 |
Categories |
 |
 |
Information |
|
|
Quilting Resources from Debbie Caffrey
Gaining
Color Confidence & Teaching It!
with Debbie Caffrey - Debbie's
Creative Moments, Inc.
How many times have you heard someone say, "I'm
just not good with color!"? When I hear that, my
first thought is, "I'll bet they can name the primary colors,
the colors in the rainbow, and they would know how to mix paints
in the primary colors to make orange, green, or purple!" This is what color is! It's just that simple.
Now, I didn't say that fabric selection is that basic! My approach
to teaching color confidence and fabric selection avoids overwhelming
the quilters with technical terms. Instead, it is more like identifying
what it is that attracts the quilter, and how to achieve that
result. I have outlined those things that I emphasize to my students.
Below are the items that I refer to as the tools.
Everyone knows the concept of a color wheel,
the primary colors, and how to mix them to create the secondary
colors of green, orange, and violet. Convince your students that
they know more about color than they realize. What they need is
the skill to employ this knowledge.
Most anything goes with color combinations. They can be monochrome
(all one color), analogous (colors next to each other on the color
wheel), contrasting (colors across from each other on the color
wheel), or some combination. Tell them to just learn the concepts,
what to look at when reviewing a fabric grouping, and not to overly
concern themselves with technical terms.
• Monochrome - Basically, this is different
values of one color.
• Contrasting - Examples of contrasting
colors are: red & green, yellow & purple, and blue &
orange.
• Analogous - An example of an analogous
color scheme (colors that are next to each other on the color
wheel) is blue, blue-violet, violet, and red-violet. You can choose
a variation on this by skipping a color between two neighboring
colors, such as, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, and blue-green.
When using this color scheme, try not to have uneven jumps between
colors as you are moving around the color wheel. Make the steps
as uniform as possible. This is not an easy task when you are
working with fabrics. That's where having a great fabric stash
and access to a wonderful quilt shop come in handy. Consider pushing
your analogous color scheme a little more by including the contrasting
color (across the wheel) as a "zinger". In the blue,
blue-violet, violet, & red-violet example, yellow-orange would
be a good choice.
Intensity refers to the pureness and clarity
of the color, like those on the color wheel. The "dusty colors"
are grayed and less intense. Perhaps what a fabric grouping needs
is not a different color, but to replace a fabric with one that
is more or less intense.
The proportion of color has much to do with the
success of a quilt. Analyze a fabric or quilt that you are attracted
to, and consider the proportion of the colors. More discussion
on this is in the section discussing focal fabrics.
The value of your fabrics is the most
important single element in fabric selection! Value is
how light or dark a fabric is. When determining the value of a
print fabric, don't just look at the background. The fact that
a print is on a black background doesn't automatically make it
the darkest fabric in your grouping.
• View your fabrics from a distance. Put them on a design
wall and stand back, or put them at the bottom of a staircase
and view them from the top.
• Squint or remove your glasses. This may blur the pattern
enough to read a fabric's value. Another thing you may try is
looking through a camera lens, a peep hole for doors (can be found
at hardware stores& is easy to carry to class), a reducing
glass, or backwards through a pair of binoculars.
• Make a Xerox copy of the actual fabrics. The black and
white image removes the confusion of color and lets you focus
on only the value.
Use your values to create quilts with high contrast (those with
a big difference between your lightest and darkest fabrics), low
contrast (those with little difference between the lightest and
darkest fabrics), or that use a gradation of values to create
movement. This is not something that must be either ... or. With
effort and experience you can combine these concepts into one
visually exciting quilt that makes the viewer's eyes move around
the quilt.
Add visual texture to your
quilt. Have you ever seen a fabric that looks like it should feel
fuzzy or bumpy? Other things to consider when selecting fabrics
for visual texture are: Scale (size of the printed figure); spacing
(distance between the figures); style (floral, geometric, novelty
prints, tone on tone, etc.). Consider how you'll treat directional
fabrics (Ignore their designs or fuss with them.) Be careful with
your use of solids. The use of one or two solid fabrics may draw
too much attention to those pieces and lessen the impact of the
overall design.
