Thursday, October 30, 2008

Finding the Color Within

Several years ago, I was teaching a workshop called "Finding the Color Within". It consisted of creating a series of personal collages based on specific themes. What does this have to do with weaving, you might ask? I feel many weavers have a hard time with color in general. They discover a few combinations that work and stick with them. Learning color theory is painstaking, but making collages is fun, freeing, and generates lots of ideas that can carry over into weaving.


The other day I came across the folder with the collages I made during that period of time. I scanned a few of them into the computer, but then was unable to create the flipped mirror images of them with photoshop elements (although I knew it was possible)


A geeky friend from NIA stopped by and mirror imaged and flipped one of the collages pictured here in the 4 possible ways to manipulate an image. I really love the look of them and can't decide which one I like the best.


Hopefully my friend will return soon and teach me how to do this myself. I have many collages crying out for photoshop manipulation. It is fascinating to me seeing these images on the blog.

By the way: the question for the theme of this particular collage---if you could change one thing in your life, what would that be? My answer at the time was: I wanted to change my relationship with my brother. Once I answered the question, I closed my eyes and thought about what colors related to my question. Brown and blue popped into my mind and became the color theme of this collage.

2 comments:

Leigh said...

Interesting post, Bonnie. I agree that color theory alone isn't the easiest way to develop color schemes. Your idea is definitely one to try.

Anonymous said...

Early on in learning to weave, I took a class in which we wove a color study. It has been so useful to me and hangs on the wall next to my loom. The question you posed has started the wheels turning too! Always enjoy and learn from your posts, Bonnie.