrufa is all fabric and fiber, although some components could as easily have been polymer. My guess would be that she gave herself just the restriction of a limited color palette but otherwise made all the individual pieces as whimsy led her. Should you want to know that you can have a cohesive finished piece when you are done freely creating components, this kind of approach would give you a path to that while still creating with relative freedom.

 

So, have I got you thinking about the individual elements of your pieces in a different way now?

Planning and meticulously designing pieces is essential in many circumstances but letting yourself just explore can also be an important part of your artistic growth as it helps to free up and expand your creativity. Letting yourself just play can be hard to do when you don’t have a lot of time and you want the time you do have to result in finished pieces. Knowing you can focus on making great little individual components which you can later put together into a fabulous necklace or wall piece might just be the thing that gives you the license to let go and doodle away with your clay.

 

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:

  • Want to CLAY OUT EAST or CLAY OUT WEST? Registration for both of this multi-instructor, 4 day workshop events are open now. Clay out East is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 12-15th and Clay out West will be held Sept 30 – Oct 3 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is the link for the East event’s registration. I couldn’t scare up a link for the West event registration but you can email them at clayoutwest@aol.com to get the details.
  • Did you catch the “Make Your Own Silkscreens” article in the Summer 2018 issue of The Polymer Arts? It was so much fun to make these and right now, the company that made it so fun and easy, EZScreenPrint if having a 15% off sale but it ends today! Go here, and use coupon code JAN15. No minimum purchase required.
  • Did you know that Poly Clay Play has a Shopping Discount Club? If you go through a lot of supplies (or just tend to get overly excited around polymer clay and tools and want to buy everything you see) this discount club could help in big ways. PCP is one of my favorite shops, especially for pastes, powders, and alcohol ink. She gets them all! Go here to check out the club deal or just shop around.

Always glad to get your feedback!

Last week we did some history, this week was about how you approach your work. Did you like the subject and did it get you thinking? Or do you thoughts on other things you’d like for me to research and write about? Just let me know. Write me in the comments below this post (click here if you are reading this in an email).

 

Creating Uncommon Mokume

January 27, 2019

Question for you … how much do you know about the origination of mokume gane? I’m guessing you have heard it has something to do with swords but did you know that the original metal technique was a lost art until quite recently? And did you know that what we do with polymer today has virtually nothing in common with the original technique? Mokume’s history and our adaptation of it has quite a few surprises in it, many of which could really open your eyes to its possibilities.

To understand how to create great mokume in polymer, it really does help to know a bit about where it came from, not to mention that its history is a great story of fortune, loss and redemption! Or something akin to that. Here are a few statements about its history. See if you can identify which statements are a true part of its tumultuous history and which are just fantastic claims:

  1. Mokume was a sword making technique that required folding metal over and over to give the blade’s edge a rippled appearance, like wood grain.
  2. The technique was developed for purely decorative purposes.
  3. It was originally used almost exclusively to create samurai swords to be carried around as status symbols.
  4. The technique became nearly extinct due to samurai swords becoming illegal to carry in Japan in the 19th century.
  5. The technique was resurrected by a female Japanese metalsmith when she started teaching it in the US in the 1970s.

Ok, so as you might have guessed, all these statements are true! But how does knowing this help? Well, the history may be more about appreciating it’s path to polymer but how it is created in metal can help you understand how our version of it works and what you can do with it.

Here … just take a look at one of the ways it is used in metalsmithing today. You can see in the phases of making a mokume ring, just how a mokume billet (that’s what metalsmith’s call a block of metal) is layered, twisted, pounded and bent into a ring. I never would have guessed that my mokume wedding band was created in this way considering how we approach it with polymer.

Now, what if you did the exact same thing with polymer? You could build a block, cut it, twist it, open it up and form it into a dimensional ring. Or bead. Or flattened donut. Or just a long bar bead, already patterned on all sides. Do you see how knowing the origin and how else it has been used can help you see the possibilities in polymer?

Neither the decorative sword nor the above metalsmithing approach sounds or looks anything like what we do in polymer though, does it? We don’t twist or even fold polymer mokume, it rarely looks like wood grain, and it certainly isn’t going to behave (or be as hard to work with) as steel and yet, we call it mokume. Now, how did that happen?

Like most borrowed techniques, what most of us have come to think  of as polymer mokume evolved from an attempt to emulate it so it is not just some kind of translation of the technique. Slicing polymer “billets” (it’s too cool a word not to borrow too!) emulated grinding down the metal edge of a sword to reveal the visual drama of its layers. But because polymer can be manipulated in so many other ways, and because artists are a curious and exploratory lot, the technique, along with the clay, was also manipulated. This happened over and over until we ended up with the many variations we have today and even those often have little in common but the layering and the slicing.

Creating Uncommon Mokume in Your Studio

Has this started to get you thinking a bit differently about mokume? If it hasn’t let me just nudge you a bit more.

Consider this. With polymer, versus metal, we can:

  • Work in a vast and myriad array of colors.
  • Add translucent layers.
  • Include inclusions in those layers.
  • Cover the surface of layers with metal leaf, gilder’s paste, image transfers, or paint.
  • Cut down through the billet to create lines and shapes.
  • Use mica clays to create mica shift, an effect that adds color gradations and dimension around cuts and impressions.
  • Create any kind of patterning we like, from loose and organic to very regular and controlled.

How many of these methods have you tried?

Uncommon Mokume Examples

Opening this post is a necklace by Carole Aubourg’s (aka Cacofim’) that can teach us a bit about mixing and matching patterns and letting background and foreground play together. She uses mokume in balance with the other, similarly slice-dependent techniques that appear, putting the focus on the design rather than on any one pattern or technique. Then the slices don’t always cover their beads, letting the background come through. There is a lot going on here but the variety of patterns are all brought together by a cohesive color palette that all parts partake of.

Here are some splendid green and cream dimensional beads by Eugena Topina that speak to how you can control of the slices. The mokume is created with high contrast colors and a prominent pattern that is sliced to a very even depth to keep the pattern whole. She then echos the pattern on the reverse side with carving. (And lucky us … she sells a project tutorial for this necklace here for a mere $13! Go get one if you are at all intrigued.)

I don’t want to discount what metalsmiths are doing with mokume these days  either. So, no, this stylized heart pendant is not polymer but don’t you love how fine and close the mokume marks/impressions are? And why not go dense with the patterning? I have not the faintest idea how Juha Koskela created this in silver but if metalsmiths are getting wild with color in metals, I have to at least wonder a little bit if metal techniques, which have long influenced our work, might now be getting inspiration from polymer. I do like that idea, don’t you?

So, here’s another question … are you a mokume making fan and have you pushed what you know about the technique? If you have, why not share? Send links of your work in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email) so we can all see your work. I know I’d love to see it!

 

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:

Here are a few bits of general polymer news you might find of interest!

  • This Tuesday is the near legendary half off sale at Munro Crafts. Check it out and stock up!
  • Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani are teaching together for a 6 day spree of creativity and color, July 8th-13th. This is also partly a celebration of their highly influential book, Color Inspirations. If you like color (and who doesn’t?) and you can squeeze this into your schedule and budget, it’s a must.
  • Deadline for submitting to the IPCA Awards is in just a few days. Apply here!

 

Do you have feedback for me?

Tell me what you think of this new format and blog. I wanted to put some more meat into it but you tell me … is it too long or did you enjoy getting lost in the history and ideas? If you liked it, just drop a quick “Works for me!” or “Keep it up” in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email then scroll down on the page that pops up.)

If you have ways I could change or otherwise improve the new blog format, just send a short “Shorter!” or “More pics, less text.” or “More instruction than history” or whatever in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email). I can’t please everyone but I really want this to be as useful and inspiring as it can be so help me make this what you want and hope for!

– Sage

The Silver Scene

December 19, 2018

 I love how silver can be representative of snow in winter even though it’s gray and not white. It’s that clean simplicity, I think, that echoes the simplicity of a landscape under newly fallen snow. That’s why think this piece by Wiwat Kamolpornjiwit makes me think of wintertime.

Wiwat’s mastery is often in his simplicity although a lot of his work isn’t simple. For instance, he does not usually treat the surface of the clay but rather goes for smooth shiny layers, accented with simplified or symbolic motifs of natural objects like flowers, leaves, trees, etc. In this piece, those motifs are nothing but pokes in the clay but we get an entire scene out of it. The rolled wire accents are like flowers popping out of a pot, and add a touch of energy outside the frame of those repeated shapes, breaking the line the top of the half-circles make. It’s not complex, but it’s not all that simple either. It’s just those little touches that give it a sense of sophistication and make it a satisfying design.

If you have not seen Wiwat’s work, or haven’t looked at it lately, you can find it on his website.

Silver Inspired

December 17, 2018

So here we are, a week before Christmas and I thought it best if I can share some things to put us in that holiday spirit. As for me, I think I’ve had enough of Santa Clauses, Christmas wreaths, snowmen and candy canes. Not that there’s anything wrong with those motifs but you’re seeing those everywhere right now. So I get to thinking about the season in a more noncommercial way and, perusing through my collection of art to share at a future time I found myself drawn to the silver pieces. There’s something about the stately near whiteness of silver that feel so appropriate for this time of year. Its quiet and yet bright manner are also seen everywhere in silver bells, silver ribbon, silver tinsel, and even outside our windows for those of us who get to admire a snowy night landscape. I don’t know if that wholly explains what I’m doing with silver this week but that’s going to be our theme.

This is a piece that started me thinking on it. It’s a recent necklace by Celine Charuau. I had been thinking stars like on the top of Christmas trees or the radiating ones often found in nativity scenes but this is what I ended up finding. It’s not a star but is a beautiful radiating piece full of texture and still presenting that quiet, stately feel.  The lines in the urchin are followed by the lines of the silver pieces radiating from the center and, combining with the silver color, gives us a sense that it is heralding some moment or celebrating an occasion. It may seem like a stretch but it feels a little like Christmas to me.

Of course, Celine’s work is often quiet and stately, using pale or subdued colors and lots of silver. You can see more of her work on her Flickr photostream.

 

 

Found Mediums

December 14, 2018

Our last look at using polymer and other materials this week will be with Debbie Crothers. She posted this lovely assemblage of elements this week on Facebook and I just had to share it.

Debbie is well known for her surface design work and posts tons of her experiments and beads but it can take a while for her to come around to putting the pieces together into finished jewelry. I understand inclination. The textures revealed and the blooming of colors that happens as you manipulate and add to the polymer on your worktable can be intoxicating. I know I just want to keep trying new things but at some point we gotta do something with the elements we’ve created.

