Tag: polymer magazine | The Weekly Polymer Arts Blog

Tactile Allure

September 20, 2020 Design lessons, Inspirational Art, The Polymer Arts magazine news

Melanie West’s satiny smooth finish has a heavanly tactile texture even though many people might think of her pieces as being textured because they’re so smooth. Yet smooth is actually one of world’s most loved textures.

How often do you touch art?

No, I don’t mean being the unruly museum visitor who gets yelled at by the docent, but in your everyday life, how many things do you touch that you would also consider art?

Works in the applied arts, which encompass decorative art, adornment, and functional objects, are often things that we touch. Because of this, the tactile texture of most applied art is exceedingly important. Not only can the wrong texture put someone off from buying a piece, but the right texture can make a huge difference between people liking your work due to its visual appeal and being utterly in love with it because it feels so good to touch. It is also another means by which you can express your intention.

Choosing Tactile

The first time I touched a Melanie West polymer bead, it was like taking a bite of the most heavenly chocolate mousse. Her finishes are flawless and so soft; my fingers just couldn’t get enough. That kind of tactile reaction is golden. It also supports her soft and organic themes. As wonderful as her finishes are, that kind of texture may not be wanted in your work or may not even be possible due to techniques or materials you are using.

The point is that her textures are part of the experience of her work and, if you’re creating things that will be handled, you too should consider the experience of touching your piece as part of its aesthetic value. As always, let your intention drive your decisions, but pay attention to the physical sensation experienced when handling the work and aim to have it support your intention, alongside all your other design decisions.

For instance, if you want to share your love of the beach through your work, think about the physical sensations that stand out the most – the soft breeze on your face, the refreshingly cold water on your feet, and your toes digging into cool sand. Now, how do you translate those physical sensations into tactile texture that will help you share that experience to those who will handle your work?

You can do so by thinking in terms of those adjectives – soft, refreshing, and cool. You probably want those to be the dominant sensations so don’t go for, say, a sandy texture just because the beach has sand. Is a gritty, sandy texture going to convey soft, refreshing, and cool? Chances are, it’s just going to remind someone of getting sand in their shoes and other uncomfortable places. You can create a visually sandy texture that includes sandy colors and a speckled look, but in terms of tactile sensations, going for a soft, maybe matte surface that will feel cool and soothing to the touch will share something closer to the sensations you want to relay.

Felt may have textural limitations but the final texture is still a choice. Olga Demyanova contrast a tight, even texture with the rippling and rougher orange edging and accents in this intriquing handbag.

There are a lot of materials that have limits on the tactile textures available. Polymer clay can replicate most tactile surfaces except for fuzzy, but felted work is limited to that dense and slightly rough feel of matted wool while glass will almost always have a smooth aspect. There are also techniques that create their own texture or limit how you can further manipulate the material to create texture. Learn the range of tactile sensations available in the materials and techniques you use so you know what options you have.

Work that Begs to Be Touched

There are a couple things you can focus on in order to create work that people will love to touch. It primarily involves smoothness and variation.

Smooth Surfaces

Our sense of touch enjoys traveling along a pleasantly smooth substance such as polished metal or stone. But what we like most is softness, such as a fluffy blanket or bunny fur. Softness is a type of smoothness as it allows our skin to glide across, unimpeded.

Note that you can re-create the look of fluffy and furry textures in hard substances such as clay or wood but you can’t re-create the same associated softness because, in those materials, you lose the ability for our fingertips to effortlessly glide across it in the same way due to the unevenness in a hard surface. So, recreating the look of fur doesn’t necessarily re-create the tactile experience. The ‘look’ of fur is just a visual experience.

So, be careful to think of smooth tactile texture, not in the way it looks, but the way it feels.

Klavdija Kurent gives the wearer of her jewelry much to explore with their fingertips.

Variation

Our fingertips were made for receiving information, and lots of it, so they do very much enjoy a variation in texture. However, we don’t normally enjoy variation that is sharp, prickly, scratchy, or sticky. These textures make it hard for our fingers to glide along and take it in, not to mention that they are also often painful.

However, bumps, grooves, and fine lines excite the nerve endings. It’s just like the sense of taste – we aren’t too happy with things that are bland but a lot of flavors that go well together thrills our tongue. Our fingers, likewise, enjoy complexity.

The Best of Both – Smooth and Varied

I think you’ll find that pieces with both a smooth and varied surface attain the pinnacle of touchableness.

Take a look at the pearled bracelet here. It is not even in your presence and you probably still feel a tiny urge to reach out and touch it. That’s because each half pearl has a small, smooth surface which is further aided by the round and unimpeded nature of its shape as well as there being a varied field of them.

The combination of smoothness and variation in this bracelet makes for an engaging texture, adding energy to the piece both in its tactile and visual nature. Note that this also has a bit of rough texture around the edges to provides textural contrast. Because contrast is important in texture too!

The contrast of texture fit well into my intention of showing the classic perfection and allure of pearls in an organic setting. I wanted it to be a subtle reminder of the messy world pearls actually come from even though we now associate them with neat, tidy, and conservative dress.

