Colour, Colour, Colour

My hand-dyed colour wheel samples are nearly done.

I ran out of space in my small kitchen before I'd mixed up the purples. I left those until last, since I'd had a good dose of that colour spectrum recently. This morning I tackled the washing up from recent meals and colour experiments--in separate sinks. Then I mixed up the dyes for my purples and popped them into the microwave. They're developing as I type and will be ready to rinse later today. I also did samples of different dilutions to achieve a spectrum of different tints for each of my primary colours. So my next task is to mix up some different shades using my landscape Currawong dye. The trick is to use a small enough dose of the black to see subtle differences.

Look and Learn

I'm following up on the couple of colour studies I mentioned yesterday. I've pulled out the dyes for my primary colours and am busy dyeing small samples in a range of dilutions. Meanwhile I've been spinning my blue-green multimarle tops. It's cold and blustery in Melbourne this morning. My spinning chair faces out my front window. There's lots of time to think while my hands are busy, or to just stare out the window as the case may be. Sometimes I'm not sure which one I'm doing. My silver princess gum tree is right there in front of the window. Normally I think of this tree in terms of its spectacular flowers, interesting shape and lovely silver bark, but now I'm thinking about browns and looks what's there.

This is the older bark--revealed when the silver bark peels back on the lower parts of the trunk. There's so much there--browns, golds, greens, orange. I think I'll print out this picture and look more closely before I pick out some more dyes to play with. And I think I'll wear my warmest gear when I head out for my sewing class in a few minutes. It's seriously cold out there. Just as well it was the base of the trunk I wanted to photograph. The rest of the tree is whipping about in the wind. I would have snapped a blur of branches if I'd tried for anything higher up the tree. 

Marine Multi-Marle

This blog has recently been dominated by pink-purple tones. The blue-green range is another favourite of mine. This morning, while some of the pink-purple yarns were soaking and rinsing. I mixed up this multi-marle combination on my big table.

This time I have eight different colours, though it is hard to distinguish them all in the picture.

On my colour-to-do list is a hand-dyed wool colour wheel for reference purposes. I'd also like to challenge myself to do an interesting brown colour-way. I'm not immediately attracted to the natural colours, but they don't have to be dull. 

Colour Choices

I always look forward to that stage in a course when the teacher says, "now choose something you like"! It came on Friday afternoon in our Colour Theory class. The invitation to choose was even more welcome by the time I'd slogged through a couple of hours of homework yesterday. I've done a fair bit of colour theory and colour mixing in the past, so I decided to base several of the colour mixing exercises on a colour I don't like. I chose an orange as my key colour and developed complementary, split complementary and analagous colour schemes around it.

Then it was time for the Happy Homework: choose a photo you like because of it's colour combinations. I decided to sift through photos from a few years ago rather than choose something recent. I also decided to choose something I haven't already got on display in my home. I wanted to come to it fresh.

Of course I don't know what we're going to be asked to do with the picture we bring, but for now I'm satisfied with just enjoying the colours.

Child's Play?

I've spent a fair bit of time and energy on colour in the past few weeks: getting hold of just the right tube of paint; blending and adjusting to make a balanced mixture; carefully keeping my jar of rinsing water and brushes clean . . . Now I've been seized by a contrary spirit. I decided to buy the cheapest set of primary colours in the kids' craft section of a clearance warehouse. A quick circle on white paper, a jar of water and a paintbrush and the "primary" experiment was ready to go: I started with yellow--nice! Red was next: the name on the tube is "scarlet". That gave me the predicted bright red. So far, so good. Mixing the red and yellow gave me a clear orange. Now blue. It seemed to be a pretty good match to the colour stipulated for my adult art class. Mixing blue and yellow gave me a green which would happily serve as grass in a child's masterpiece. OK here's the catch. Blue and red make purple, right? Not here they don't. All I could manage was grey. Any amount of red and blue I tried had the same sort of result. I can only imagine the disappointment of a child feeling as if they've failed the art lesson. From my adult perspective I'll be glad to include this little experiment in my lesson on tertiary colours. There's evidently a fair bit of yellow in both the red and blue paints. So blending the two is really like blending the three primary colours: blue, red and yellow. My colour theory tells me that should make grey-black. Pretty much right!