So I’ve been excited to see this whole slew of finished work popping up on her social network feeds right now. But she isn’t just using polymer elements. This dynamic piece includes polymer spikes, recycled beads, and a recycled ring. Debbie is also a thrift store hound (something else we have in common!) which can be such a fabulous way to find additional bits and bobs to add to polymer jewelry and other assemblage work.

Take a closer look at Debbie’s recently assembled finished necklaces and earrings on her Facebook page and her website. And don’t forget to stop by her shop for some fun tutorials to keep you busy and entertained this winter.

(Right after I wrote this, I found that Debbie wrote her own post about her “Upcycling Jewelry” so for more on the subject, jump over to her blog here.)

A Variety Show

January 24, 2021
Posted in

Last weekend I talked about contrast, a concept closely related to variety, which is the subject for this week. Understanding the difference between the two can avoid a lot of confusion so I’ll be referring to contrast a bit today as well. If you didn’t see the last post, give it a quick read here.

Now, what is variation?

Variation is the range or assortment of differences throughout a design. Now, didn’t contrast also speak to differences? Yes, but those differences were between similar types of elements while variation is the degree of difference between all of the elements, principles, and placement choices in your work. It is like contrast in that variation is also used to create interest or energy or to otherwise support your intention, however, while contrast is often the key to adjusting the level of variation, you can have a fair bit of variation with little or no contrast.

To put it succinctly, contrast is the difference between two or more related elements while variety is about the relationship between all the elements in a piece. So, let’s talk about those relationships and how they are used in design.

 

Picturing Variation

First of all, keep in mind that you can create variation with elements or principles or pretty much any visual or conceptual part of your work.

Take the gorgeous pendant that opened this post. Liz Sabol has variation in color, line, balance, repetition, rhythm and even types of composition. In fact, even though we can identify a use of the Rule of Thirds, a Golden Spiral, and use of the Focus to the Right principle, it’s the barely-there nod to centered composition, created by an implied line from the midpoint focused, and yet asymmetrical, balance of the bail to the centered tip at the bottom of the pendant, that is holding all the chaos at bay. This piece is an absolute celebration of variation.

Alternately, if you use a lot of the same elements or employ principles in the same way throughout a piece, then there would be little variation. You can see that in this simple but still striking little pendant by an undisclosed creative on VK.com. (If you know who made this, do let me know and I’ll update the post.) Here there is regular rhythm, an absolutely centered composition, and every shape is circular. The only variation is created by contrast in the value difference between the black and white and the textural difference between the smooth outer elements and the rough interior disc.

Now, looking at the two pendants, I’m sure you can see that there is a huge difference between the energy and feel of them, largely because of the level of variation.

 

It’s a Matter of Degrees

So, as you see, a piece can be interesting with little to no variation or contrast. These concepts add points and degrees of interest. It’s your intention that should determine what role they will play in your work.

Just think, if you want a piece to feel solemn and quiet, avoiding high contrast and keeping your variation quite subtle may be what you need. That calm could be very awe-inspiring in its subtlety. Alternately, you can have a piece with the points of contrast and variation ranging from subtle to obvious.

You see an example of moderation in contrast and variation in Amy Genser’s Eventide pictured here. Yes, the piece feels quite busy and has a lot of energy but the contrast and variation are not that dramatic. There’s a lot of texture but it’s all rough and predominantly created from the rolled-up paper elements. The rolled paper elements are all ovoid in shape but with variation in regard to the roundness and width. They also range in size and are very in color although, like the rest of the canvas, they are predominantly blue and cyan, keeping to the cool side of the color wheel. The canvas does open up into a brief mix of reds and yellows in the middle and the color values do range from a dark blue to white. But the variation is applied in a gradual and moderated way. Most of the energy comes from the texture, the repetition, and the sense of movement.

So, we see here that the degree of variation doesn’t have to be high to create energy or interest as other elements and principles can do that quite well. However, I do think in this case that the level of variation included boosts the energy of the texture and repetition. It’s a team effort.

So, unlike some other concepts, there is no way to really list the different types or degrees of contrast and variation and what they might mean for your particular piece. As you’ve seen, this is in large part due to how much these concepts depend on, and play off of, the other choices made in the design.

 

This is only a quick introduction to the subjects of contrast and variation but I’ll continue talking about them in many of my future posts. If you think about it, I’ve actually been talking about these ideas throughout the year as the differences in your choices for the various elements and principles is quite wrapped up in your decisions on how you’ll employ contrast and variation.

Some of your choices for contrast and variation will be made automatically if you make characteristic choices for your elements before specifically thinking about contrast or variation, like choosing just daisies for a flower necklace or choosing green and red as your color palette because it’s for Christmas. Repeated daisies will dictate rather low levels of variation because of the sameness of the primary motif so you’d have to work with contrast in things like value and size to take it up a notch. And Christmas colors are high contrast so it would be difficult to make the work also feel calm or serene starting from that color palette.

However, you might find it more advantageous to make choices about the degree of contrast and variation that would best suit the work and then make that happen through the characteristics you choose for your elements. In fact, knowing the degree of contrast and variation you want can help you make more confident and intentional choices for your elements, various principles, and composition. That’s how influential the concept of contrast and variation is in art.

 

Perhaps this talk of contrast and variety will get you jazzed to try out some variations on variety your own self. So, while the sun is shining and the muse is calling, do try to have a wonderful, safe, and creative week!

 

You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like,  just …

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Relationships in Texture

September 27, 2020
Posted in ,

Evgeniya Aleksandrova has a rough texture over everything here but varies the depth and pattern of the texture as well as the color.

Since we talked about tactile texture last week, it would seem logical that I would talk about visual texture this week.

But I’m not! I don’t want to be too predictable!

No, that’s not why. Actually, it’s that most of what needs to be said about visual texture has to do with the usual recommendation of choosing characteristics that fulfill your intention. If you read my blog, even sporadically, you’ve heard this before.

As long as you understand that visual texture is a purely visual variation on or within a surface (such as marbling, mokume, ikat, or any application of an ink, powder, dye or paint medium), then, as described in the post from the week before last, you can choose visual textures simply by coming up with adjectives to describe your intention and do likewise with possible visual textures and match them up based on similar adjectives. That is the core of the approach for working with visual textures.

So, that being established, I’d like to, instead, talk about another thing you’re also familiar with if you have been reading the blog for the past couple months but which we have yet to specifically associate with texture.

Creating a Relationship

Last month I talked about choosing color palettes in terms of contrast and similarities. But guess what? Combining different types of textures also plays by the same basic rules of contrasts and similarities.

I love how Joy Kruze echoes the spots in the stone with the spots of metal in the texture created in the spaces between the metal lines of her unusual bezel

Most work you create or look at probably has more than one texture. It could be a combination of smooth and rough textures or a variety of different rough textures or variations of smooth ones. You may often combine tactile texture and visual texture, as well. What these combinations all achieve is variation. Variation in texture is pretty instinctual for most creatives, as is a desire for variation in color.

The variation between textures can be heavily contrasted but, like color, it helps to have at least one similar characteristic so there is some relationship between them. With texture, you can actually use other design elements to create that relationship such as using the same or related color or a similar shape for the texture’ s space. Once you have that similarity, everything else can be contrasted.

But what about using similarities between the characteristics of the textures? For instance, you could create only rough textures but vary how that roughness is created. Or all your textures could be stippled holes but you vary the shape or size of those holes.

 

Just as you need similarities, you’re probably going to want variation, too, not only to create contrast, but also to create shapes, layers, and compositional direction (which we will get to later this year).

The Need for Variation

Variation, as always, adds some level of interest, energy, and complexity to your work and you can adjust how much you add of these by adjusting the variation between textures (or any design elements) – from subtle to bold or somewhere in between.

Let’s say you want to make a piece with a strong graphic look. You’ve already chosen hard edged graphic shapes and bold colors. What about the texture? You might choose a slick, glossy surface as a primary texture. Now, what other textures can be used to vary the surface but have it still related to a glossy one?

Hélène Jeanclaude creates glossy surfaces on all parts of this necklace but between mica shift and mokume, and the contrast of colors, she creates variation and lots of energy.

If you want to go subtle, you could stick with variations on smooth textures such as a matte or satin finish. Alternately, you can choose to rough up the surface but in a very orderly way similar to the orderliness of your graphic shapes. This can be done with a series of dense, parallel lines, or a dense but orderly mark.

As long as the marking of the surface is the only thing that changes, then all raised portions of the comparatively rougher texture will be glossy. That will give you your similar characteristic – the gloss of the smooth surface and the occasional gloss of the rough surface.

This is not to say that you can’t have textures that are completely and utterly different. The extreme contrast could be, in and of itself, a relationship. That difference will cause tension or discordance, but that could be exactly what you want.

Here are just some of the characteristics in texture that could create similarity or contrast:

  • Tactile or visual
  • Smooth or rough
  • The quality of the finished surface (glossy, satin, matte, or chalky)
  • Type of mark, technique, or tool used to create the tactile or visual texture
  • Organic versus graphic styles
  • Size (how much space each texture takes up)
  • Direction (if the texture visually flows or moves from one part of the piece to the other)
  • Shape of the space it is applied to

A visual texture shows variation in density and repetition of the dots that make up this surface. Melanie Ferguson actaully etched the surface and then polished it with cold was so she has smooth tactile but rough visual texture on her surfaces.

As you can see, other design elements can become quite intertwined with texture. Marks, lines, size, direction, and shape all can play a role in the similarity or contrast of areas of texture in your piece. It really doesn’t take much for us to see a relationship between textures. If it’s there, we’ll see or sense it and the design will feel more cohesive for it being there.

Since that texture relationship can be, and often is, developed through other design elements we work with, this is not always something you need to be wholly conscious of. But, if something in your work is not looking right, check for the relationship between your textures as well as your colors and other elements.

And, if next time you are looking at your work and feel like it needs some contrast in its tactile or visual texture, just look at the dominant texture that you have and, using it as a starting point, choose possible other textures or design options that will create at least one similar characteristic, still provide contrast at the level that makes sense for you piece, and has characteristics that recall the theme of your work.

 

Last Days for Club Discounted Forever Pricing

3 days left to join the Devotee or Success clubs at the FOREVER discount price so you can get first dibs on limited stock offers, discounts, and goodie box giveaways, all while getting a mid-week mini-mag of brief articles to keep your creative energy and ideas going. And right now you can also get in on it with a 2 week free trial! .