The Tactile Balancing Act

The textures you choose will dictate limitations in terms of surface treatments and other parts of your design, so you have to balance out your tactile texture choices with your other design choices. For instance, if you create a deep and dense texture on a light color, it’s going to appear darker, which you might not want. Or you may want a very smooth surface but want pattern to raise the energy so you would have to figure out how to incorporate pattern visually with inks, veneers, or other smooth surface applications.It just needs to make sense for your intention and the limitations of material.

If your tactile texture decisions, weighed in light of all the other decisions you have to make about color, shape line, function, etc., are chosen in service of your intention, you are sure to have a beautiful, cohesive, and interestingly touchable design.

Should I Call Them Mini-Mags?

The first week of the Art Boxer Clubs has commenced and one of the first comments about the weekly Pick-Me-Up is that it ought to be described as a mini-mag. I guess it is. It’s hard to take the magazine attitude out of me. There were 5 little articles and a good handful of links for further exploring. So, yeah, maybe it is a mini-mag. I might have to rethink what I call it.

But regardless of what it’s called, joining the club will get you a little extra boost each week and at least once a month, you’ll get a special discount, a first dibs or limited stock offer, and/or a giveaway. And right now you can get in on it with a 2 week free trial and a FOREVER discounted rate.

So, if you enjoy my blog, support this while boosting your own creative endeavors by joining us in the Devotee Club or Success Club (there are only a few spots left in this upgrade to personal coaching option, at least as of my writing this), or buy yourself a good book or an inspiring magazine to curl up with. Just visit the website by clicking here.

No Fires Here

We are still a safe distance from all the fires and the sky has started to clear up from the smoke so nothing too exciting to report from Tenth Muse central. I’ve already gotten started on the next project but I don’t want to say too much about it. It seems like every time I say something, I get jinxed and delayed. So, you’ll just have to stop by and check in with me on the weekends, or read the newsletters, or, if you want to be the first to know, join one of the new Club options as Art Boxers will be the first to know (as well as getting extra discounts … just sayin’.)

I hope you all have a relatively unexciting week yourselves. It’s not like we need much more excitement with the craziness of the world providing plenty already. Just go make beautiful things and be kind and caring to each other.

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

September 13, 2020 Inspirational Art

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!

Same but Different

August 30, 2020 Inspirational Art

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!

Color Scheming

August 23, 2020 Inspirational Art

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!

Hot or Not

August 16, 2020 Uncategorized

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.

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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Formula for Color

August 9, 2020 Inspirational Art

Using both shades and tints of the same cyan-blue, Magdalena Buldak created a color palette that is predominatly monochormatic on the bottom but has the drama it’s complement at the top. Do you see how the cyan-blue leans heavier to cyan than blue? You could also say it’s cyan with a blue bias. Which you chose depends on what colors you have mix with. But being able to identify a hue+bias+tine/shade/tone allows you to see what you would need to mix those colors.

Did you get some practice in mixing and matching colors last week? Those proposed exercises are only the beginning of the possible uses of that formula I gave you: hue + bias + tone, shade, and/or tint =your target color.

The thing about last week’s post is that we talked about matching a color that you found out in the world but the formula also works for creating a color that you want to achieve even without a sample and it will also help you in choosing color palettes. I have limited time this weekend for you so we’ll get to palettes next week but let’s quickly talk about creating colors when you only have an idea of what you want and not a sample to go by.

A lot of times, especially when you are organically creating a palette at your worktable, you are making choices from the premixed materials that you have or you might have some idea of what you want. If you start with a prepackaged color you want and need to choose additional colors, don’t limit yourself to the colors on hand. Consider what would best go with it (and again that would be about palette choices which we will talk about next week but just go with me here) – is the main color you have chosen fully saturated or is it toned down? If you break down the color formula for your main color in the same way, you may discover that it’s not fully saturated or has a strong bias towards blue when you thought it would lean towards magenta or whatever.

Once you’ve broken down your main color, you can more accurately choose a complement, your range of analogous colors, or choose similarly toned down colors so the additions to your color palette don’t seem dramatically brighter.

If you are working with just the idea of a color, start with the hue you believe it would be a part of, look at the color really consider whether it should have a bias of one side or the other and whether it should be lighter, darker, or toned down. Start mixing your best guess and then, knowing what the formula includes, you can change the portion to make it more saturated or brighter, lighter or darker, or toned down more as needed.

The other reason you want to be able look at colors in terms of this formula is because when you put palettes together you’re going to be making them relate based on the details that formula lays out. I know that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense right now but, trust me, looking at colors in terms of that will not only help you mix the colors you want but it will help you pick out color sets that will be more successful and satisfying for your intention.

So, for this week, either continue mixing color based on the formula or get yourself started so that you, ideally, can name the details of a color’s formula in moments. It’s cool to be able to rattle off Hue – Bias – Tint/Shade/Tone at glance. And will make you much more comfortable mixing your own colors as well as pairing them.

Get ready to dive into color choices next week. I think you will be surprised at how easy the method I have for putting together colors really is. So, keep mixing. Yes, it’s always practice, practice, practice. You have to do the work, of course, to gain the skill, but once you have it, it cannot be taken away from you to keep your eye on the prize!

And if any of you had trouble getting to that online mixer game, I know some people were getting error messages, so use this link here.

I’m still in Colorado but leaving to travel back on Tuesday. I’ll be out of touch most of Tuesday and Wednesday but will certainly see you back here next Sunday!

