{"id":8644,"date":"2014-10-11T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T18:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daveonline.net\/thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/?p=8644"},"modified":"2014-10-22T10:53:50","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T16:53:50","slug":"exercises-in-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/exercises-in-gray\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercises in Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dba726ae892f8680ce76ff257339b52d\"<\/a>After all this talk of gray, I thought it was about time to challenge you with some further ideas about color values so you can see for yourself what understanding\u00a0value can do for your work.<\/p>\n

First of all, take any photo of one of your pieces and put it into a photo manipulation software program, changing the color mode to “Grayscale”. You can usually do this with your camera as well by changing the mode to “Black & White” or “B&W” as you take the photo. Then look at what you have. If you were after a lot of contrast in your piece, you should definitely see a range of\u00a0darks and lights\u00a0that easily define the forms, lines, textures and color changes you have in the piece. \u00a0If you were after a quieter contrast, you should see little variation in the darkness or lightness of the grays.<\/p>\n

Here is a beautiful mokume gane pendant by Harriet Smith<\/a>. The original shot on the left is vibrant and bright, but does have a calm feel too it. And you can see just why that is when you turn it gray. Even with the fiery colors and the many overlapping lines, the energy of the pendant is kept in check by the minimal variation in value. Of course, this piece is quite different without it’s brilliant colors, but the exercise shows why the energy is not quite so high.<\/p>\n

You can examine any of your pieces in this manner and will likely find yourself surprised quite often at the actual value range your pieces have. Being aware of value will help you make better decisions about your color choices going forward. And if you want to learn more about value with some polymer centric exercises,\u00a0take a look at this great little article written by Maggie Maggio<\/a>, co-author of Polymer Clay Color Inspirations,<\/a> <\/em>which also has a lot of\u00a0value-related information and exercises to keep your color knowledge growing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0If you like this blog, support The Polymer Arts projects with a subscription or issue of The Polymer Arts magazine as well as supporting our advertising partners.<\/em><\/p>\n

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After all this talk of gray, I thought it was about time to challenge you with some further ideas about color values so you can see for yourself what understanding\u00a0value can do for your work. First of all, take any photo of one of your pieces and put it into a photo manipulation software program,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1716,25,13,2608,118,268,3387,2261,3183,157,3408,3407,3406,179,3386,3184,3409,3388,221,3390,3389,3404,3403,3402],"class_list":["post-8644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational-art","tag-artist-inspiration","tag-artistic-influence","tag-artistic-inspiration","tag-complementary-contrast","tag-composition","tag-contrast","tag-contrast-value","tag-contrast-values","tag-contrasting-colors","tag-creativity","tag-grayscale-to-test-value","tag-greyscale","tag-harriet-smith","tag-maggie-maggio","tag-using-contrast-to-create-emotion","tag-using-contrasts-as-design","tag-using-grayscale","tag-using-value-to-create-movement","tag-value","tag-value-as-an-element","tag-value-in-design","tag-values-as-composition","tag-values-contrast","tag-working-in-values"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0Lm-2fq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepolymerarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}