Cindy's Color Chat: Bright with Black and White

"Luck of the Draw" quilted wall hanging Cindy Grisdela

Black and White with bright accents is one of my favorite color combinations. The bright accents give a punch to the black and white base and the black and white base gives the brights a chance to shine without overwhelming. Notice that the brights are mostly saturated primary colors--red, yellow and blue--with some secondary green, pink and orange thrown in. I think this scheme is most successful with this combination, pastels or more subdued values don't have the strength to stand up to the graphic black and white.

"Luck of the Draw," above, was designed improvisationally in sections on a design wall. It has a contemporary feel, even though several elements have been borrowed from traditional quiltmaking, including the black and white sawtooth triangles, the bright four patch squares and triangular prairie points that add dimension to the finished piece.

Let's see how other TAFA artists have handled this idea, some with quilts and some with other media:

Needle felted puff bracelet IntimateForest

"Angular Flowers" Quilted Wall Hanging TerryAskeArtQuilts

"Garden Party" Quilted Wall Hanging DEsignedByDianeEvans

Quilted Snap Bag in Rainbow Stripe SallyManke

Crochet Ring Flower Nothingbutstring

Cindy's Color Chat: Rainbow Crayons

Playing with Crayons II Cindy Grisdela

Happy New Year! In winter, I often choose to work on very bright pieces to counter the gray skies outside. "Playing with Crayons II" above is a rainbow of brights, using the ROYGBIV scale. ROYGBIV is an acronym for the colors of the rainbow--red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. These colors are the visible part of the light spectrum in scientific terms. 

My starting point was the strong yellow diagonal in the center, because I wanted this quilt to really catch the eye. The "warm" colors of red and orange move down to the left and the "cool" colors of green and blue move up to the right. The purple in the lower left corner acts as a bridge to the deep blue in the upper right. The trick here, as in most of my work, is to use lots of different fabrics within each color grouping to make the whole more interesting.

Here's a sample of how other TAFA artists on Etsy handle a rainbow color scheme:

Quilted Wall Hanging in Brilliant Colors TerryAskeArtQuilts

Fingerless Glove, Arm Warmers Brendaabdullah

Quilted Table Topper Wall Hanging SallyManke