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Ideally Unpredictable Color

August 2, 2020 Inspirational Art

The unpredictable but wonderful nature of color mixing shown with a transparent medium – alcohol ink. By LiquidEyesArt on Instagram.

How do you feel about the predictability of color? Do you think after everything you have learned these past 2 months that you can easily and predictably mix colors? I would guess you feel far more confident but don’t worry if you still feel a little uncertain. The fact is color mixing in the world of pigments will always have a level of uncertainty associated with it. It can be a tad frustrating but that is also part of the beauty of working with color –you learn to work with that uncertainty and embrace the beautiful and unexpected outcomes.

If you’ve been color mixing for any period of time you probably have a few colors that you came upon purely by accident and probably in the process of trying to create a different color. Keep those happy accidents in mind when you’re frustrated with creating the perfect mix of color. Also, if you have at all grasped the concepts we have discussed so far, you are leaps and bounds beyond what most self-taught artists, and even many formally educated artists, are able to do in terms of confident and successful color mixing.

That said, let me introduce you to the basis of this unpredictability so that in your color mixing practices, you will not get frustrated and blame it on a lack of knowledge or understanding. It’s not you. It’s pigment! We will then go on to do an exercise with a very predictable and fun tool. So, stick with me!

It’s Not You, It’s Pigment

If you remember from early last month, the characteristic of color is not easy to define in a kind of absolute manner the way a rock is hard or a liquid is fluid. Color is solely about the way our eyes take in reflected light. All the information we know about the color we are seen comes from the way light is reflected off of surfaces. Because of that, when the material that is reflecting the light changes in its density, transparency, dampness, texture, or whatever, it can change how the light is reflected off of it. That’s why a material can look like one color when it’s dry and something much darker, richer, or more saturated when it’s wet. The dampness changes the physical property of the surface so that changes how much light and what colors are being reflected back.

This is also true when there are differences between the pigments used in your materials. Let’s say you want to make green mixing a yellow and cyan. You can have two yellows that look to be the exact same color from two different brands (and sometimes even from the same brand) but even with mixing each with the exact same batch of cyan, you may very well end up with two different greens. That’s because the pigment in each of those yellows can be different (in the way they disperse or reflect or how dense they are) and so when they are mixed in what you think would be a predictable way, they may be a bit off.

Even though polymer clay is a more predictable medium when color mixing, color mixing tests can reveal surprising results and will allow you to learn a bit more about the vagaries of the brands and colors you work with. This is part of a series of tests Sabine Spiesser shared with me, complete with a grid to layout what was mixed with the base clay color so she could see how each color changed. It’s not always as expected.

Standard opaque polymer clays can be mixed with a fair amount of predictability based on the information you have learned over the past weeks. Mixing with opaque color materials (versus translucent materials like watercolor, inks, or glass) minimizes the differences that might be present in some of the clay’s pigments. I would try to explain this phenomenon but it practically takes a PhD in physics so just trust me that if you work in colored clays, acrylics, pastels or any other nontransparent colored materials you have it relatively easy.

If you do work with transparent such as inks or dyes, you cannot simply look at your colorants and determine how to mix them and get the color you want since concentrated transparent colors look different than when they are diluted or applied to a surface.

You’re probably all familiar with how weird it is to find that the liquid in a bottle of yellow food coloring or yellow alcohol ink is not yellow at all but some version of red to reddish-brown. That’s because the density of the pigment that, when diluted, reflects only yellow light, does not do so when concentrated. It reflects red and a few other colors they give it a deep muddy look. Crazy right? Well, if you have learned anything over the past couple months, you know pigment-based colors are crazy.

So, you could jump in and just mix up some polymer, using what you know to try to develop both simple and complex colors but that could take a lot of time and a lot of clay or paint. So, before you do that, I have a really fun way to test your color mixing skills in an “ideal” process. You have to promise me that you will keep in mind that this is not exactly how it will work with clay or paint (due to pigment strength as we learned last week and pigment variation and quality as I just mentioned), but it will tell you how well you have come to understand the concepts we’ve been learning and gives you way to practice without making a lot of mud.

Test Your Color Mixing Skills

Start by picking at least three relatively complex colors that you will aim to mix. The more colors you do, the better you will get at this but just start with three to begin with. Don’t pick anything too toned down or too muddy quite yet. Identifying hue and tone in khakis and browns can be a bit tricky so it would be best to work with something a little more saturated. I would not go too simple though. You know, don’t pick fully saturated examples of cyan, magenta, and yellow.

You can choose colors from existing objects you have access to, photos, images and magazines or books, color swatches, paint chips or whatever you have at hand, just not preferably something that you have on a digital medium because that is a lot harder to do this particular exercise using a sample from a screen.

Click to get a larger version

Pull out your color wheel or, if you don’t have a color wheel, print one out from the color wheel here. If you are a subscriber to The Polymer Arts, and you have a print edition of the summer 2017 issue on color, there is a color wheel in there you can use. If you don’t have one and can’t print one out you can still do the exercise but it may be a little hard to compare colors as you’ll see.
Hold up your color item/sample to the wheel and find the closest of the 12 hues to the object’s color. Jot down the name of the hue.
Now, identify the color bias. Does the color lean at all to the right or left of the hue you identified? If so, what is the primary or secondary color in that direction. Jot down if you have identified a color bias one way or the other from the hue you started with.
Is the color darker or lighter than the key hue? Make a note if it is darker, lighter, or similar in value than the key hue as identified on the color wheel.
Does the color look toned down, looking slightly muddied or neutral, not necessarily due to it being darkened by black or lightened by white? Note if you think it is toned down by a complementary color.
Now bring this all together: write it out as Hue+ bias +shade/tint+ tone (what color). For instance, an olive green would probably be green + yellow + shade + tone (magenta).