So, if you enjoy my blog, support this while boosting your own creative endeavors by joining us in the Devotee Club or Success Club 0r buy yourself a good book or an inspiring magazine to curl up with. Just visit the website by clicking here.

 

Visual Contrast … Out of Doors!

Packing up to take the camper van conversion for a test drive up the coast, just one night. That’s been my little side project that I’ve been getting myself lost in for an hour or so most days. It’s not completely done but good enough for one night out for my better half and me. I need some contrast between life inside this lovely home of ours and the outside and distant world! So, I am off. I hope you all are looking for new and novel things to add a bit of excitment and contrast in your lives as well!

 

 

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The Language of Texture (Plus … Discover the new Art Boxer Clubs!)

September 13, 2020
Posted in

Dawn Deale, Crackle bracelet using gold leaf with alcohol inks.

Now that we’ve spent three months intensely delving into color, are you ready to completely switch gears and explore a different design element?

How often, when you are creating something, do you ask yourself “What kind of texture do I want?” Or, more importantly, “Why this texture?” I think we can all agree that texture is an extremely important part of all types of arts and crafts and, like color, is probably more often than not chosen consciously. But why do you choose a smooth texture versus a rough texture? Or a simple texture versus a busy one?

I think the first thing we need to define in terms of texture is what it actually is. Do you automatically think of some uneven and fabulously tactile surface? Well, certainly, that is a type of texture, but that is only one type. Texture is more wide-ranging than that. At its most basic, it is the feel or appearance of a surface.

Texture can be of two primary types – tactile or visual.

For instance, tree bark is generally rough. If you can reach out and touch the actual tree bark that is tactile texture. If you have a glossy photo of tree bark, the texture is still rough, it’s just visual rather than tactile. If we don’t make this distinction, you could say that the photo of tree bark is smooth but you’re actually describing the tactile texture of the glossy paper.

So, you know what? That means you potentially have two decisions to make when it comes to texture – what kind of tactile texture and what kind of visual texture will your piece have?

In this necklace by 2Roses (Corliss and John Rose), softly marbled polymer gives subtle variation to the visual texture of its beads.

Your initial decision for each is not too hard being that you really only have two basic options for each – will it be smooth or not smooth? Or you can say smooth or rough, although I think rough has a lot of specific associations but it does describe the alternative to smooth.

Your chosen texture will actually be on a scale from smooth to rough. It will also be relative to the smoothness or roughness of other textures either on the piece or to similar textures. Beech tree bark is relatively smooth compared to oak bark although it is relatively rough compared to, say, glass.

Lightly marbled polymer clay (like that in the necklace seen here) will have a rougher (or busier or denser) visual texture than a solid sheet of clay but is not as rough a visual as a finely crackled alcohol ink surface treatment (as in the opening image), don’t you think?

You may be tempted to say that sometimes you choose to have no visual or tactile texture, but what you’re really saying is that you want a smooth visual or tactile texture. There is still texture; it’s just smooth or without variation breaking up the surface.

Now is it really important to call what we might see as the absence of texture as smooth? Well, how will you define the emotive, symbolic, and/or psychological meanings or effects of your surface if you don’t acknowledge its type of texture? I think that would be a little rough. (Sorry for the pun!) And that’s what I really want to talk about today.

 

Talking with Texture

As with color, different textures communicate varying emotions and atmospheres but, unlike color, texture can rather easily communicate all kinds of abstract ideas in very concrete, and sometimes quite literal, ways. Concepts that deal with the physical nature of things like force, fragility, turbulence, or stillness are not only readily interpreted or felt by viewers but they are also readily determined by artists. I bet you can think of a texture that could represent each of those for physical concepts within a couple minutes if not a handful seconds.

Texture can also readily elicit specific emotions such as comfort, fear, revulsion, and desire. To come up with textures for emotions, you could just think of a physical thing associated with each (fuzzy blankets for comfort, sharp knives for fear, etc.) and from that come up with a texture (a soft, matte surface for comfort, or sharp, erratic lines for fear, etc.).

“Lichen” tiles in porcelain by Heather Knight. They are all dense, tactile textures but they convey different things. What words would you associate with your favorite 3 in the image?

You can pretty much come up with a texture to go with the intention of the work you’re creating simply by identifying what characteristics you associate with the ideas or emotion of your concept or theme. For some people, recognizing these characteristics is very intuitive. For the rest of us, or even for those who feel they’re intuitive, it can help to come up with words you would associate with your intention and develop your textural design decisions from them.

This could be as simple as throwing out a few adjectives to describe what reaction you want from the viewer or you could list specific ideas or objects related to your theme or concept and then consider textures that you associate with the words you’re writing down.

If you have a hard time just freely coming up with textures, you can find possibilities to jump-start your ideas by looking through your texture plates/stamps/random objects stash for textures that evoke those words. Or you can look at artwork to get ideas. Determine what emotions or sense you get from various pieces and then identify what textures are used.

I know I brought up visual versus tactile texture but I’m got not going to talk about them any further today. I’m going to save those for the next couple weekends this month. I haven’t decided which to do for next weekend so it’ll just be a surprise. Just have fun coming up with adjectives to associate with textures that you can use to help support the intention of your work.

 

Announcing the new Art Boxer Clubs!

The first of the latest projects I have been brewing has launched!

The content of these Art Boxer clubs will be aimed at all types of mixed media creatives, not just polymer clay artists. Like the blog, the focus will be on increasing your design and creative skills while helping you stay energized and engaged in your craft, all while mixing in a good dose of fun and exciting bonuses!

I am keeping core design lessons free here on the blog for now but giving you many of the other features that were in the original VAB plus some new exclusive offerings:

The Art Boxer Devotee Club… $9/month: Exclusive weekly (Wednesday) content including mini-lessons, creative prompts, project ideas, and challenges as well as member only discounts and offers, giveaways, and early notices on all sales, new publications, and limited items. Get 2 weeks free to try this out if you join during the month of September.  Go here for full details! 

The Art Boxer Success Club… $35/month: For serious aspiring artists or artists looking to take it up a notch, this includes everything the Devotees get plus twice a month email or once a month chat/zoom coaching sessions. I’m reviving my creative coaching services but in a limited way – only 20 of these memberships are available. This is a very inexpensive option (normal rate is $65 for similar coaching) for one-on-one support to help with whatever artistic and/or business goals you have been aiming for. Click here for the details.

*If you are already a monthly contributor toward the support of my projects and free content, you will automatically be added to the Devotee Club member list, even if you contribute less than $9. If you would like to move up to the Success club, just write me. Thank you for your early and continued support! 

If you have questions about the clubs, write me here and I will get back to you on Monday.

 

And don’t forget … the 25% off PRINT publications sale is still going on.

Good only until Tuesday! Click here to get in on this before the sale is gone.

 

 

Under Smoky Skies

Thankfully (for me), I have no crazy personal updates or unfortunate stories to tell you about. I hope I haven’t disappointed those of you all into the Sage soap opera over here. I’m loving my new physical therapist and although I haven’t seen any significant progress thus far, my knees, shoulder, and elbow have not gotten worse.  And hubby’s face is healing just beautifully so we are pretty content in our recoveries here. So that’s cool.

Speaking of cool, how many of you are dealing with weather changes due to fires in your area? We were supposed to have another hot week but the dense smoke all over California has developed its own little weather system, blocking out the sun and cooling down the day. Too bad the air quality is too poor to go out and enjoy the nice temperatures. We also have this weird orange-yellow cast to the daylight. It’s just otherworldly.

To be clear, there are no fires anywhere near enough to endanger us although I suppose that could change at any moment. Between the wonky weather and just what a ridiculous year this has been, I think we all should just stay in and create beautiful things for a while. At least until the skies clear up. What do you think?

 

Well, I hope, wherever you are, you are staying safe and healthy. If you join one of the clubs, then I’ll chat with you on Wednesday!

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Same but Different

August 30, 2020
Posted in

Kateřina Věrná uses a split complementy palette of violet, yellow and green, all slightly lightened with a tint of white, creating similarity with the tinting but contrast in hue, value, and temperature.

So, are you ready for your last weekend of color design exploration? Not that you will ever be done exploring color but this will be the last of the installments on color in this blog series. We will move on to other design elements in September but for now, let’s look at one final aspect of working with color that I find particularly important and rather fun to identify.

If you read last week’s post, you will have gotten a good idea of how to start choosing colors to use together. If you paid close attention though, you may have noticed that those suggestions for color combinations last week primarily revolved around one particular characteristic of color. Did you notice that? Do you know which one?

Creating color combinations using the color wheel and things like complementaries, split complementaries, triadic, or square (aka tetrad) combinations are rooted in the characteristic of hue. They don’t necessarily take into the account all the other characteristics, not directly. So, this week we’re going to learn how to choose colors with two goals in mind – creating contrast and similarities.

Why Similarities?

Our minds are always analyzing our world, weighing and judging all kinds of things our senses take in, but the mind works particularly hard to find connections between things, trying to divine a relationship between objects or concepts we encounter. When we can’t find the relationship or common connection between things that seem to belong together, it feels uncomfortable. Like, if you see 2 people sitting on a park bench in close proximity to each other, you assume they know each other. But if one is dressed in a business suit and the other is all punked out in black clothes and sports a mohawk, you may find it weird. The close proximity makes you think there should be a connection between them but their appearance makes a connection difficult to ascertain.

Now, if those same 2 people both had French bulldogs sitting at their feet you might assume that they are part of a French bulldog lover’s club. Or, if they have similar documents in hand then you might think that they are a businessman and a client going over paperwork. Once you find a connection, then the relationship makes sense even if the contrast between the two is odd. That contrast simply makes for an interesting combination but not a wholly uncomfortable one once you divined a possible reason for them to be sitting together. This all comes down to the fact that we simply want things to make sense.

This is true of how we see color as well. We want to see that colors grouped together are related and not just because they are near each other or on the same piece of art. Yes, we like contrasting color as well since that creates energy and interest but when there is no similarity between the color characteristics, there is no specific relationship and that can feel (and look) uncomfortable.

This doesn’t mean you can’t combine colors that have no particular color relationship or common color characteristics. You can … but you would be conveying chaos, discontent, disorder, and/or anxiety. That might be exactly what you want a viewer to feel, so if that is what you are after, go for it. But if you want pleasing color combinations or at least comfortable ones, you’ll want both similarities between your color choices and some level of contrast.

In other words, the color choices for a piece you are creating will usually work best if connected by a similarity in one or more of the characteristics we have been learning about the last couple months. Of course, you will want contrast as well. Let’s look at how the various characteristics work as similarity or contrast characteristics.

