Colour wheel week

{{ SORRY, this should have appeared earlier in the week and for some reason, it did not... 

As I am still on holiday, I only saw it today. Hope you find it useful...

Izzy ...  }}

Hi,
This week, as part of our "back to basic" month, we are going to talk about colours and particularly how to use the colour wheel.
This is something a lot of crafters struggle with. I have had emails (through the Craft Barn or me personally) asking about colour balance and how to get it right. So hopefully, this week will help you a bit.

If you are one of those who struggle with the choice of colours, the best thing is to use a Colour Wheel. You can find them here on our website. Those wheel or colour guides will help you as they are the perfect aid to selecting, mixing and understanding colours.

In the meantime, the DT will show you samples throughout the week using different colour combinations, sometimes with the same designs/stamps so you can see how different it looks depending on your colour choice.

Here are a few facts about colours

Primary colours (red, yellow and blue) are the 3 basic pigment colours that can not be mixed or formed by any combination of other colours. All other colours are derived from these 3 hues.


Secondary colours (green, orange and purple) are the colours you will get by mixing the primary colours.


Tertiary colours (yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green and yellow-green) are the hues you will get by mixing a primary and a secondary colour.

Now to create something pleasing to the eye, here are a few tips. 

You can use analogous colours, also known as "neighbouring" colours.
They are any three colors which are side by side on a colour wheel. Usually one of the three colors predominates.

You can use complementary colours. Those are any two colors which are directly opposite each other, such as red and green , blue and orange, purple and yellow.

You can use triadic colours. Those colours are evenly spaced around the color wheel. Triadic colour harmonies tend to be quite vibrant so should be carefully balanced. It is best to let one colour dominate and use the two others for accent.


Tones, shades and tints
Those words are often confusing and used incorrectly so here's a bit of help...
A tint is when a colour is made lighter by adding white
A shade is when a colour is made darker by adding black .
And if grey is added, the result is a different tone.

I hope this will help you a bit in understanding colours and being more confident when you create. So why not giving it a go? Take your inks or paints out along with pieces of cards and have a play. You can keep those as swatches for reference (write the brand of ink or paint you have used as well as the name of the colours at the back...).

See you tomorrow