What we’ve done is identify a kind of template for breaking down a color in order to replicate it in color mixing. You could just grab your clay or paint and try to mix according to the recipe although you don’t have proportions yet. That takes practice to learn. And that can end up being a lot of clay or paint. So I have an imperfect but easy alternative for you to just play around with.

Mixing an olive green

At the link below, you will actually be mixing with light since it’s online and so it’s on your screen which only uses light, of course. But it does allow you to apply the concepts you’ve learned very quickly. Just keep in mind, the portions of color you mix here will not be the same you mix with artist materials, Just use this to play with the ideas of color mixing then go to materials after and test your skill there. Here’s the link: https://trycolors.com/

To play this “game,” add portions of color by clicking the colored circle of the color you want to add or use the negative circle below it to take away portions.
Take your little color recipe you identified from your first color and try adding in the primary hue in at least 4 portions then add the bias as one portion and then add the tint or shade and the tone as one portion each. You may not have your exact complement to tone it down with so either use the next closest color or put in one portion of each color that would constitute that complement. For instance, if you needed orange put in a portion of red and portion of yellow. If that is too much you can increase the key hue until you reach the amount it seems to be toned down to.
Play with your proportions until you get close. Try to not just add them in all willy nilly. Ask yourself what you believe will work and if it doesn’t, take those portions back out and try again. You’ll learn more by understanding what exactly you chose that resulted in the various versions of the color you are after. Keep in mind, it might be hard to get it exact on the screen but you are just testing your knowledge.

Did you get close? Was that exciting or frustrating? If it was exciting, analyze and digitally mix your other 2 colors.

If you are a bit frustrated, perhaps you would like to be told whether you’re getting hot or cold. Play their color mixing game and there will be a little percentage counter telling you how close you are to matching the target color. You can choose from Easy, Normal, or Hard versions of the game using the tabs above the color blocks. https://trycolors.com/game/

After playing with this, do go and pick up your clay or paint and try this out with actual pigment. The color concepts for mixing will as you’ve learned it will result in better colors with the materials but the play time online should have really helped you think in terms of proportions, bias and the actual implementation of shade, tint and tone.

The Difference with Dyes: A little side note and bit of trivia

Hand dyed cotton fabric allowed artist allowed artist Janet Kurjan to embed the fabric with color that she could then cut and stitch without fear of it flaking off or cracking as many pigment based colorants might.

For those of you have worked with dyes, you may be wondering why I don’t differentiate between dyes and pigments since they are not technically the same thing although I refer to all this color mixing stuff as pigment based even while including dyes in this conversation. Why? One, because it’s simpler to use one term and I don’t know a better one, but also because the main difference between dyes and pigments is the size of the colorant particles. The smaller than water molecules of dyes can bond with water and so can be absorbed into material along with the water it is dispersed in while much larger pigment particles just float.

That differentiation does not have a significant bearing on what I’m trying to teach you so I don’t differentiate. And, besides, many dyes are processed into larger pigment sized particles to make them easier to work with in a lot of artistic processes. So, when I’m talking pigments, I’m basically talking about anything not included in light (RGB) color mixing theory. Cool?

Entering a Bumpy August

Well, we have flipped into a new month and I am still in Colorado. I have to say that this is one of the roughest things my family has gone through. It’s not that we haven’t had family members die but they tend to do so well into their 80s and 90s, not their early 50s. And we have never lost someone so well loved by everybody. He was one of the truly good guys. You literally couldn’t roast him for anything unless you wanted to complain about how much he cleaned. But I know how pretty much any woman would treasure that! I want to stamp my feet and scream that it’s just not fair. Instead, I tell my husband and my siblings that I love them dozens of times a day and we all are appreciating all we have so much more. The dude is making us all a better person even in his absence.

I do want to thank you all for your sweet notes and kind words. I may have a hard time keeping up with email this coming week so instead of writing me if you were so inclined, just tell the people you appreciate the most how much you treasure them and spread the love around.

This next weekend is our memorial for Jeff. It’s a strange affair with COVID sitting center stage with him in all the arrangements. It has been a very DIY kind of shin dig but luckily two of us in the family are or have been even planners, just not in a pandemic. So, the plans are keeping me busy which means I don’t know if I will be able to get a post out next weekend. I’ll try to find something to keep your color work moving forward or at least inspired, then we will get back to it on the 16^th.

Do all take good care of yourselves and your nearest and dearest and have a bright and colorful week.

Strength in Colors

July 26, 2020 Inspirational Art

Understanding color strength in your materials becomes key to creating even gradations in blends like the one here in a bracelet by Jana Honnerova.

Are any of you having color information withdrawals after nearly 2 weeks since we’ve had the chance to chat about color? I did miss it myself! And I do apologize that I wasn’t able to post anything last week. I had hoped to at least post an explanation for my lack of an article but, unfortunately, it has been a very chaotic time in my family’s world and, honestly, I simply couldn’t focus enough to write. I’ll catch you up on my world at the end of this post for those of you who are interested but let’s talk color a bit first and get back on track.