Hue

Hue is usually used as a contrast characteristic unless you are doing something in a monochromatic palette (using different versions of the same hue). If your palette is analogous, your contrast in hue is relatively low since you are using colors close on the color wheel. But if you choose complementary or split complementary colors for your palette, then you have high contrast and, usually, higher energy.

Value – this is also more commonly used as a contrast characteristic since relative lightness and darkness so often help to define images, shapes, and boundaries. If you use it as a similarity characteristic, with all your colors are similarly light, mid-tone, or dark, it is harder for the eye to differentiate between changes in color. It also results in fairly muted energy. Again, that may be what you want. There is no right or wrong, just your intention.

Saturation

This, on the other hand, is more often used as a similarity characteristic between colors in a color set in large part, I believe, because of the emotional value of saturation. Bright colors are generally happy and high-energy while muted colors tend to feel calmer, quieter or more reserved. Because of this, contrasting bright and muted colors in the same color palette can result in a clash of emotions that may make your viewer uncomfortable. This is not always true but it is something to look out for if you choose to use this for contrast rather than a point of similarity.

These glass beads use a desaturated color palette, predominantly toned down.

Tint, Shade, or Tone

These characteristics actually have to do with saturation but because they can be so distinct, they can be chosen as their own point of similarity or can contrast against each other. For instance, we’ve all seen pastel color palettes. Their similarity is that all the colors are tinted with white. Organic palettes tend to have rich but muted colors, displaying a similarity in toning. The one area where contrast between these characteristics works well is if you contrast tinted colors which shaded colors, creating light and dark colors. Why? Because tint and shade can produce a dramatic contrast in color value and, as mentioned, color value can be an important characteristic for many designs.

Temperature

Creating a color palette that is predominantly cool or predominantly warm will create a subtle but still recognizable similarity. Contrasting cool and warm colors is more readily recognized and creates high energy. Note that if you choose to use a triadic, 3 color split complementary, or a square (tetrad) color combination (as described last week), you automatically create contrast in temperature because of how far across the color wheel these classic color combinations spread.

Quantity

Yes, it’s true we haven’t talked about this in terms of color characteristics because it is not in and of itself a characteristic of color. But it is something you can manipulate to address similarity or contrast in your color palette. For instance, if you use the same amount of vastly different colors, the brain will find that quantity relationship – the balance between the otherwise disparate colors – as an apparent reason to be grouped together. And when it comes to contrast, quantity differences can help the viewer understand the hierarchy of your color palette. So, if you want one color to dominate because of its emotional connection, you can use a lot of it then just enough of the other colors to add the amount of color contrast and energy you need without drowning out the primary emotion.

Cecilia Leonini uses a wide variety of colors without a lot of similarity except that no color dominates so there is some similarity in the quantity of each.

 

Leeway, Accents, and Matchmaking

So, after telling you all that, I have to qualify those notes by saying that even though the above are good rules for helping you choose colors, choosing palettes don’t always fall into such tidy formulas. If you pick a few favorite pieces of yours, or favorite pieces by other artists, you may find that some color palettes do not readily fit into any of the classic color combinations we talked about last week or do not adhere to the similarity your contrast rules, not neatly at least. The fact is the perfect color combination all depends on what it is you’re after and where your inspiration comes from. You know that mother nature isn’t out there purposely throwing together split complementary color palettes or worrying about similarity characteristics. But, if you allow for some leeway, you will often find classic color combination sets and similarities as well as contrast in most every scene you see in nature. You just can’t be too exacting when looking for them.

One of the areas that can really throw these ideas about color palettes is accents. Accent colors, usually added in small quantities, tend to contrast in all the characteristics but one, and sometimes none. That’s what makes the accents stand out. You could choose a palette of rather neutral colors (thereby having a similarity in saturation and tone) but if you really want to kick up the energy or create a focal point, there is nothing like a dot of red to do that for you. That red could have nothing in common with the rest of your color palette, but because it’s an accent, it can, acceptably, look out of place. This will cause a bit of tension which can be really cool if it fulfills your intention. If you don’t want it to cause too much tension but you still want that spot of warm color, choose a version of red that is similar in saturation to a couple or all of the colors in the rest of the palette. If you want that accent to create a focus but not tension, instead of using red, choose another neutral color but one that contrasts in all the other characteristics as much as possible.

 

Lynn Yuhr, using a predominantly warm and saturated color palette, accents her leaves with nuetral grays, bright magentas, or various purples. The purples, being a cool color and her versions here being largely desaturated with tint or shade have the most contrast with the dominant warm palette, creating a bit of excitement without overshadowing the feel of the hot reds, oranges, and yellows.

 

The other thing about color combinations is that sometimes you can have colors that are not just tiny accents but that do not share the same similarity characteristic as the rest of the colors share. As long as that one color has a similarity or two with another color in that group, it may work. So, for instance, you can have a palette of cool colors that includes fully saturated blues and greens as well as shaded versions and then throw in a dark yellow (aka gold) which is not a cool color but since it has a bit of black in it, it is a shade like the darker versions of the cool colors.

I know, exceptions to the rule just complicate things but you don’t need to work with the exceptions if you’re not ready for it. Just know they’re there and you can play with them when you’re ready.

 

That Color Game

Okay, now that you are clued into the contrast/similarity importance between colors, you can quickly hone your eyes for this by playing a little identification game. Look at any of your own work you really like, or the work of other artists that you really admire and identify what is similar in the color sets chosen. What are the contrasting characteristics that add to the energy and interest.

I did plan on having examples for you to play with all conveniently here but only got part way with that before my preparations got cut short this weekend. My darling man took a bad spill on his bike and I spent my alloted blog time today running back and forth to the hospital and being nursemaid when I got him home. He didn’t break anything and no concussion so it could have been much worse but he ended up with 49 stitches in his face and road rash all over so, needless to say, I was a tad distracted.

Is it me or does it seem like I have some bit of tragedy to report at least once a month lately? I have to say, I could use a break. Heck, we all could! What a crazy year.

Well, I may surprise you with a mid-week post to drive this home with the examples and a few more photos that I originally had planned but I didn’t want to leave you without on this last weekend of color. So go out and spy those similarities and contrasts and you’ll be ready to play with whatever I get together for you.

Have a beautiful, color-filled week!

 

 

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Color Scheming

August 23, 2020
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Noelia Contreras, stretches the idea of analogous color schemes by choosing pairs of colors that are in the same third of the color wheel then creating contrast by choosing tinted versions of one or both colors to create her stripes and spots.

As promised, this week we are going to start talking about creating color palettes. But first, because I love you all so much for following me as I blather about color and design, I want to make sure that you get in on the Damage Sale that is going on right now.

Damage Sale is on Now … and They’re Selling Fast!

Once every year or two, I pull out these boxes of publications that have been slightly damaged or marred and put them on sale, usually for 40-50% off. This time though, I marked it all down by 50-60%.

I started that yesterday and sold nearly half of them before lunch! Not wanting my blog readers to miss out, I went through my backstock boxes yesterday and pulled a number of imperfect copies that got shelf wear from storage so I’d have something to offer you.

Those got added to the sale inventory last night and so you all now have a fighting chance to grab some too. Just click here. But best be quick. It’s not quite toilet paper but I think there is a pandemic response thing going on here!

(If you got in on this Saturday but something was out of stock and is available now, buy it and I’ll combine the orders, refunding the difference in shipping if the order comes in by noon EST on Monday.)

 

Color Combo Considerations

Okay, now on to the business of color. Choosing colors to use in a piece takes into account quite a number of things but let’s hit on what I think are the three most important things to keep in mind:

Intention – What is your intention in creating the piece? What is the piece about? Go as far as writing it down and come up with some adjectives. Now, what colors go with those words and match your gut feeling about what you want this piece to be. I believe one should never ignore the gut but you do need to discern between instinct and taking the easy road or simply being dazzled by a color. That’s the hard part of using instinct but keep at it and hone it!

Importance – Should color play a major, supportive, or minor role in your design? I think this question is more important for color than for most design elements because we have such a strong and visceral reaction to color. There is usually a hierarchy of design elements in a piece and you benefit from intentionally deciding where color lands in that order. If you create a super tall vase, size is probably the major player in your design so do you want to draw attention away from that by making it a rainbow of bright colors? You absolutely might want to, but the size can make the colors even louder, which is great if that’s what you are after. However, if you want to focus on size because you want people to feel how monumental the piece is, one or two analogous colors in a supportive role might better support your intention.

Susan Dyer’s work puts color at the top of her design hierarchy with lots of contrast in hue and value but not a lot of contrast in saturation, going for bright and playful in most of her pieces like the one here.

Contrast – What level of contrast does your piece call for? High contrast creates high energy, low contrast creates calm, while something in between can be comfortable but still energized. Levels of contrast in a color palette can be created between color values (light versus dark), saturation (bright versus toned down), hues (complimentary colors), temperature (warm versus cool), and relative quantity (how much each color is used versus the others.)

Like everything else, how much contrast you choose should fulfill your intention but also, high or low contrast can be chosen to balance the energy of the work as needed. For example, you might have a busy piece with a variety of shapes and lines plus a lot of marks fulfilling your intention to create high energy but if you don’t want it too chaotic, you might use low rather than high contrast colors. Some intentional restraint in contrast will make the energy of the other elements feel more grounded. Alternately, you could go high contrast on the colors but go less busy on other design elements, especially if you deem color to be of high importance to the piece and don’t want it to be overlooked.

This necklace from Sandra Trachsel has low hue contrast using an analogous color scheme of yellow-green to blue-green but has value contrast between the two to give it a subtle energy but enough punch to really highlight the dimension of the interlocking geometric forms.

Okay, so, yeah, those are quite conceptual points and are very important to keep in mind when choosing a color palette but now, how do you even begin choosing colors? There are actually so many ways you can approach choosing colors for a piece and once you work with color intentionally and intelligently for a while, you will find your own way. But this week and next, I’m going to make some suggestions to get you started. Here is the first for this week.

 

Go with Your Gut

It’s going to sound like I’m saying this quite blithely but I’m serious about this – the most common way to start choosing colors is to go with your gut. Yeah, as mentioned, it may be something you have to hone but your instincts are really a great place to start and will help make your work truly your own. Now, you may think you have no instincts about color but we all do. We all react to color so the connections you make to color are in there and those connections are exactly what you need to find the colors you need for your work.

So, you can think about your intentions and see what colors come to mind or you can, with your intentions or associated adjectives running through your brain like a little chant, start shuffling through your colored art materials, a collection of color cards if you have them, or browse about online. Find yourself a base color to work off of. It doesn’t have to be the exact color yet but think of it as an anchor point for the time being.

