It was fun to read the comments that came in during the day yesterday.
I decided that I would photograph the shirt, vest and necklace with the various colors so we could all see what I had in mind.
GAIL the right answers! Although maybe "right" isn't the proper term. Her answers matched mine:
Hot pink!
Tangerine orange!
Grass green! In this, Gail got had a suggestion that was better.
My own answer was limey yellow green, as in this example, but as soon as I set it down I realized it was too light. It needed to be darker. Grassy green was better. You go, Gail!
Kathy suggested Navy blue and a golden yellow. Not at all the colors I had in mind. To make this successful you'd have to carefully balance the navy blue and the red violet. They are too close in value. But the colors are good together.
Sewing Up A Storm suggested a darker turquoise, the right shade of brown and a lighter shade of red violet. Those are simply darker versions of what is already here. To my mind it is missing something. She also suggested green and red orange.
Judy in Michigan suggested Red. That would work. She also suggested lime green and purple.
Mari suggested blue-violet. A lovely combination, to be sure, but again, for me this lacks a spark to tie it all together.
We've been talking solid colors here, which I never use, but this fabric shows you that many designers have already made those pesky color decisions for you. Even if you DON'T like this particular fabric, you can see a collection of colors that clearly work together. The important thing is the PROPORTION. The red orange in this print is only an accent, and should be kept that way, or you have to rearrange the proportions of all the other colors.
The original question yesterday asked about three colors that could make the combination "kick ass". When I wrote the post, I thought the lime green would be the answer, but as you can see above, it's just too pale. The pink (which if you all remember is simply a LIGHT red-violet) was good, but DAMN, the red orange was the one that in my opinion raises the bar, and emphasizes the Hot-Cold contrast between the greenish blue of the necklace and the orange. In this example, the red violet, yellow and red-orange are warm, and the greenish blue is cold.
This is where color theory goes to hell. Theory tells you what OUGHT to work, but placing your fabrics next to each other SHOWS you what will. So when you are planning, PLEASE put the fabrics next to each other. Because you really don't know until you try.
4 comments:
Somehow I missed the post from yesterday, but enjoy today's with all the colors. If only I had such great cokor fabrics as you, it would be heavenly. Thanks for the color motivation.
And that's one of the big differences in the way we work - you KNOW what the color combinations SHOULD be while I mess around auditioning combinations until I hit on one that makes me grin (which in this case would have been the green print in the next to the last photo). GREAT illustration post on why what we think and what we see are not always the same.
I had distractions yesterday, so didn't get to play along, so I'll vote on results instead. I *love* that pattern fabric in the combination. It has just a bit of the turquoise and yellow to tie in, and enough orange & hot pink to wake it all up, and the greens make a good middle value to tie it all in.
Next is the tangerine orange, i think - it looks more red on my monitor. The grassy green is good. The rest seem to fade away or blend into the other colors. They are probably far different in person.
Thanks for the great color instruction! With the help of the color wheel, I did get 2 of the 3, and had magenta for the third which is close. I didn't realize you classify colors with 3 colors that make it up. I would love more color information!!
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