Math versus Cooking

If you have been reading this blog since early June, you essentially have all the tools to successfully mix colors with control and confidence. At least in an ideal world. What I mean by that ominous statement is that the information you have does provide you with the basis for successful pigment based color mixing but now I am going to challenge you to take ideal information to an erratic and uncertain pigment world.

You see, the information I gave you appears, and in some circumstances is, pretty predictable. It’s practically math since you can, theoretically, determine that if you mix this much of one hue and that much of another hue, add a small portion of white, black, gray, or a complementary color to further tint, shade, or tone it, and you will get a specific predictable color. However, you are working with pigments. That is more like cooking where you work with a generic ingredient list, imprecise measuring tools, and primary components whose flavor and texture are subject to the whims of mother nature.

Our clays, paints, dyes, and inks may not be subject to mother nature but the manufacturing of these artistic ingredients are subject to product changes due to the availability of materials and fluctuations in quality, storage, age, and, of course, brands and lines within those brands. These variations will inevitably affect the characteristics of our color mixing materials.

I could tell you a lot more about the variations in materials and why they affect each other the way they do but I’m not going to do that at this moment. Right now, let’s just experiment with what we’ve learned and with the most dominant issue you run into as a result of these variations – color strength.

Knowing thy Material

One of the most basic things you will need to become familiar with in your materials is that some colors are much stronger than other colors when mixed. What I mean by this is that you can put equal parts of 2 different colors into a mix but when one is stronger than the other, it will dominate the mix and look like you put a lot more of that color in than the other. For instance, in a lot of art materials including polymer clay, darker colors tend to have more pigment and so when mixed with a lighter color, you can readily recognize the darker color but a lighter clay color may have less pigment or a lot of white in it so it gets kind of drowned out. More saturated colors tend to do the same thing, espeically when they are more saturated as well as darker than the other color it is being mixed with.

This is also often true between inexpensive and high-quality brands or lines. The manufactuers of an inexpensive line may use less pigment or poor quality colorants to help keep their costs down so they can offer the materials at a cheaper price. If you mix an inexpensive brand with a high-quality brand, you should not be surprised if you find the high quality one is generally stronger when mixing, espeically in colors of similar color value or saturation.

Getting Your Hands Colorfully Dirty

This week, I’m going to suggest that you try to become familiar with the stronger and weaker colors in your preferred brand and line of materials. This exercise assumes that you’re using opaque material such as clay or paint. The exercises work differently with translucent colors such as dyes and inks, which can get quite complex, so I would suggest you practice with only opaque materials for now. We’ll talk about translucent materials later.

Color Bias Chart

Start by gathering a selection of colors. You can grab three primaries, three secondaries and black and white, or, if you’re ready for it, gather primary pairs based on the color biases we learned about in the last post. For bias pairs, pull 2 versions each of yellow, cyan, magenta. That means you’ll need a yellow that leans towards green and the other leaning towards orange, a cyan leaning towards blue and the other towards green, and a magenta that is more red while the other is more violet. You’ll want black and white as well.
Then prepare your materials for mixing. If you’re using polymer clay, sheet each color in your pasta machine on the same thickness and cut with a single size punch cutter so that each “part” is one punch of clay. If you are working with paint, use approximately the same size daubs of paint and use them directly out of the tube or at least don’t dilute them.
Start with just the black and white. Mix one-part white and one part black together. Mix them completely to get a gray.
Pull out your grayscale or print the one here. (Click on the image to get a large version to print.) Check the resulting gray of your mix against the grayscale here. I’m guessing it’s going to be pretty darn dark instead of a middle gray (5 on my chart). In general, black clay or paint has a ton of pigment which means you probably need a lot of white to make a middle gray.
Try it again but this time use one part black and four parts white. Now, where does that land on the value scale? If it’s still not a middle gray, make another mix, changing the proportions to include more white or more black depending on whether it needs to be lighter or darker to reach a middle gray.
What was the final proportions to get that middle value? Make note of that. Now you’ll have an idea of how much a bit of black can darken a color or how much white you’re going to need to lighten a color. Yes, it will take practice to get something exactly as you want it but just becoming familiar with the strength of your black versus your white will get you there a lot quicker as you move into tinted and shaded color mixes.
Now, choose a yellow and your darkest color (that is not black) from the colors you gathered. It’ll probably be the cyan that leans towards violet or a blue. Do the same thing. Start by mixing the exact same amounts and see which color seems to dominate the mix. Chances are, it will be the darker one, although in some lines, there are some pretty strong yellows and some pretty weak blues. What did you come up with? Adjust your proportions and mix them again until you have a sample where neither one seems to dominate. How much of the weaker color did you need to acheive that?
Finally, mix a set of secondary colors if you gathered primary color biased pairs to work with, or mix tertiary colors if you gathered a set of primary and secondary colors in your materials. (Review this post if needed.) See how much you need of one color versus the other to create a secondary or tertiary color that neither color you mixed with dominates. Make mental or actual notes on which colors dominate a mix.