Once you have that, you can start adding in other colors based on one of the following color wheel schemes. Keep in mind, this is not math. You don’t have to be exact in these color schemes. Think of them as templates that give you an idea of what colors to pair up with your anchor color.

You’re going to recognize a few these terms from the post on color relationships if you read that one. Those relationships for color mixing are also great starting points for choosing color palettes but I’m going to add a few more possible color combinations to your repertoire today.

 

Complementary – This color scheme involves focusing primarily on two colors, ones that are opposite each other on the color wheel. It provides great color contrast but, sometimes, these combinations create an almost uncomfortable tension. Fully saturated complements, when butted up against each other, will even cause a visual buzzing where they meet. Again, the tension between the complements is not a bad thing if that is what you are after but, because of this, this kind of color scheme should be carefully and quite intentionally chosen.

 

Analogous – this involves choosing colors that are near each other on the color wheel. These are usually two to four key hues so although you’re limiting yourself to one section of the color wheel you can still have quite the range.

Combining colors that are near each other on the color wheel creates palettes with low hue contrast and low or moderate value contrast, at least between the key hues themselves. If you choose colors that are desaturated (have reduced purity) due to tinting, shading, or toning of the color, that can increase the value contrast between analogous colors. So, you could create in blues and greens but go for a dark blue and a bright green so color value and saturation will be contrasted but since there analogous it will be relatively subtle. That’s why analogous color schemes are often found in moderate to low energy designs.

 

Triad or Square – I put these together because they are simply choosing a set of colors that are equidistant from each other on the color wheel. In a triad you are choosing three and a square you are choosing four colors. These create quite colorful and moderately high contrasting hue schemes. These color palettes tend to work best if one color is dominant (like your anchor color that you started off with) while the others play supporting roles in the color scheme.

 

Split Complementary – This can be a combination of two colors although I think it is best used as a three-color scheme. Here you choose one color and combine it with one or both colors to the side of the color’s true complement.

The TMA website scheme is yellow-green with its split complements magenta and blue (both leaning towards its true complement violet but still no visual tension.)

These create beautiful, high contrast color schemes but without the tension that direct complements can create. The combination remains lively and high in hue contrast but it feels much more refined than direct complements, triads, or squares. This is because you actually have a pair of basically analogous colors set against a high contrast one but not with high-tension contrasting hues. It’s kind of the best parts of all the previously mentioned schemes.

 

Monochromatic – The term monochromatic itself is synonymous with boring, I know, but this color scheme is anything but that. You may have just one base color but you then create a variety of shades, tints, and maybe even some tones of that one hue. Although it lacks hue contrast, you still get to play with saturation and value contrast so you can scale your energy level up and down with great control. I personally don’t think there is any other color scheme quite so sophisticated and clean as a monochromatic one so if your design is primarily about refinement, this color scheme should be seriously considered.

 

So, now you have one, somewhat structured way to start choosing colors. I would suggest this week that you play around with the various color schemes above. It could be as simple as pulling out your art materials and shuffling colors around on your tabletop to find complementary, analogous, triadic, and split complementary color schemes or continue practicing your color mixing by at least mixing up one luscious monochromatic scheme. Go with your gut and play with the colors as you feel you need to.

 

Not Much to Say

I know, I usually catch you up with what’s going on with me at this point, but it’s been a rough and tiring week for a variety of reasons and I am a bit talked out. I’ll tell you about drowning my sorrows in my minvan camper conversions project at a later date, okay?

I’ll just leave you pondering classic color combinations for now but next week we’ll going to get into some slightly more advanced ways of choosing color. Don’t worry, it’s nothing too difficult and you have all the tools to do it. In fact, I think a lot of you will be quite surprised at how easy and fun it will be. All this color study has been great fun, hasn’t it? I do hope so!

 

So, enjoy your week and fill it full of color!

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Hot or Not

August 16, 2020
Posted in

Does this colorful necklace by Camille Young have a predominantly warm or cool color palette? Or neither? Read on and then determine it for yourself. I’ll confirm the answer shortly.

How goes your color mixing adventures? My adventures have been less about color and more about traversing the landscape of grief my sister is dealing with as well as the landscape of Colorado and I tried to return home this past week. Plans to leave the Denver area through the usual I-70 corridor went up in smoke as fires shut down my usual path through the Rockies. This forced me to take a southerly and slightly longer route which turned out to be, strangely enough, just what I needed. I went through some gorgeous country I’d not visited in a while and it was an absolute boon to the soul. I stopped and savored and took it all in.

I’m hoping your color mixing adventures have been similar in that you may have ended up going in directions you didn’t plan but found some wonderful new colors to work with. Since we oftentimes return to the same preferred palettes, favorite pre-mixed colors, or comfortable combinations over and over again, the discovery of new colors and new combinations often has to be purposefully sought after. However, color mixing explorations can often result in the discovery of enticing new colors which can also push you to try new combinations. But the question then becomes, how do you determine what colors go with your new found color finds?

You may think I’m leading into a discussion about color palettes and, originally, that’s what I was going to do but as I wrote this article, I realized that, in the chaos of this last month, I neglected to write the article about one last set of terms you’ll need before we can jump full on into creating intentional color palettes. It’s a simple concept that can really inform contrast and the relationships in your color palettes and can be a great place to start when choosing color combinations. It’s the concept of color temperatures.

 

Warm or Cool

So, just what is color temperature? Well, colors actually appear either cool or warm to us, so much so that being in a room painted in a cool color will literally feel much cooler than one painted in a warm color even if they are the exact same temperature.

Warm colors are those that represent fire, heat, sunshine, and other hot and warm things. So, of course, red, orange, and yellow are warm but so are magenta and yellow-green. They just happen to be on the edge of the warm range. The warm colors are also all on one half of the color wheel, right? So that’s the one half of the color wheel that feels warm to us.

Cool colors are those that we associate with ice, water, shade, and other cool and refreshing things. These would include violet, blue, cyan, and green. And, as you will note, those are all on the other side of the color wheel, the cool half.

Now, why is temperature in color important? Well, warm colors and cool colors not only have us react to the associated temperature but they also act different visually. Warm colors advance while cool hues recede. Warm colors also have a lot more energy visually than cool colors which is one of the reasons they pop out at us so readily.

Take a look at this pendant by Dan Cormier. What pops out at you first? Red, right? It doesn’t take much since red is so high energy and it visually advances. (Dan will be releasing a self-study online course for the techniques used in this pendant next month. Sign up on his website to get in on it here.)

You might have noticed that red in particular is often used in the form of a dot, slash, or other very small accent of color to draw the eye and create contrast. The warm temperature, the color’s high energy, and the way that color comes visually forward allows for it to be used in a very small amount while still drawing a tremendous amount of attention. In addition, you might also note that these red accents are usually a dark red and rarely a pale red because darker colors also advance so being red as well as a deep rich version makes for quite the attention getter.

On the other hand, blues are quite commonly used in large swaths and as backgrounds due to how much they recede, our association with the vastness of the blue sky, and blue’s relatively low and calming energy can then be contrasted with higher energy in the foreground or in images or marks an artist would like to advance visually.

Warm and cool color categories also have an emotive and psychological tendency in the same way individual colors do. Predominantly warm color palettes will be associated with heightened emotions and energy while cool color palettes will feel relatively relaxed, calm, or refreshing.

Although cool colors have a calmer energy, they are not without vitality. Violet and green combinations, such as the one seen here in this piece by Cecilia Button (Mabcrea), are well-loved and don’t lack energy due to the contrast between them—they are on the far ends of the cool color half of the color wheel. So instead of cool and calm, this color combination is more cool and refreshing with added energy from the lines and texture. It’s also a split complimentary combination if you recall what that is from the Color relationship post.

Although cool colors have a calmer energy, they are not without vitality. Violet and green combinations, such as the one seen here in this piece by Cecilia Button (Mabcrea), are well-loved and don’t lack energy due to the contrast between them—they are on the far ends of the cool color half of the color wheel. So instead of cool and calm, this color combination is more cool and refreshing with added energy from the lines and texture. It’s also a split complimentary combination if you recall what that is from the Color relationship post.

Look around you at the color schemes in various decorated objects, photos, artwork, etc. Try to identify the dominant temperature of the color schemes, if there is one. There are times that the color scheme is neither predominantly cool nor warm. There are other times where they are simply hard to identify due to the range of color, like in the opening piece. That is predominantly warm, by the way. The cool colors are not as abundant and work more as calming accents in a piece that is busy and bright and could use a few visual “brakes”.

Another area that can be hard to read the color temperature of is with metallics. If something is predominately gold or copper, is that warm or cool? If you think in terms of their key hue, you’d recognize that those are warm colored metals since the underlying hues are yellow and orange. How about silver? Most people would say that silver has a cool color temperature but, in reality, silver is a gray and, gray can go either way.

 

Temperature Bias?

Which brings us to the brief discussion of color temperature in terms of color bias. I think I mentioned, in the July 12th post on color bias, that some people have learned color bias using the terms of cool and warm. In other words, a red could be a cool red or a warm red but that simply means that that the red leans towards magenta (moving closer to the cool side of the color wheel) or towards orange (leaning and staying within the warm side of the color wheel.) I think the use of the cool/warm terms for color bias causes too much useless mental gymnastics (telling yourself things like “the red leans towards orange, orange is a warm color, therefore the red is a warm red”) when we can simply identify which color it leans towards, giving us the precise information we need to both color mix and color match.

However, the terms are useful when talking about grays. Since gray represents an absence of saturation and the complete absence of saturation theoretically means the complete absence of hue, you wouldn’t think that a gray would have a color bias. But in the real world, most grays do have a color bias (as do most whites actually) but it’s much harder to identify a specific hue with so much color information missing. So, it’s a lot simpler, and just as informative, to say a gray is warm or cool. Put a gray next to your color wheel and see if the undertone of that gray matches more of the warm colors or more of the cool colors. If the gray has a blue, violet, or even green undertone, it’s a cool gray. If it seems to have a bit of red or orange, anything leaning towards brown, then it is a warm gray.

And yes, it is important to know if it gray is warm or cool, just as it is with any other color, because that can help you match up a color palette by intentionally picking similarities or contrasting differences between colors and grays based on their color characteristics. I don’t suggest you bother with temperature for whites because, to be honest, most whites in artist’s materials are a pretty good pure white or become warm (yellowing) plus they are heavily influenced by reflected color coming from surrounding surfaces so they can appear warm in one setting and cool in another. If you are picking wall paint, however, warm versus cool whites can really change the feel of a room. But that’s a whole other can of worms (or paint!)

