A Celebration Of Color - January

The start of 2011 begins a year long celebration, if you will, and exploration of the color wheel. As you may have guessed by now, color makes me happy. VERY HAPPY! I'm always stumped when my boys try to nail me down and ask me favorite color, because the truth is, they all are. As a fiber artist, just like any other type of artistry, it's easy to get stuck in a rut. I was feeling a bit "stuck" this past fall, and decided I was going to spend this coming year studying. Playing with a variety of color combinations, and exploring each colors beauty unto itself.

I have gathered a few tools to help me along the way and will share them with you over the coming year. One of which is the 3-in-1 Color Tool (image to the right). This is printed by C&T Publishing, and it's a great tool for someone who is always dabbling in color. Whether it be with yarn, roving, fabric or paper.

To begin, let me share with you a bit of information to pave the way for our studies. There are 3 primary colors in our color wheel. Colors that most accurately reflect the colors of our world. The blending of our 3 primary colors, offers up limitless possibilities in new color. Add in white, black and grey, and it's sheer magic.

Each color on our color wheel can be categorized within 4 different categories:
Pure Color
Soft Tints - created by adding white to the pure color
Shades - created by adding black to your color
Tones - created by adding grey

A sampling of an experiment with the above would be our colorway Green Mountain. We took a beautiful green and dyed a section of the skein, added a little grey to the green and dyed another section, and added yet another color, black, to the green, to dye the third. GORGEOUS!

During our color wheel studies, we will explore a new color each month, starting with the primary colors of yellow, red and blue. Since January can be so cold, dark and gloomy, we've decided to start with yellow. Yellow is warm, sunny, happy, uplifting.

In the coming months, we will explore shades, tints and tones of each color. Through the year, each color of the month will be offered at a 15% discount in our shop, to encourage you to explore the world of color with us.

In the meantime, we'd love to hear from you. How would you describe yellow?