Storque articles by jenlo262

Color Schemes for Everyday Living

2008-02-01T17:12:00-05:00

Here we are in the middle of the town of Dullsville, state of Winter (at least those of us in the northern hemisphere!). Why not spruce up your home? In her last article about color and creativity, jenlo262 gives us the info we should have in the backs of our minds when redesigning our living spaces.

Let’s face it. Color makes the room. As a painter, I love using color in my artwork. Not being an interior decorator, however, I know that choosing the right color for your room can be daunting. But when you find the right combination of colors you can make any room come to life.

When making color choices it is important to first know your room and what you want to convey. Colors can convey many emotions not only in the colors themselves but also by their shape or size. We have different emotional responses to warm colors verses cool colors and to hard edged shapes verses natural organic shapes. It’s also important to consider shades and tints of color (darker verses lighter). Darker colors tend to make a room seem smaller while lighter colors tend to open up a room. Once you know what you want your room to say, it’s time to start thinking about the right colors!

To begin understanding color, it’s important to know the basic color wheel (check out my previous post here). It will help you find your color complements (e.g. orange and blue) and analogous colors (colors next to each other on the color wheel). Warm colors tend to conjure feelings of a sunny and also active environment. Cool colors can convey a clean, airy, and calming environment. For example, red (a warm color) tends to elicit a stronger emotional response than blue (a cool color) which tends to sooth. Traditionally warm colors are considered to include red, orange, yellow and yellow-green. Cool colors are considered green-blue, blue, and purple. White and black can be considered as neutrals, but I’ve found that adding white (tinting) a color tends to make it cooler. I find a pure yellow to be much warmer than a lighter lemon yellow. The warmth of a color can also be affected by its surrounding colors, especially with the purples and greens.

To create my color schemes, I favor using a triadic color scheme approach — picking three analogous colors and accenting with a complement. For example, yellow-orange, yellow, and yellow-green can be combined with purple accents for a triadic color scheme. (For information on other color scheme approaches, check out Tiger Color.)

A variation of this color scheme is fitting for one of my favorite rooms — the living room/reading room. If you are lucky enough to have both as separate rooms, that’s even better!

For me, the living room has always doubled as my cozy reading room. This is the room that I want to feel warm and inviting. I want soft edges, warm colors, and lovely organic shapes. For this room I like yellow-ochre walls with a cream trim, brown and yellow-green accent items, and a scattering of a light red-purple/purple to make the walls appear even more yellow and warmer. Here are some items that fit this scheme:

[notebooks by bluevalentinepress]

[pillow by craftsfromtheheart]

The dining room is another favorite, as this is the family meeting place for meals and games. Since this space can often be smaller and very active, I favor colors that create an open and relaxed environment. I still like to spruce it up with a few bright spots too, and find a beautiful Spring bouquet works well with both of these color schemes.

[bowl by dbabcock]

[woodblock print by VIZArt]

For the bathroom I prefer a feel of cleanliness and order. I want simple lines and cool colors. This is often a good room (due to its size and mirrors which can move color around the room) to have a darker or more vibrant color on an accent wall, with the remaining walls lighter or white. The darker wall is a good place for hanging some art or photos too (making sure they are airtight to prevent moisture from getting inside). I find this is one of the easiest rooms to have fun colorful little items to display too — with colored soaps, bottles of bath salts, bath mats, towels, and more.

[soaps by KristensCosmetics]

[mosaic by studiofresca. At the time this article was published, the fish were, according to studiofresca, "listed as 'on temporary hold' because they are actually on display in galleries on Kauai and I would need to double check that a particular fish is still available before I can commit to sell it."]

When building a color scheme for any room, a favorite quilt, painting, or pottery may be a great place to start too. And who knows, you may find all the colors you want hidden right within that favorite item!

Any favorite color schemes you want to share with us? Post in the comments below!

Shop Makeover Series: Makeover Your Listings with Color

2008-01-22T19:41:00-05:00

For her second post in her color theory series, jenlo262 has some recommendations and examples for sellers undertaking the Shop Makeover series. The following article covers color combinations and theory, as it applies to your listings.

Before you can make a sale, you will need to get buyers to look at your art. There’s no better way to entice the browsing customer to click on your image than by keeping it fresh, interesting, and colorful!

For the first image in your listing, I suggest worrying less about what and more about the wow. It’s not necessarily important to capture the whole complete image of your item as long as you get the basics of the item with some colorful artsy flair. How can color make your item pop? Follow these six tricks for a better image and see how these sellers made it work…

First things first — keep your colors true: Before you start arranging or choosing colors for your background, you will want to make sure you can keep your colors as bright as they can be by building a light box (see Lori's post here). A box will especially help when trying to keep your whites bright — making your item the center of attention. If you can’t build a light box (or your item is too big, keep it natural by using indirect sunlight. For two-dimensional items, scanners work great too if you have one available.