As you do this, you will begin to become truly familiar with the strength of the colors in your material. This will be absolutely essential when we get down to masterful color mixing. It also will save you a lot of wasted materials, allowing you to mix small amounts that don’t end up being large amounts because you have to keep adding the weaker color to get it where you want. In fact, when you start mixing with unfamiliar colors or a new brand, do this exercise to become quickly familiar with the variations in colors. And if you end up with some really yummy new colors doing these exercises, save the sample and note the proportions so you can mix it for a future project!

Worst Year Ever

2020. Worst … year … ever. I’m just putting that out there. It started with friends getting choked out from the terrible fires in Australia, then there was the pandemic, then the economic fallout, then there were the not new but spotlighted tragedies that led to racial protests and riots, and now, closer to home, my family and I are trying to fathom our own personal tragedy.

Many of you who follow me on Facebook already have heard that we lost an important family member last week–a brother-in-law who my siblings and I grew up with. He was no less than a brother to us and he married the sister I consider my closest confidant. Theirs was the kind of relationship we always said the rest of us aspired to have and they were the two I came to in my darkest days. It just breaks my heart to think of him gone and to watch my sister and her kids as they try to comprehend this loss and rebuild their homelife without him. So, I am here with them in Colorado now, having driven through the night the Wednesday before last when his previously hopeful fight with cancer went suddenly very wrong. Now my siblings and I are just trying to help them ease into this awful new reality, in a world that is already so full of uncertainty and chaos. There is a lot to do. There is a lot to talk through. It has been, and will be, my priority for the next few weeks.

There is not much more to say at this point but I did want you to know why last week got missed and why there might be some irregularities in my posting and the answering of emails. I am still a one-woman business at this time, unable to hire anyone due to changes in California laws, not to mention the pandemic. So, while I do what I can for my family here, I can continue to fill orders and write these posts but timing might be a little off here and there. There is a comfort in the familiarity of writing these articles and dealing with day-to-day business things but there are definitely moments when the circumstances of our lives right now don’t allow for a regular schedule. I know you will forgive me if things get wonky and I thank you ahead of time for your understanding. I believe I will be back in California by mid-August and will figure out my new normal then.

I do hope you all are staying well, safe, and healthy and are caring for each other as best as we can in this crazy year.

So Much Color Bias

July 12, 2020 Inspirational Art

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!

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Stitching it All Together

May 30, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art

Some days we are drawn to things primarily because they seem to reflect our state of mind, our emotions, or the thoughts that are taking up the majority of our time. I think that is the case today. So, what does this pendant have to say about where my thoughts are at?

We are wrapping up the Summer issue which has been taking far longer than usual to get all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. When things do not go as planned, you find ways and tear things down and put them back together until they fit and then you hope you did a good job and that it will all hold. That’s been my past week so it’s no wonder I am drawn to a mosaic piece with what looks like random stitching.

This pendant by Tanya Mayorova has some gorgeous textures and colors and once you stop thinking about the metal wire stitching, you can just get lost in what each little square encompasses. This is also a bit like my mind right now. Lots of things going on, in their separate little boxes in my brain, each with their draw and their importance. I don’t know if these were all scrap pieces or if any were particularly made for this but it’s a great idea to put together pieces of your other work into one. The piece would represent that set of work, where your color palettes lean, and what textures and techniques you have been working on. It would be a three dimensional snap shot of your recent work.

More beautifully stitched together polymer can be found on Tanya’s Flickr photostream, her Live Journal pages, and her Live Master shop

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create the conglomerate piece, a snapshot of your recent work, as described above, in whatever form most appeals to you.

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Swirling Density

May 27, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art

A denseness of elements that forms a texture can obviously be quite beautiful in a random pattern. The randomness gives it a bit of frenetic energy but that doesn’t mean a dense collection of elements can’t be beautiful and energetic when well-organized.

This brooch is one such example. Not only are the elements strictly organized, but they are all organized in the exact same way, with a circular motion lined up next to other lines of beads also following the same swirling motion. This emphasizes the energy of each line. As you know, lines, especially those with unfailing direction, can create a feeling of movement which is where the energy comes from. So as you can see, multiplying lines that are already energized by the sense of motion makes for some very dramatic energy.

The South African cooperative company, Beloved Bead, is credited with this creation, although Anna Richerby looks to be the designer and primary force behind the group of 12 women creating these gorgeous beaded works. There are dozens of variations of this brooch on their website along with many other beautifully designed beaded adornments. The company, collectively owned by the twelve women, also has a strong sense of purpose in both promoting bead art as well as “a keen interest in economic justice” which is represented by the way the company is slowly turning over ownership to all 12 participating women. It’s an interesting idea. You can read more about what Anna is doing with her group on their website and on her blog.

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Organize your elements in strong directional lines. These can be beads or marks or the way can slices are laid out. Try to create an intentional level of energy. If you would like a sophisticated but strong energy, straight horizontal or slightly curved lines will work well while meandering lines will convey a more relaxed energy and diagonal will be strong and highly directional. Every line has a specific type of energy, so play around with this to find what you like.

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Dense Joy

May 25, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art

I guess we are moving from the garden theme to more of a density of texture theme, because what I found for you today, although representative of what you might find in a garden, has me thinking a lot about the crowding of elements. We have all heard that too much of a good thing is bad, but that is hardly true across the board. I have always thought it was more about knowing when to stop, which might not sound so different of an idea, but I think it is the defining point. Eating an entire extra large pizza is too much of a good thing for most of us, but I have a roommate who is too thin and has a doctor constantly begging him to eat more. I have low blood pressure issues so my doctor pushes me to go overboard on salt. Too much is completely relative and comes down to what you need.