Having got that out of my system, it's back to the assigned homework: mixing tertiary colours and stitching tints and shades of primaries. But first, I think another coffee and perhaps a little chocolate to help me regain my equilibrium.

More Coloured Threads

I've been stitching away at my colour blending samples. I'm doing both on a white background, so I've taken a quick snap of the thread scraps on a black background. I'm amazed at how much thread I've used on what are really quite small samples. I'll have to go off to the haberdashery department again today and buy a few more skeins. I think that this week's class will involve more colour blending. Our paint mixing this week was working on shades and tints, so I guess that's what I'll be stitching next week.

I managed to pick up a darning foot for my sewing machine at a ridiculously cheap price--another $1 bargain. If this week's homework is anything to go by, I can see myself wanting to learn the basics of machine embroidery, even if it's just to produce samples more efficiently. Then again, I can only imagine how that would open up another whole new world of possibilities . . .

Colour Blending

I spent a long afternoon mixing paint samples on the weekend. I was working to complete my colour mixing exercises. I'll admit it, the job could have been done more quickly, but I kept trying for just that bit more: shading, blending, subtlety, precision . . .

I could happily spend another day on that task, but first I've turned my attention to the stitch part of the process. My task is to create the appearance of secondary colours using primary colours on a white or black background. I'm limited to using six-stranded embroidery cotton and seed stitch. It's certainly more challenging than mixing paint. I decided to use the macro lens for this pic, even though having it out of focus would have enhanced the appearance of blending. One thing is clear, even though I'm less than satisfied with this first attempt, I'm not about to just have another go at it. There's too much concentration, time and effort involved and I still have a running stitch sample to do. I'm hoping the blend will be easier to achieve the second time round. The process is to substitute one of the six strands of the embroidery cotton at a time--still using only the primary colours.

Work in Progress

One of my homework tasks for my Colour Theory subject is to construct a colour wheel using snippets of colour taken from a magazine. I began flipping through pages and snipping out colour fragments on the weekend. Yesterday morning I did some more snipping and then started to stick things down. I've been using "Royal Auto" as my source: lots of landscape pics, cars, and ads of various kinds. Purples are rather thin on the ground and the gradations between colours are harder to find than I'd expected. I think I'll try to get hold of a different type of magazine and see whether that helps to fill in some of the gaps. As an exercise it's been enlightening and I can see my sensitivity to colour developing through it. Another homework task is to paint a colour wheel by mixing primary colours of paint. I think I'll tackle that one tomorrow.

Not Pink

My red merino and white tencel fibre sat patiently on the table until yesterday afternoon. It was hard to ignore its brightness, but I had a few other tasks demanding my attention, so it just had to wait. Late yesterday afternoon I got to carding it. I wondered how the red and white would combine--it was 70% red merino and 30% white tencel by weight. Initially that looked like a fair bit of white to mix with the red, but here's how it looked carded: Definitely still red and white, not pink. I'm glad to say I kept up the momentum and got through the spinning and plying before bedtime. The skein is washed and hanging on my rack to dry. Now to get my folio in order and handed in. My spinning wheel is conspicuously vacant! It's so tempting to launch in on something new, but I'm going to discipline myself to do a bit each day on sorting and presenting the work I've done. Then I can really heave that sigh of relief.

Carded Colour Wheel

The carded colour wheel from last weekend has been occupying my table all week. It's been a perfect task for those in between moments in the day. After the colour mixing, the next task was to spin the fibre on my drop spindle. Then I wound it off onto little cardboard bobbins--the ones made for embroidery floss that I seem to use for all sorts of other handy little jobs. I finished that off this morning.