So, now, I hope you will start looking at color combinations in terms of the warm/cool relationship. This is a really easy way to start thinking about color relationships which is the basis of creating color palettes and you are just looking at one aspect for now. The whole process of developing color palettes will rely on all the information that you read up to this point so I’m going easy on you this week!

If you’re feeling a little out of the loop because you haven’t caught up in all the posts, or if you feel like you are starting to forget some of the terminology we talked about early on, take this next week to catch up or refresh your understanding of color terminology because when we get into palettes next week, it’s going to be all about identifying characteristics by the terminology I’ve been giving you. I know it doesn’t sound particularly sexy or exciting, using terminology to determine color, but once you get the hang of it, you will be amazed at how easy it will be for you to successfully combine colors in beautiful ways that also support your intentions.

Here’s a quick review of terminology you will want to be sure to know as we move forward into developing color palettes:

  • Hue–the name of the pure, key color under which we categorize all colors like it. This breaks up the full spectrum of color into a manageable set of names we can use to describe colors. If you think of colors in terms of 3 primaries, 3 secondaries, and their 6 tertiary hues, you will have 12 hues to categorize under.
  • Value—how light or dark a color is.
  • Saturation—how pure and bright a color is.
  • Shade—the addition of black that darkens a color.
  • Tint—the addition of white that lightens a color.
  • Tone—the addition of a complementary color or gray that neutralizes or tones down a color.
  • Color bias—the primary or secondary color on the color wheel that a pigment color leans towards if not an absolute hue.
  • Temperature—the sense of warmth or coolness in a color or color combination.
  • Complementary — colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel.
  • Analogous — colors that are next to or near each other on the color wheel.
  • Split Complementary — colors that are one step over on the color wheel from a color’s direct complement.

 

Does that all sound familiar? If not, re-read the posts for June, July, and August as a refresher if you have the time. Otherwise, I would suggest spending this week playing with color mixing some more and identifying colors that are warm versus cool as well as warm and cool color palettes, especially in decorative objects, patterned fabrics, intentionally designed rooms, etc. And, of course, create! Color is only one part of designing and creating, albeit a really wonderful part! But more important than learning the stuff is actually doing the work, creating from your heart and the essence of your being.

My essence will continue to rest up and recover and dream of more time in the mountains. It was so great to be out just hiking, taking photos, chatting it up with a friendly marmot or campsite cow (yes, my campsite had a herd of black cows and calves handing around), and falling asleep to a view of a zillion of stars out the back window of my yet-to-be-fully-converted camper van. Refueling the soul is much needed for us all right now, isn’t it?

Do get out among the trees or put your toes in the sand, or just drive and get a fresh view of the world if you can. You’ll gather color and design inspiration wherever you go. Times may be hard but the world is still an amazingly beautiful place.

 

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So Much Color Bias

July 12, 2020
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Have you ever tried to mix a color that seemed really straightforward, like mixing blue and yellow to make a nice green or blue and red to make a nice purple but it came out a bit muddy? It happens a lot with pigment-based art materials and the reason for this is something called color bias. Sounds kind of scientific, maybe even intimidating but it’s actually a very simple concept. Simple but exceedingly important. It may even be the most important concept to understand when it comes to mixing pigment-based art mediums.

So, what is color bias? It is a characteristic seen in a not quite exact hue that tells us what other hue it leans towards. In other words, you can call a particular color a yellow but if it is not a true yellow, the color bias characteristic identifies whether that yellow has a touch of cyan in it or a touch of magenta, because if it’s not just yellow then it’s going to have at least a touch of another primary, leading it away from that true yellow hue point on the color wheel.

It’s not too difficult to identify color bias, especially if you have a color wheel at hand. For example, a lot of people think turquoise is basically a cyan. It’s close but isn’t quite cyan. Look at a CMY color wheel and this example of the color turquoise. Do you think this turquoise has a touch more yellow or a touch more magenta than a true cyan? An easier way to determine this is to see if it’s closer to blue or closer to green on the color wheel. It should be pretty obvious that it leans closer to green. And green has cyan and yellow in it, right? Therefore, the turquoise must have a touch of yellow in it to make it lean towards green. The direction that it leans is its color bias.

Although it is important to realize which primary a color is leaning towards, since it’s easier to identify something that’s only a couple spots away on a 12 hue color wheel, identifying the bias of the primary color is usually described in terms of how close it is to the next secondary color. So, we would say that the turquoise is a cyan with a green color bias. Here’s a visual chart of color bias in colors that we would, on their own, name simply as yellow, magenta, are cyan, but the ones on the inner side of the circle are not true primary colors.

You can talk in terms of color bias with other hues besides primaries, but when it comes to color mixing, the concept is most important for your selection of primary colors that you choose to mix from. However, when we get to talking about identifying complex colors in order to mix them, (which I plan to get going on next week), determining the bias of secondaries becomes pretty essential. In other words, you can say a red has a yellow or magenta bias, but at that point you are identifying which of the primaries are dominant rather than thinking about which ones are added in since red has both yellow and magenta in it already.

 

Leaning on Color Bias for color mixing

Now why is this important? It takes us back to when you try to mix a color and it comes out a bit muddier than you expected or hoped. The reason is almost always due to one of your colors you were mixing with having an unfavorable color bias.

To explain that, I need you to think back to last week when we talked about toning down colors with complementary colors but, as I mentioned then, it didn’t always have to be its exact opposite, as long is that additional color added whatever primary was missing so that the resulting color actually had a little bit of all three primaries in it. In pigments, three primaries together make some version of a mud color so toning down is a way of making a color a tiny bit (or quite a bit) muddy.

Notice how the word mud is used to describe the combination of three primaries and also is typically the word used to describe a color mix that doesn’t come out as bright as you’d hoped? Well, it’s no coincidence. These two things are identifying the same concept. In both cases, the result is a color that includes some portion of all three primaries.

Let’s say you want to mix a nice, bright violet. Being quite comfortable with your CMY color basis, you optimistically grab a chunk of fully saturated magenta and a good pinch of a cyan and confidently mix them up, expecting a beautifully saturated violet. When it comes out looking like mauve and no adjustments to the proportions of the two colors get you your violet, you can absolutely conclude that one or both of the two primary colors you mixed with have a bias leaning towards the one missing primary – yellow.

At this point, you hold up your magenta to your color wheel and see if it leans more towards red or more towards blue. If it seems a true magenta or leans towards blue then it has no yellow in it and would not be the culprit. However, let’s say you conclude your magenta leans towards red. Sigh. Red trots away from magenta on the color wheel towards yellow so it has yellow in it.

But don’t conclude that it was just the magenta that was the problem. Pick up your cyan and see if it leans more towards green or more towards blue. If your cyan is looking a bit more like our notorious turquoise, meaning it has a green bias and therefore has a bit of yellow in it, you’ll know the yellow that toned down your planned violet color mix came from both of what you thought were true primaries.

This is extremely common in pigment-based mediums as it is very hard to create a true primary so you can just assume that most of the primary colors you choose in your art mediums will have a bias. Now, don’t think that means you are doomed to dull colors all the time. You’re not at all! Knowing this simply gives you back control. That turquoise, even though it is not a true cyan but a cyan with a green bias, will mix beautifully saturated greens with a yellow that itself has a green bias.

Plus, toning down colors is not at all a bad thing, not if that is what you are after. Colors that are toned down a bit tend to come across as more sophisticated and far more natural looking, as you can see in this pretty palette here. Now that you are aware of color bias, you can intentionally choose to mix a color from two primaries, one with the bias that leans towards the missing primary, and create a rich, but very slightly toned down color.

Understanding and identifying color bias will allow you to better anticipate the outcomes of your color mixes. It’s you taking color control!

Now, color bias does not help identify other things that desaturate a color, such as a tint (the addition of white) and shade (the addition of black) or toning resulting from the addition of gray (the addition of black and white) but were not going to go there quite yet. This idea of color bias is so important that it is the only thing I’m focusing on this week.

 

Name That Color Bias

So, I’m going to suggest that you focus on your color bias education the rest of the week and just simply ask yourself what the color bias is in any color you see that you like that you are inspired by, that you want to use in your studio, or even in your attire or home decorations. And you can do this with any color. Just identify the color as a primary or a secondary then ask yourself which way it is leaning.

In fact, look at the tertiary colors on your color wheel. Many of them have an easily identified color bias primarily because their bias is in their name. Look at yellow-green for instance. If someone showed you a shirt that color, what would you call it? You’d probably just call it green. And yes, it is green with a yellow color bias.

So do the same kind of thing with any color you come across. If the color pops in between two of our 12 color wheel colors, just pick the primary or secondary color in that pair of colors you feel it would be wedge between and name it that color with its color bias. For instance, if you found a color that lands right between violet and blue on the CMY color wheel, call it blue (a secondary color) with a magenta bias.

If the colors you are trying to identify are heavily toned down or seem to be tinted or shaded, if you have the Color Wheel Company’s CMY wheel turned over and use the shade and tint samples to find the hue on the color wheel.

For instance, the key hue of a peach color might be hard to identify until you look at the tinted versions of orange and red. The tinted oranges look a bit peachy but not quite. It certainly doesn’t lean towards the tinted yellows but it looks a touch like the tinted reds so it’s key hue land somewhere between orange and red. In this case, we will call it a red with a yellow bias. Or you can you call it an orange with a red bias since, in a lot of our minds, orange is a secondary (from our previous RYB view of color) even though it is not on the CMY wheel.

It is not so important that you identify things according to them being primary or secondary – that’s just to keep it simple for you right now. It’s far more important that you train your eye to see that colors tend not to conveniently fall into just one of those 12 identified hues on the color wheel.

So, grab your color wheel or print one out and take it around the house or studio with you and start working on your bias. The good colorful kind!

 

A Bunch of Notes

That was really the whole the lesson but there are some things that I want to bring up in case that conversation presented you wtih up some questions or difficulties. These won’t be of concern to you all but there are some interesting tidbits that others might find of interest as well.

Color Deficiencies

I hate to think of anyone being frustrated trying to learn colors. Up to this point we’ve been dealing with some pretty straightforward color concepts but color bias, a simple concept as it really is, it can be very difficult for people who have any level of color deficiency (also referred to, in its extreme, as color blindness.)

So, if you find you are having a lot of difficulty identifying color bias, you may want to see if you have any sight issues with color. There are tests online like this one that can give you an idea if this is an issue:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/are-you-actually-color-blind

If you find you have any issues, speak to an optometrist. There are some corrective lenses that can help some people or they may think there is an underlying condition that, once treated, may reduce the issue, or keep it from getting worse.