In art, the place where you stop putting too much on is going to be determined by the effect you are after. If you want to make something showy then bling it up, but if you want quiet and serene go minimal. In the case of our art today, created by Alice of Liska Flowers on Livemaster, simple, quilling-like forms are densely packed in to create texture and to give this bird a joyfully colorful look. The swirls and whorls give off the impression that the bird will flit off into some aerial acrobatics any moment. Alice really pushes this density of forms, and for pieces like this, the place at which to stop is when the space is completely full!

Alice creates all kinds of creatures with this approach as well as creating polymer flowers. I believe she creates, at least in part, with a Japanese version of Ultralight. See for yourself by flitting off to her Livemaster pages.

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create something extremely simple and minimalistic or something intensely busy. I suggest choosing the extreme that is least like what you usually do.

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Hanging Gardens

May 23, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art

When the Summer 2016 cover of the magazine came out on Wednesday, I interrupted my week of garden goodies to share it with you, but I hope you will put up with one more garden and a couple other earthy treasures this week.

Here is another wearable garden for the desert or xeriscape lover. This was created by Ukraine’s Darya Tarasenko. The wonderful denseness of the texture from the mini clay succulents makes the fact that they are recreations of real plants rather secondary. Or more precisely, the unusual textures is what is most attractive, then you get to looking at the variety of plants and the subtle colors changes and find yourself just smiling. Well, at least that is how it was for me. Now, how did she create that dusty, matte surface so characteristic of succulents? Hmm.

She does these hanging gardens in several variations, creating each one as a custom piece when they are ordered through her Etsy store. She has others with more purple and with different shapes. She lists her primarily sculptural pieces on Etsy and posts them to Instagram and Facebook.

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create texture from variation. Identify something you like to do as part of creating your art … certain marks on the clay, certain types of small beads, a favorite cane … and recreate it. Not just a few times but 20 or 30 or more times. Each time you make that mark or roll that bead, change it just a little so it is still similar but unlike any of the ones you made before. With a favorite mark, you can make it deeper, long, wider, use a different tool, etc. A bead could have a slightly different form, the bead holes could go through them in a different direction, the color/texture/treatment of its surface could be different, etc. Make these variations, then create a piece including as many of them as you can.

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An Idyllic Shell

May 20, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art

Ok, back to looking at the ground for inspiration. I’m finding a lot of fascinating and miniature gardens, but this one is in an unusual vessel, as well. The use of a snail-shell very much matches the idea of a garden, so it seems natural for it to be a tiny garden’s home but … it IS actually a snail-shell. Talk about tiny! I love the little lily pads and the lushness of the greenery. I would love to grab a nap by that little pond.

This beautiful little creation is the work of Germany’s SpankTB. Spank is a female artist, but that is all I could divine from her pages. She is a master of the beautifully tiny in polymer as well as working in illustration. She says something about having created other gardens, but this is all I could find. I am in a bit of a rush today with much to do still to get the Summer issue off to the printer, so if you want to investigate her gallery on Deviant Art or the ones on her website, or even rummage through her photos on Facebook, you are welcome to send me more links and put them in the comments as short cuts for others to enjoy.

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Find two things on your work table, in your supply bins or in that box of incomplete or failed experiments, things that you would not normally put together, and start thinking about what they have in common. If you find that theme or form or concept that connects them, start thinking about how you could represent that in polymer. A snail and a garden pond are connected by being things that might be found at the same place. What can you create that encompasses this new connection you found at your work table?

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Summer 2016 issue Cover … Movement!

May 18, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art, The Polymer Arts magazine news

We interrupt this week’s looking at the ground for inspiration to being you the latest cover of The Polymer Arts magazine!

This issue is not out yet, and although we would usually get this out to you by the end of May, it looks like it will be the first week of June, but we are moving along as quickly as we can while still ensuring you have wonderful quality content and beautiful pages to enjoy.

So, what do we have coming up for you in a few short weeks? Some truly energizing articles! As you can see, the theme is Movement, so we have really fun and dynamic articles for you including …

… Randee Ketzel sharing her beautiful new faux bakelite in a flowing bracelet design.

… Lisa Pavelka shares secrets on using illusion and juxtaposition for dynamic and vibrant color.

… Loretta Lam gets you thinking about how to create visual movement in your compositions.

… I’m sharing a mulit-piece kinetic earring and pendant tutorial set as well as a tutorial on creating balanced mobiles.

… my staff is going to give you some ideas on creating dangles as well as putting together truly wonderful PDF tutorials to sell.

… Shannon Tabor talks us through looking at the big picture to move your business forward.

… Tory Hughes has a fascinating discussion with long time polymer supporter Robert Liu of Ornament magazine.

… Anke Humpert has dug up secrets and plans in her interview with the amazing Georg Dinkel.

… and much more! Sheesh. I need to catch my breath!