[crochet pattern by anapaulaoli, yarn by OneSheepHill, bracelet by FancyFreeMe ]
Contrast - balancing your lights and darks: Keep your item from blending into your background by using dark colored backgrounds for light items and light backgrounds for dark items. Or mix and match!

[earrings by KiwiTreeBotique, mug by misslo, apron by JoyfulAbode]
A splash of bright color: Keep your listing fresh by increasing your color intensity.

[soap by SudsMuffin, beads by tearose, cuff by NicoleLorentz]
Using your color compliments: Make your item pop by looking across your color wheel for a background color.
[buttons by frombelgiumwithlove, hairpins by thefunkyfelter, clay pendant by Dirtgirlpottery]
Using analogous colors: Invite your viewer into your listing with a lovely combination of similar colors.

[earrings by staroftheeast, face wall pocket by amandamoon, ceramic pendant by leapinglizards's shop]
An artsy background: Finally, give your listing a little artsy flair with an interesting, unusual, or incongruous background and have some fun!

[earrings by executeme, lariat necklace by 12linden, vintage book by whiteelephantvintage, Green Katamari pincushion by ReFabulous]

If you’re still not sure how to spruce up your listing, try just keeping it simple. The tiny little square that makes or breaks whether you get a shopper in your shop can only hold so much. A solid colored background with a quality photo will make a great lead-in to your wonderful works of art.

Comment below with links to your before and after screenshots from your Shop Makeover improvements! Which of the techniques described here helped you out?

Jenlo262 Presents: The Basics of Color Theory

2008-01-16T14:47:00-05:00

When winter is in full swing, there is no better time to consider color! Even in winter, color is everywhere. It jumps out at us from a group of children playing in the snow with their brightly colored hats and scarves, and it falls deep into the background of the soft lavender hills in the distance. It weaves itself throughout our homes, our landscapes, and city streets. But how do we use these colors in our creative processes – be it painting, weaving, sewing, or decorating? How can we make colors come to life in the middle of winter?

The artist’s basic color wheel (which differs from the subtractive wheel used by printers which has magenta, yellow, and cyan as its primary colors) helps us define what we are seeing, and how to make a world of color work for us. The idea behind the color wheel starts with three primary colors (red, blue, yellow) evenly spaced around the wheel. These colors are considered primary because they can not be created by mixing other colors. Historically, for artists, they were considered the building blocks for all other color choices.

As you most likely learned in your kindergarten class using glasses of colored water (although you may have forgotten by now), mixing two primary colors together creates the secondary colors of purple, green, and orange. Then, by looking across the wheel, this establishes your complementary color combinations: red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple. Artists consider these complements to encompass the whole spectrum of colors, since when they are mixed together (e.g. red mixed with green) they produce grey. (Or what we used to call in art class – “mud," at which point we knew it was time to go clean our brushes!)

If you need a little (and I mean little) science to back this up for you, consider the effect of the complementary colors on your eyes (more specifically the cones and rods inside your eyes).

Take 20 seconds to stare at the orange square, and then stare at the white space to the right of it (or a blank white wall or white sheet of paper) for 20 seconds. What do you see?

You are likely to see a faint blue square shape – the complement of orange. If it doesn’t work for you, it works best if you color in a red or orange square with markers on a plain piece of paper, so feel free to try it again. And remember: I said a little science! It’s also fun to note that the faint square your eyes produce is the same shape as the original colored shape at which you were staring. For more information (and another more complex eye test), go here.

But what can these complementary colors do for you? For early artists it was a great way to deceive the viewer. When blue pigment was scarce (i.e. expensive), an artist could make a grey sky look more blue by using an orange color next to the sky. A color complement is just that: it brings out its complement in surrounding colors, making it brighter and more vibrant.

So, if you want those colors to pop off the page, you can place complementary colors next to each other. Or if you want to hint at a color, you can use a complement to bring out color from something more neutral. It is also a great way to help a viewer travel through your painting, your quilt project, or even your room! Watch your eye travel from an orange pillow, to a blue vase, to an orange and blue quilt lying across your favorite chair. Using even a little bit of color complements can brighten any home!

Going further into the color wheel, we can mix primary and secondary colors together to give us a broader range of colors (tertiary colors) from which we can create color schemes – color combinations that work well together (e.g. using colors that are side by side on the wheel with one or two complements).

Another way to do this? Shop by COLOR! Choose two or three colors near each other in the Etsy color chart, and then venture out to find a complement! It’s a great way to look at a variety of colors to find your color scheme and also get to look at the items that go with them. Understanding your color wheel will make the process of finding colors that work together easier, but as you create your color combinations for your painting, your room, your afghan project, and more, it is important to realize that there are other factors at play as well (lights and darks, warms and cools, the emotions of color – more on that later). However, understanding your color wheel will be a great start to any project!

Look for the next installment in Jenlo262's series on color theory, coming soon!