Don’t worry if you have some color sight issues. You can, of course, still make art. Some really big artists have been color blind. Claude Monet, of all people, was colorblind later in life! He had to label all his paints to know what to use. Luckily, our art materials come labeled these days!

What’s about Warm and Cool for Color Mixing?

If you have had color training before, you may have heard of these leanings I’ve talked about this week as warm or cool versions of primary and secondary colors. That is the traditional terminology but I always found that so confusing so I teach it using the other name for it – color bias. However, if you’ve already learned color bias in terms of warm and cool, I’m not going to dissuade you of its usefulness but keep in mind that in my teaching of color concepts and color mixing, I will reserve the talk of warm and cool for choosing color palettes.

About Your Choice of Color Primaries

Throughout these articles I refer to CMY as the color basis for the primary colors we work with mostly because it would be far too confusing to include both CMY and RYB in these conversations even though I promised you could continue to use RYB. And you still can.

Now, if you want to stick with RYB (red, yellow, blue) that, by the definition of primaries, will be saying that red and blue cannot be mixed from other colors. But if you are going to work with CMY, then cyan and magenta are primaries instead which would mean that cyan and magenta can’t be mixed from other colors. How can it be possible that red and blue as well as cyan and magenta can be considered primaries which are defined as hues that can’t be mixed from other colors? Are there really five primary colors? Or is the definition wrong?

Ack! How confusing!

Strangely enough, the definition is not incorrect and you can’t work with five primary colors. You will always need to work with only three. I know. It doesn’t seem right.

The fact is, either set can work but one tends to work better than the other especially with certain materials. With natural pigments, RYB may actually work better primarily because most lines of paint colors were developed to support RYB. The reason this happened is that, back in the day, when all pigments were taken from nature, there were not really any natural pigments that were pure enough to show what the purest hues actually were. They came close with particular versions of red, yellow, and blue. Modern-day chemistry now provides us with a pure cyan and magenta that allows us to work with pigments based on the science of light and color which is why I encourage CMY as the color basis from which you work. However, tradition has led makers of conventional artist’s mediums to create colors based on the older, classic pigment paints although some of that is starting to change and you can find versions of cyan and magenta in usually at least one line of a particular artist medium.

Understanding this and the conversation we just had about color bias, I think it becomes rather apparent that CYM mixes will give you the best options for brighter colors plus better color mixing control, even when making toned down and neutral colors. But if you want to stick with RYB – just think red instead of magenta and blue instead of cyan and then work off of a RYB color wheel. Otherwise, the concepts were pretty much the same.

 

Where are all the Pics?

Okay, I have to run. I apologize that there aren’t nearly so many pieces of art as examples this week. It’s been a difficult week for my family and getting work done was not always my priority. In have two very close family members that are having particularly difficult health battles, one which got quite bad this week. We remain optimistic but it has been rough.

Neither of these loved one’s health issues are directly related to this pandemic, but the complications of trying to ensure they don’t get sick is certainly not helpful. This is part of the reason I’ve been asking that people think about wearing masks as signs of caring. When you have someone – or several someones – that you love who you know are almost certain to die if they catch this virus, the wearing of a mask really feels like a matter of life or death, and when others will do so to be supportive of people they don’t even know, it’s nothing less than heroism.

So, please, be one of our heros. If it has been recommendedwhere you live, and you are at all able, wear a mask when you’re out. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

Support This Blog!

If you appreciate the articles and the work put into presenting these for you, and you are in a good financial position, you can help support my work by purchasing publications on the website or you can contribute in a one-time or monthly capacity.

The sale is still on for books and past Virtual Art Boxes so you can get that special pricing on publications as well! 20% off all books and 25% off VABs.

I’ve got some special extras in the works for my monetary contributors to show you how appreciative I am of your generosity! You all are amazing. Check in next week for more info on those bonuses. Thank you so much!

 

 

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Connected to Color

June 14, 2020
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Cornelia Brockstedt communicates her sense of each season through color sets (cones and the cord) that speak to her idea of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

So, here we go with the second installment of this summer’s color adventure. If you didn’t read last week’s posts, you can find it here. That post really lays the foundation for a lot of what I’ll be talking about over the next few weeks so you might want to read or review that first.

This week I want to expand upon your knowledge of hues but, more particularly I want to talk about the expressive nature of color. I know last week I may have forced a shift in your thinking about primaries but to confirm that and as a way to connect last week’s post with this one, let’s ride this CMY train a bit farther down the tracks.

Hopefully, we are now all in agreement that the most accurate pigment based primary colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. That is particularly helpful to keep in mind when mixing but that hardly gives us enough categories to work from in order to have a sense of how colors communicates or how to choose color palettes. I would like you to add a few more, starting with the CMY secondaries – the colors that result from mixing two primaries together – red, green, and blue.

Hmm. RGB, you say? Doesn’t that sound familiar? If you remember from last week, RGB are the primary colors for mixing light (such as the light that creates images on any digital screen.) Yes, CMY’s secondaries are the primary colors used to mix with light. And the reverse is true – CMY is the secondary color set for RGB. Why do you think they are interrelated like that?

You may remember from last week’s post that RGB is considered an additive color while CMY is subtractive so it’s not surprising to find them as opposite sets on the same color wheel. This is not the same RYB color wheel that painters have been using for years, mind you, so if you have a color wheel that depends on bread, yellow, blue, you might want to either get a CMY color wheel like this one by the Color Wheel Company. Or use a CMY color diagram like this one below. (Note that colors in this image below will shift if you print it and may be off due to your display already. Also the percentages listed are just guidelines when mixing colors as quality and concentration of pigments between types of materials and brands can differ greatly.)

Click for full size and to print. Created by SW Pryor, 2009

 

Back to color categories. Right now, you have six – cyan, magenta, yellow, red, green, and blue. How about we add four more for a nice even 10?

Since the majority of the art world has been working with red, yellow, and blue as primaries for the last 200 years, their secondary hues have been widely referred to in color psychology and communication. Those are green (which we already have), purple and orange. Purple and orange carry very particular associations so we can’t leave them out.

The other two I feel necessary to include are black and white. For the sake of simplicity, I’m not going to wander into the mire that is the argument about whether these are actually colors. I think that argument is really based in the one inarguable fact – they aren’t hues. Depending on the color mode, either black or white is the inclusion of all hues or the exclusion of all hues but the argument on whether they are colors is just semantics so for our purposes I am proclaiming them color categories.

 

Connecting in Color

Now, why is it important to have categories? Well, you have to realize you’re going to be communicating something specific with the colors you choose so it’s best to choose with intention. Having color categories and knowing their specific association gives you a base from which to begin making those kinds of decisions.

We all react to color on some level, so color choices are no small thing. For instance, if there are a set of sisters who are triplets, all dressed the same but one has fire engine red fingernails another cobalt blue fingernails and the third has sunshine yellow, do you not draw different conclusions about each of the women? The one with a red nails might come across as strong but conservative, the one with the blue may strike you as audacious or even rebellious, and the sister with yellow nails may seem carefree and funky. You might draw a different conclusion that I did but I’m guessing we’d agree that we would think of each of those women at least a little differently based solely on the fingernail color.

Strangely, those conclusions I made about the fingernail colors are not necessarily associations common with those specific colors but that’s our curveball here. It goes to show that it’s not just the color that creates what you are communicating – it’s also the context. And you.

Since there is a lot more to communicating with color than what we might assume is inherent in each hue, I’m going to give you very general associations as a kind of jumping off point, but you may very well have other strong associations not listed for these colors. We’ll get to that in a moment.

For now, simply read through this list but don’t try to memorize it. Just let it sink in as you read it, maybe just asking yourself what associations are true for you that I have listed, and mentally (or in writing) adding your own as you go. Then I have some thoughts about how to use these categories for your own authentic creations.

 

Color Associations by Color Category

Here are the color categories we’ll work on for now. We’ll get to the grayed out sections later.

 

Magenta – uplifting, balancing, and cheerful, this color can convey and encourage happiness, creativity, and compassion.

Purple – often thought of as the color of luxury and grandeur due to its historical rarity, it is now also associated with drama, ambition, and dignity. Purple also encourages daydreaming which may be why it is associated with mysticism and imagination.

Blue – one of the most liked colors in the world, blues can feel uplifting, quiet, calm, and reliable, as well as communicating trustworthiness and comfort.

Cyan – lively but calming, cyan invokes the serenity and brightness of tropical oceans along with a sense of cleanliness and focus.

Green – relaxing and reassuring, green is a very positive color that is easy on the eye, literally. It lessens glare and absorbs ultraviolet light reducing eye fatigue. It also represents growth, freshness, nature, and harmony although in certain contexts and tones it can also be associated with illness.

Yellow – considered the happiest of colors this is associated with joy, optimism, and spontaneity. It is visually dominant which means it can drown out other colors, so it is often used in small amounts or as a background color.

Orange – energizing, cheerful, and friendly, orange literally wakes us up by encouraging oxygen intake in the brain. It is also highly visible which is why it is used for construction and warning signs even though emotionally it feels playful.

Red – well-known as representing love, passion, power, and excitement, it is also associated with danger and blood. It also appears hot so much so that a beverage will seem hotter in a red cup than any other color. It is also the most eye-catching, so it gets noticed regardless of how little is used.

Black – is often associated with death but in the absence of a context with death associated symbols and imagery, it will more likely convey authority, respect, seriousness, and decorum while sometimes feeling aggressive. It can make objects appear deeper or heavier than light or white versions.

White – purity, cleanliness, goodness, and innocence are the more common associations with white although it can also be thought of as formal, cold, sterile, and stark. When it is not a dominant color, it is overlooked, reading as an inconspicuous background.

Now, you might be asking, what about brown? Or gray? How about pink? Yes, we do have very specific associations with those colors, but they are variations on hues, not hues themselves and I am aiming to give you baby steps, more or less. Trying to figure out how you feel about 10 colors is a pretty big baby step already. We’ll get to the rest in future weeks.

 

Real and Authentic Color

Okay, now that I you’ve read that list, let’s talk about the only color associations that really matters – your specific emotional connection to color.

Choosing the colors you want to use to communicate your intention really should be based on what you feel, not what you THINK, about those colors. This can be tough to figure out but if you’re up for it that’s what I’ll suggest you work on this week. Let me explain.

