At our annual Design Camp for quiltmakers last week, students were assigned a painting. Using our scrap bins, they were asked to assemble in one hour the palette that the painter used in the piece. The goal of this exercise was to have students analyze just how many colors and in what proportion they were used. We also hoped that students would be able to differentiate between liking a color on a bolt of fabric and appreciating a single color can add to a quilt, even if it doesn’t look so appealing on the bolt. You don’t need to want a dress out of it, you just need to realize how much 4” of it might add to a quilt.
Many of the students expressed astonishment that they never even noticed some of the colors in the paintings until they had to stare at them for a long time. All of the students said that they learned a great deal from this exercise and it broadened the palette from which they will work in the future. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, what a fascinating exercise. So often we look without seeing.
here is a really great interactive website to explore the concept. just when you think you are going in circles, you realize that there is a whole other spectrum that you stumble upon. go see what there is to see!
http://interact10ways.com/usa/information_interactive.htm
That’s a really fabulous idea, have never thought of it before but will definitely use that technique.
Yes – That does look like a really valuable exercise — and fun too. I can see a whole series of little quilts inspired by the palettes of the great ones!
Oooooh. I love this idea.
This is a valuable exercise, but something more to consider is the color quality of the reproduction you are using. Good to try and see all the colors that make up a great picture and how a little of something or something kind of icky on its own makes a big difference to the whole, but keep in the back of your mind a healthy skepticism about the colors that are in the reproduction. If your intuition tells you the colors don’t quite go together or aren’t rich enough, trust yourself because the reproduction could be quite off.
A fun experiment might be if you have a big museum near by, find an art book picture of a picture in the museum or print one on your printer off the Internet and go compare the real thing to your reproduction. It might cause you in the future to use the reproduction as a reference but make your palette much richer.
oh-that looks like so much fun. it’s the answer to the missing color!