Now to arrange them so I can keep all this colour for future reference:

I glued down the little bobbins onto a page of black card--I ended up trimming the excess white cardboard so it would all fit nicely. I still had a bit of carded fibre left over and I'm not in the mood for more mixing today. I'd like to tick this task off the list--much as I've enjoyed it--so I've arranged some of the excess fibre in the middle of the circle. It will be good to be able to see the difference between how it looks before and after being spun.

The glue for the outer circle is drying as I type. When that's secure I'll glue down the rest. I don't want to be worrying about bumping things out of position. Then I can clear off that section of my table and decide on my next project.

More Colour

I was exhausted yesterday, but not too exhausted to enjoy consolidating my learning from the day before. I spent several happy hours pasting up the samples from my design board and adding a few other yarns out of my stash. I was so pleased with the process that I didn't want to put the board away. So it's leaning up against my wall where I can see it from my armchair. I realised as I was pasting it all up that there is not a scrap of blue to be seen on the entire board--that has got to be a first for me! The lesson of mixing with black was also reinforced as I mixed up a dyepot of landscape "wattle" with just a crumb of "currawong" and dyed up 30g of silky mohair which I'd spun up a few days ago. More on that later--it's drying as we speak.

The colour wheel was next. I started to spin up the colour swatches on one of my drop spindles. That gives me a double benefit: the more I handle the fibre, the more I learn from it; plus the colour is more intense and appears better blended when spun. It was my fellow student, M's idea to use the drop spindle--good one! It handles the tiny quantities easily and saves me occupying yet another bobbin with an unfinished sample. It also makes it easy to just do a bit more every now and then.

As you can see, I'm about 2/3 of the way through the samples. I had plenty of fibre in each sample, so I've saved a bit to take an extra step. I want to blend another set of in between colours--so doubling the number of steps in my colour wheel. I have visions of doing some more blending again, but I won't commit to that until I've got this lot finished. I guess that means it's time to leave the computer and head back to the fibre. Colour is just so good for me!

Design Workshop

I found yesterday's workshop at the Guild very worthwhile. The day started with a couple of inconveniences--I took my wheel along, on the bus and tram, only to find it wasn't needed. And my choice of pictures--which was very much needed--had been left at home. Oh well, sigh; take a deep breath and dive into the workshop.

We spent the morning blending coloured tops for a colour wheel--I can never have too many colour wheels. The next exercise was blending and matching colours from a marvelous coral reef photo.

In the afternoon we created a design board. We used it as a source to blend colours and textures to use as inspiration for creating yarns. Since I'd left my pictures at home, I chose some more from T's box of magazines. I stuck with my personal challenge to go outside my usual palette: I worked on mixing three colours--

• the deep dark brown of the lizard's belly: red and black with a hint of yellow;
• the olive green at the top left of the pic: citrus yellow and black--unexpected!
• and the burnt orange of the fried dumplings on the lower right: more red, yellow and black.

For someone who has tended to avoid using black in colour mixing, it was an enlightening experience. I bought a jar of black (Currawong) landscape dye before I went home to reinforce the lesson.

As often happens, by the time I was packing up to go home, my stuff appeared to have multiplied exponentially. T was kind enough to give me a ride home. As a bonus, we got to have a quick coffee and chat. I'm afraid I talked her ear off--it's been too long since we caught up. So, all in all a very worthwhile day. Today I'm exhausted and there's even more stuff on my table to be dealt with. Was it only last week I managed to get it all cleared!

Green, Green, Green and more Green!

Happy St Patrick's Day! I didn't plan it that way, but when I heard comments on the radio about Green and Irish music this morning, I thought it was a great coincidence.

Yep, I mixed up three more versions of Green yesterday and here they are: I suspect the differences won't show too well on the screen, but for your info, I added:

• marine blue and a bit of citrus yellow to one batch;
• just citrus yellow to the second batch
• just golden yellow (chamomile) to the third
• and the fourth piece I left alone.