Take the color blue. It supposed to be calming, peaceful, and trustworthy and is one of the favorite colors of all times. Well, strangely, I myself have a kind of aversion to the hue of blue. It’s not all blues, but I certainly steer away from it when it comes to my attire. Other than maybe a pair of blue jeans on a back shelf, there is no blue in my closet. I know I associate dark blue clothing with domineering personalities (my father wore a lot of navy, for instance) so I don’t find it comforting or uplifting like many people might.

So, if I wanted to create a piece that portrayed a peaceful calm, I would not choose blue even though that is supposed to readily communicate that concept to others. It would be like trying to laugh at something I didn’t find funny. It will come across as inauthentic. However, I might go with green or even cyan as a dominant color because those colors do feel peaceful to me. That choice, combined with my other design choices, all rooted in my personal intention to convey a peaceful calm, should result in a cohesive and authentic feeling piece.

I know you might be concerned that choices based on your personal associations won’t communicate well to a lot of people. It is true – it might not. But for the right people, the people that will love and feel connected to the authentic you they see in your work, it absolutely will. It will also be a more joyful and satisfying piece to create for you.

 

Connection and Context

You might’ve noticed my persistent use of the word “connection”. I’m using this as a kind of catch all term for the various objectives an artist might have for drawing people to their work. Sometimes we want people to feel drawn to, and therefore connected to, the work on a personal level so that they want to buy it. Or we may be more concerned about captivating them in order to elicit a specific emotion or to get them to think, which is another kind of connection.

You can also have the objective of not trying to connect to others at all but may simply want to please yourself, which is wonderful and more than valid. In that case, it is even more important to make design choices based on how they make you feel than about what they mean to others. Even though you’re communicating with only yourself initially, the authenticity of your choices will communicate and connect to others if and when you share your work. Personally, I think this is the best way to work.

If you haven’t already noticed, everything in design is about relationships. Although the relationship between your artwork and the viewer is one relationship, I am more specifically referring to how every design element is related to each other in a piece to create an overall feel or message. Your choice of color, as strong as it can be in relaying a specific message on its own, relates to the other design elements which can change how the color and the overall design feels.

Look at these two pendants by Melanie Muir. They are using essentially the same color palette, but they have a notably different feel. For those of you who were with me last month, or bought the May VAB about shape, you might have readily recognized how the softer, round shapes of the left pendant has helped create an inviting and fun feel in that pendant. Yes, orange is associated with a sense of joy to start with but then look at the one on the right. It still has a burnt orange with black and white palette but the sharp corners of those shapes make it feel more serious although still lively due to the orange.

 

Here is another comparison with two different color palettes but the same design by Christine Dumont. Do they not feel quite different? Even though I like the core design, I am more drawn to the blue-green (yes, even though I am not big on blue.) I am a huge fan of green and I don’t think of domineering men when blue is combined with it. It actually feels uplifting and comfortable to me. The magenta, a color known to be particularly cheerful, is quite elegant here but feels too loud for me. That’s probably because I am essentially an introvert so although I like my attire to be creative, edgy, and even weird, I don’t like it to be loud.

Which do you prefer and why do you think that is?

 

 

Exploring Your Version of Hues

So, if I haven’t fully confused you by giving you a set of rules and then telling you to toss them out window, I would suggest that, this week, you spend time investigating how you feel about particular colors.

Now, how do you figure that out? Well, honestly, it’s going to take a lot longer than a week for most people if you’ve not done this before, but you can start by simply making word associations and becoming more aware of your reaction to color.

Wrapped in Color Exercises

Try to put yourself in a place, physically or mentally, where you can respond to color that surrounds you.

Go and put on different colors of clothing, wrap yourself in various colored blankets, or, if you have a stash of fabric, pull out some solid colored bits and wrap yourself up in them. Then ask yourself how you feel in each color, especially if you can do this in front of a mirror (you know, when everybody else is out for a walk or asleep or something so you don’t have to explain yourself.) What colors make you feel more energized? What colors make you feel more relaxed? Do any of them make you particularly happy or make you feel regal?

Since you are likely to be wrapping yourself up with colors that are not a pure hue, you could start making note of how you react to the hues when they are dark, pastel, bright, or muted. You may be responding to that version of the hue, not the hue itself. Like I might feel very bold and confident in a plum dress, but I would probably feel a bit subdued and delicate in a lavender one. (More on color variations next week.)

If you don’t have sufficient colors to wrap yourself up in, just try to imagine yourself in a room painted all in one hue. How do you feel in the yellow room? Does it make you want to dance around or is it annoying? How about a red room? Does it make you feel impassioned and energized or maybe frightened? How about a white room? How about a black room?

You aren’t really trying to make any specific conclusions about your relationship with color at this time. Just try and become more familiar with how you feel about various colors. Color relationships are complex. Like I love using copper polymer when making jewelry, but I can’t imagine ever creating anything with orange. Orange just doesn’t speak to the things I want to express. But you should know, I also hate tomatoes but love salsa so, I’m probably just particularly weird.

As we work through the various aspects of color over the next few weeks, you can continue to ask yourself these questions about how you feel about particular colors. And when you are designing, you could also ask yourself what color comes to mind when thinking about the emotion associated with the specific intention of the piece you’re working on. You might be surprised with what you come up with.

 

Wondering about my references to Intention? Or how to support this content?

Read what so many VAB members have said was a life altering (or game changing or mind opening) set of articles on Intention in the February edition of the Virtual Art Box and catch up on the concept of marks, lines, and shape too. And they are all on SALE, 25% off right now – no promo code needed.

The purchase of a box would help support this free content that I am creating now as well as give you a stronger base for the conversations we will be having going forward.

If you enjoy these articles, you can help me keep the lights on by making a purchase of any of the publications I have on the Tenth Muse Arts website or by making a one-time or monthly contribution here.

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Iconic Shapes

May 31, 2020
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If there was a shape that could represent state of the world today, what would you say that is? Chances are, you’re thinking of something that works as an icon or symbol rather than something as simple as a circle or octagon. Abstract shapes are something I touched upon only briefly in the article about shape and form at the beginning of the month. They are most commonly created for things that we are already familiar with, many of which are considered universal. Some have been with us for ages such as stars, teardrops, and hearts, but simplified shapes will pop up whenever a quick method of communication that is not language dependent is needed or preferred.

For instance, right now, a square with half circles on the ends, often with a few horizontal lines in the square, represents a medical mask. Such an icon may have meant nothing to you at the start of this year but it’s hard not to recognize it for what it is now.

That is the power of abstract shapes. With minimal characteristics, these shapes represent an object if not an entire concept. For this reason, I suggest you to not use them too frivolously. If you pop a heart shape on something, it should be because your intention necessitates calling on the viewer’s emotions rather than just putting it on to be cute. Now, I’m not saying that using hearts to be cute is a bad thing but realize that people will see it as an emotional expression. And I say emotional, not love, because the heart represents a base positive emotion associated with love, caring, and happiness but if your heart shape has a hole in it, is cracked or torn, or is jet black, the viewer will start thinking of things like loneliness, sadness, or even animosity.

Not all abstract shapes have such a wide range of potential meaning but many can elicit a similar or even  stronger reaction, such as the shape of a cross or particular types of star shapes, depending on the context in which it’s used.

If you want to use abstract shapes but do not want to be so obvious or bring up the more common associations, you might find it useful to combine abstract shapes or to use them in unexpected ways. This approach to the use of abstract shapes can make for a much more subtle or complex statement which means your viewer will probably react more viscerally even with a readily recognized shape since its associations won’t be so blunt.

Here are just a few examples of abstract shapes where the association with them has been toned down.

Here, Elsie Smith overlays the impression of leaf forms on heart shapes showing just how perfectly they fit together. Pairing these makes the heart a gentle emotional background to the focus on, and apparent love of, nature’s intricate leaf formations.

 

This next one is a really good synergy of recognizable abstract shapes. Speaking in terms of the silhouette of the piece below as well as the focal point of the opening image, we could see a sunburst, a starburst, or a flower shape. Since Zuda Gay Pease was primarily creating flowers at the time she created this, we can assume her intention was for it to be a flower, but the energy of all those many pointed tips makes it come across as celestial. So, we get a combined association – the femininity and beauty of the floral shape with the energy and excitement of bursting light. It’s quite an impressive mix.

 

It’s interesting that practically all types of celestial bodies have a recognizable abstract shape (or variations of them.) There is probably nothing quite so common in abstract celestial shapes as a crescent moon. Our association with it can be fairly wide ranging from simply symbolizing the quiet and dark of night to embodying the ebb and flow of life.

In this example, I found it very curious that the lines on these crescents appear to be sun symbols with all their brilliant energy, and the bright blue ends of the crescent, visually truncating the shape, make us less likely to think crescent moon than simply an angular and curvy shape. The moon and its mysteries therefore become a quiet background to the louder energy of the colors and lines. I really like this contrast of concepts here as the sun and the blue color brings in a liveliness while the unconscious reaction to the moon shape is a quiet but divergent undertow. (Unfortunately, the Etsy shop from which this was saved is no longer available, so I am not sure who created it. If anyone knows, I would be ever so grateful if you would send me their name so I can update it.)

 

Is this making sense? I don’t think it’s hard to grasp the general idea of how iconic an abstract shape can be so I’m going to keep this short today. It’s also been a busy week getting all your accounts fixed up and so I should get off this computer. I challenge you to look around at the way abstract shapes are used in art work, be it your own or other people’s pieces.

 

Go Forth and Be Free… to be Inspired, For Free!

If you haven’t heard yet, starting in June (this next weekend) I will be posting the upcoming Virtual Art Box content previously planned for the VAB membership project on this blog so everyone can read it for free. I wanted readers, regardless of budget right now, to have access to these discussions, lessons, and exercises so we can all work on our art and increasing our skills and enjoyment together as well as give me the opportunity to take my work load down a notch or take breaks when necessary without being unfair to paid subscribers.

So, you can look forward to some in-depth article length discussions and ideas with a bit more juice to it than the blog usually has along with ideas on how to work with and apply the concepts if you so desire. Take it like a free class or just let the ideas sink in and enjoy the art. It’ll be here for you, starting next weekend.

Supporting Free Content

I am glad to have your support, in anyway you can provide it, to help me produce this content for free. Your supportive emails are always appreciated but if you want to help me keep the lights on, making purchases on the website is one of the best ways to do so since it gets you (or a lucky giftee) something to enjoy as well giving the contributing artists further exposure all while helping to keep me in busines.

If you have everything you want from the website at the moment, I have provided a donation option here for those who have asked and can afford to toss me a little something to help me, in particular, pay my tech guy and allow me much needed doses of dark chocolate!

So … until next weekend!

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