While I’m catching my breath and polishing your next issue, enjoy this cover with this intense wall piece by Bonnie Bishoff and J.M Syron. It’s mesmerizing and wholly moving besides being completely enthralling just trying to figure out how it was made. If you need to get your subscription up to date, you can do so on the website at www.thepolymerarts.com/Subscribe.html. I apologize, we don’t have single issue pre-sales yet, but I hope to have the site updated by next week so we can do that.

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Pick up an old copy of The Polymer Arts (or any craft magazine or book) and spend some time with it on your work break, over coffee, or to wind down tonight. Our old magazines and books are a treasure trove of inspiration. Find something you had wanted to try or find yourself wanting to try now, and do it. Make a goal of attempting of accomplishing a new technique, form, or approach by this weekend, no matter how busy you are.

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Wearing a Garden

May 16, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art

Last week we looked to the sky, so this week let’s look at the ground around us. It is Spring for the northern hemisphere and Fall in the south so between budding flowers and falling leaves, the ground should be full of inspiration.

At one time, I created a lot of jewelry that held things …tiny scrolls of paper, essential oils, runes, dried flowers, and the like. I never thought about an entire tiny garden, though! How fun is this? Christina Butler created a series of these in pendants and pins a couple of years ago, but I just found them and am so enamored with the idea. I love that this is not too literal. There is the natural green and variation of plants and then these bowl shapes that simply suggest objects among the foliage, so you fill in the blank. What do you think they are? Abstract flowers? Lichen? Hollowed rocks? It just doesn’t seem to matter that they are not direct representations. Design wise, they are focal points that bring an anchor for the eye as well as being the actual suggestion that this is a garden and not just a bowl full of moss.

Being able to carry a little world around your neck, something you can look at to be reminded of a peaceful place during a hectic day is so enchanting. And I am sure it would enchant everyone the wearer stopped to talk to and more than a few passersby. The surprising tiny world, plus the natural draw we all have to nature, would make such a piece pique just about anyone’s curiosity and need to get a closer look.

Christina has not been active online in the last year, so I’m not sure what she is up to these days, but you can see another version of this garden bowl and other ideas of hers on her Flickr pages.

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Encompass a big world in a tiny space. It doesn’t have to be a garden; it could be a city, a room, a park, or an entire universe. What elements would be essential to include to capture the essence of that space? Create or design a piece that encompasses how you see that space in any fashion you want including with direct imagery or abstract concepts.

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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:

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The Blue Between the Buildings

May 13, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art

Silvia Ortiz de la Torre offered up her vision of a sky on this Fimo 50 World Project tile as one familiar to many people–the small patch of sky seen through a crowding of city skyscrapers. Maybe this is not the sky you most often think of when you envision sky, but for many this is a very common daily view. There is certainly something about seeing that small patch of blue hanging there beyond the reach of these immensely tall buildings that attracts the eye.

As amazing and beautiful as the man-made structures can be, I think most all of us gravitate towards the natural world more strongly. The directional lines of the buildings Silvia outlines make that focus on the sky automatic. And her choice to make that sun both glow in the blue sky and come through the form of a building in a singular burst of red color makes that both the resting point, a place our eye does not feel like it has to bounce around as it is pushed by the strong lines of the buildings, and a focal point. It’s a beautiful and expert composition.

Interested in seeing all the tiles in the Fimo 50 World Project? You can casually go through the submission that were posted on the project’s Facebook page or on Cynthia Tinapple’s Instagram page she set up for it.

Inspiration Challenge of the Day: Create or design something that contrasts man-made with natural. What elements of each are you drawn to? Or consider a favorite natural object or form and recreate it with very clean and structured lines. Or take a man-made form and make it organic looking.

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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:

Following Our Stars

May 11, 2016

Posted in Inspirational Art

The wide open skies of the afternoon desert in the southwest have some serious competition. The stars are so very dense over the unpopulated areas of the United State’s southwest. The density makes for an almost unreal brilliance. All the constellations, the milky way, and the planets you see in photos in museums, in magazines, and on science shows are right there before you.

I think I know the feeling that inspired Venezuela’s MariaEva Ramos to create this series of rings. A night sky filled with stars can draw you in on so many levels. There is the beauty of it, of course, but then there is the realization that you are looking at other planets as large as, or maybe even larger than, our own and you suddenly feel so incredibly small and insignificant. Maybe that feeling is unsettling to some, but I think it is humbling. I think it reduces our stresses and the intensity of problems that seem so large and overwhelming because you realize that, among all of that space, those things are nothing but specs of dust.

MariaEva has a whole series of these star sky rings that can be found on her Flickr page, among other nature-inspired creations.

Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Take a peek outside tonight. What out there catches your eye? It might be the stars or maybe a hazy lamp light. It could be the neighbor silhouetted in a kitchen window or a cat, gently lit, standing street side. Ask yourself how you can translate this to your art work and sketch or create a new design based on this inspiration.

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Like this blog? Lend your support with a purchase of The Polymer Arts magazine and visit our partners:

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Tactile Allure

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

Announcing the new Art Boxer Clubs!

Same but Different

Color Scheming

Hot or Not

Formula for Color

Ideally Unpredictable Color

Strength in Colors

So Much Color Bias

Stitching it All Together

Swirling Density

Dense Joy

Hanging Gardens

An Idyllic Shell

Summer 2016 issue Cover … Movement!

Wearing a Garden

The Blue Between the Buildings

Following Our Stars

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