Consider the lighting
when making your fabric selections. Will the quilt be used in
a office where there's fluorescent lighting, in a bedroom with
soft lighting, in a family room with southern exposure, etc.?
Perhaps you'd like to make your fabric selection in that lighting.
Fabrics look much warmer in natural light. Your value contrasts
may need to be stronger if the lighting is lower.
So far I've spoken about the tools
or skills that will help you select fabrics, but now I'd like
to give you some more "hands on" ways for using them
and teaching others to select fabrics. One way is to use what
I call safe color schemes. This is how I design
my mystery quilts. They are practically "no fail", as
long as you remember to use your basic tools - intensity,
proportion, value & contrast (high, low, gradation,
or a combination), and visual texture.
• Traditional - Choose the indigo &
white; red & white; red, white & blue; etc. color schemes
that are always successful.
• Theme - Choose a theme for your fabrics.
Some examples are: primary colors, jewel tones, seasonal (fall,
Halloween, Christmas), Victorian, tropical, plaid, etc. This list
could go on forever.
• Interior decorating or "dressing your quilt"
- Decorators often use the "rule of three" and choose
one floral, one geometric, and a solid. I call this "dressing
your quit" or, in other words, choosing your fabrics like
you would select clothes to wear.
• Control background - Any fabrics can
be used together in a quilt as long as you use a control background
fabric to "float" them.
Probably the easiest way to approach fabric selection is with
a focus fabric. When
helping a beginner choose fabrics for class, suggest that she
start by finding a fabric she likes. Help her analyze why she
likes it. What colors does she like in it? Note the proportion
of the colors. Stretch
when you begin to select fabrics. Avoid the tendency to
overmatch the colors! Maybe she likes the print,
but wants her quilt to have peach accents and not the pink she
sees when she puts her nose on the bolt. Pull the peach fabric,
place it next to the focus fabric, and tell her to take a step
back to view the fabrics. Often that pink will now read like the
peach fabric she desires. Don't overmatch the value and intensity.
The quilt usually needs a fabric that has more or less punch than
an exact match.
Once you have that focus fabric begin
brainstorming. Pull any fabric that might be
considered. Don't make any final decisions until you've pulled
many (dozens, perhaps) fabrics, preferably from several color
families. Arrange and rearrange the bolts, studying how the fabrics
look when placed next to a different fabric. Expose larger amounts
of fabrics that will be used often or in larger pieces and smaller
amounts of those that will be used sparingly. If your shop has
fat quarters, use them for this "fabric audition". It's
much easier for the quilter to visualize how the pieces will appear
when cut.
Begin fine tuning by
paring down the fabrics to the number needed for the quilt. Your
quilters will be amazed at how working from many fabrics, back
toward the necessary number of fabrics, is so much simpler than
working from a few and rejecting each new one you audition. Tell
them to reject any fabric that they really don't like. Don't force
it! Are you having trouble making a decision between two or more
different fabrics of the same color? Why use one when three will
do the job? Using several will probably add more visual texture
and interest. Don't be surprised if one of the fabrics that gets
dismissed from the collection happens to be the original focus
fabric! It has done its job and created a wonderful fabric palette,
but somehow, it no longer has a role to play in the quilt. That's
okay!
Does the quilt require a background? Perhaps it's best to choose
it near the end. Select one to show off your fabric palette at
its best. Don't choose a directional print unless you are prepared
to ignore its design or fuss with it.
One of my best pieces of advice for fabric selection comes from
an eighth grade English teacher. She was asked why she spent more
than ten weeks teaching students to diagram sentences. After all,
literary and grammatical rules are broken all the time to create
impact. Mrs. Finley promptly replied, "You have to know the
rules in order to break them!" I have found the same in fabric
selection for quilts. Knowing how and why fabrics behave as they
do, allows you to break the rules and create a more exciting quilt
in the end.
If you have chosen a "safe" color scheme, and have gathered
all of the perfect fabrics to accomplish that, you're now ready
to do what Roberta Horton suggests. "Go in and mess it up
a bit!" Have some fun, and add your personality to
the quilt!
|
View Cart