I didn't label my experiments. I wasn't really trying to be scientific, but wanted to give myself some more options. I'm surprised at how little difference the over-dyeing made. Then again it was a printed fabric, which I'd already over-dyed once. I think I'll go with the version in the upper right hand corner. It has the green I want, plus enough of the yellowy-gold colour to pick up what's already in the quilt.

As for yesterday's other fabric, I'm having visions of bush scenes, and I've also got a collection of wild animal fabrics . . . stay tuned.

Purples

Here are five of the little skeins I dyed on Saturday: These are the clearest purples in the set. They were made by mixing marine blue with magenta in increasing proportions. For the other three colour runs I used turquoise and/or scarlet as the primary colours.

Yesterday I mixed up some earthy oranges and yellows in the dye pot. Those skeins are on the line drying. Today, I need to do some tidying up--never as much fun as creating, but essential.

The Colour of Mud

Remember playing with paints as a child? Remember being bitterly dissapointed when mixing yellow with blue gave you a yucky muddy colour instead of the lovely bright green you had in mind? This is the dark side of colour mixing.

This bucket is full of the rinsing water from my last colour runs. The towel is the one I've used to clean up spills.
Red plus blue plus yellow makes BLACK! That's the theory. In real life you don't get a lovely dark glossy black though. It's usually an imperfect muddy black because the proportions of the primary colours aren't quite right. So what?

• The good news is that if you want a subtle shadowy effect, you can get it by mixing colours that are not pure primaries--that's why the green in the your paint pot turned out muddy all those years ago.
• The bad news is that you need to be careful in combining colours. What looks like a lovely contrast can turn into a muddy mess once the different colours are mixed together.

Green, Green, Green

I turned the page on my calendar after posting yesterday and found . . . more green!

I had some white wool spun up all ready for the dye pot, so I decided on an immediate response. After lunch I blended up some colours while I got on with some spinning. This morning I have this to show:I spent the morning working on the damask pick up design--I'm just past half way now--so it was great to have some spontaneity to cheer up my afternoon.

Harmony Wool Tops

Here are the wool tops I dyed in response to the Harmony Day roses:I've done 1oo g of each. It's a while since I did any spinning straight from my hand-dyed tops, so I think I'll do 50 g of each just as they are. That will leave me 50 g of each to play with. I can mix them in different proportions. Then I'll have four different, but closely related skeins of wool. Sounds like a plan.

Morning After a Dyeing Day

On my drying rack this morning--the results of yesterday's work. I dyed half a dozen skeins in between all the other bits and pieces of the day:

From left to right:

• the purple multi-brew, full strength;
• the same pot, after the first skein was done, plus a bit of extra pink;
• the next three skeins were in the same dye pot with a blue-green-yellow colour combo;
• the last skein is from the green pot, when the other three skeins were done, plus a bit more sage green

With spinning, quilting, lesson planning and dyeing going on, I was doing a fair bit of running around! When it came to lunch time the kitchen was full of dyepots with rinse water in both sinks plus a bucket on the floor. . . I ate toast:)

Fresh from the Pot

I've got a severe case of multi-tasking going today. Spinning and dyeing yarn, while finalising my notes and lesson plan for tonight's quilting class. This skein of yarn just came out of the pot: I love the depth and variation--there are five different coloured dyes in there. Now I've got a pastel shade brewing in that pot with a bit of extra pink thrown in to liven it up.

. . . oops, before my safety conscious friends start sending me messages about the fact that I'm not wearing gloves, this is actually the second rinse--see how clear the water is.

Silver Princess Blended Merino Skeins

Here's the kind of thing I have in mind when I say, "these are my Australian Colour selections for today":
These are Silver Princess colour blends I did last year. The Silver Princess is one of my favourite trees and I have a collection of photos I've taken of the tree itself and its flowers. I've made the photos up into a poster for my wall. Then I've used that as inspiration for some merino multi-marle colour blends. I choose a variety of related colours and mix the colours as I spin. This gives me a colour blend that is textured and vibrant. It's quite different from what I can achieve with my dyepot.