Colors

July 18 2012,

"You have a great sense of color!" This is the statement I often get when people look at my quilts. I have always been intrigued with color. At a young age, I would take old magazines and cut up picture and make collages and hang them up as posters. Most of the picture were of nature, people, places and things, not celebrities.

I have never took a color theory class, but yet, the sense of color is in me. I know by quilting, that blue and orange works well together, thus the many blue and orange quilts I have.

I take inspiration from things around me. For example, I went to someone's house, and their eating area (not the dining room) was painted gray with the lamp shade above the the table was orange. This was an interesting combination, and it works. One day, I will put this color scheme into a quilt.

I asked hubby whether color can be taught. He said that it cannot be taught. I think it can. If you have the color wheel and understand how the colors work, with little time, you can make use of colors in many interesting ways.

In quilts, color is the first thing you take in with your eyes. It then evokes feelings about the quilt. It really doesn't matter what pattern you use in a quilt, if the colors does not interest you, then the quilt is of no interest, thus the colors you choose is very important. In quilts, to make a good quilt, you need different shades, tones and tints of a certain color. For example, red. You can start with red, and use pink, crimson, maroon, blood red to compliment the quilt, because they are all in the red family. When quilter's pick fabrics, they often categorize colors into light, medium and dark. This way, the quilt is not "flat".

Do you have an eye for colors?