Applying the Colour Theory in Artisan Crafts

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Artisan Craft Week



Crafting is a very special form of art that presents its own challenges that are not always shared by other types of artwork. It is, in essence, visual - the first sense that we use to appreciate a crafted piece is sight. Everything else (taste, touch, etc) comes second. As such, choosing how we present our crafting pieces becomes a bit of an art and a bit of science all together. How to grab your viewers' attention and make your craft stand out is something that is both fascinating and potentially profitable. Unfortunately, it is also something that most crafters end up taking for granted. After all, it's a piece of craft... how does colour come into play? That's what we will discuss today. 


The Basics about Colours


It's impossible to talk about colours without getting a little technical, at least in the very beginning. 

Individual colours can be described by three inherent "parameters" that, when put together, distinguish one colour from another. When we change these parameters, we can change the colour, but we can also change aspects about the colours and the way people perceive them. By manipulating these parameters, the artist can choose the most effective combinations of colours to achieve their goals. 

1. Hue: This is what people think about when they think of how to tell the colours apart. This is directly related to the wavelength of the light that is perceived by our eyes and by changing the wavelength, we change the way we see colour. Most of us perceive the "colours of the rainbow" as the range of hues. 


A range of computer-generated hues

2. Chroma/Saturation: The easiest way to think of chroma is how saturated the colour is (or, conversely, how "washed out" a colour is.) Any pure hue can have a range of saturation. The more faded out a colour is, the lighter the saturation. Imagine if you wash out a pair of jeans again and again and again, eventually the darker blue will be whiter and whiter. 


Different saturation of the same colours; from one extreme to another

3. Brightness: This is also known as "value". As human eyes perceive a colour, it is influenced by how much light is bouncing back from the item, so "value" is our subjective feeling of how much light is shed on this colour. The more light there is, the brighter the colour will look. This is, however, all relative. Depending on the surrounding, a colour's perceived value will change as well. 


Grey-scale is perhaps the best way to show-case brightness and it can be applied to any colour

Other helpful terms that you might hear include: 
4. Tint: Different mixtures of a pure hue with white; this increases brightness.
5. Shade: Different mixtures of a pure hue with black; this decreases brightness.
6. Tone: Mixture of a pure hue with both white and black (shades of grey); this reduces chroma.

When you put it all together, it should look something like this: 


La la la la  Rainbow cake! La la la la 


Pairing Colours Together


  Figure 1.                                                        Figure 2.                                               Figure 3.
Color-Wheel by SinistrosePhosphate Colours and compliments-1 by SinistrosePhosphate Colours and compliments-2 by SinistrosePhosphate
Feel free to click on the pictures to enlarge them.

There are several common schemes for putting colours together to make them work harmoniously together. The first place to start is a colour wheel. Figure One shows a pure-tone colour wheel, which is something most people are familiar with. But a colour wheel can be a lot more than that. It divides the primary and secondary colours and separates the warm and cool colours. Depending on the piece, changing the colour scheme can make a huge difference. 

Sylveon Plush by StarMassacre Shiny Sylveon Plush by StarMassacre
Case in point: warm-colour Sylveon versus cold-colour Sylveon

The basic colour wheel also shows complimentary colours, or "Colour schemes that naturally go well together". These are the colours that are directly opposite of each other on the colour wheel. Think of it... Christmas colours are complimentary, the Tide Pods also use complimentary colours, too. And boy, do they ever work well together! 

Red Green Filigree Ornament 2 by MandarinMoon  Trash Doves Plush by SuperKawaiiStudios
Voila! Beautiful examples of a basic complimentary colour scheme.

Taking the next step, we notice in Figure Two that you can actually change things up a little by using different tones and shades of the pure-tone colour to get even more variation. Most of the times we find that items that are high intensity and highly saturated are used to grab people's attentions right away (Pokemon creatures do a great job with this attention-getting technique.) On the other hand, pastel colours tend to evoke a softer, kinder feeling and tend to help people relax a little bit more (The MLP characters dominate this end of the spectrum). Depending on your project, choosing the right "ring" of the colour wheel to work with can go a really long way, too. 

Big scarf with Tit Birds - ombre blue by MinkuLul Starry Night silk scarf by MinkuLul
Both have a blue theme that is punctuated by little bits of yellow. But these two scarves evoke very different feelings from the viewer.

Moving onward to Figure Three, we find more advanced forms of playing around with colours. Most people find that the primary colour schemes are too restrictive and there's not a lot of room to manoeuvre. Others find that their craft does not lend easily to specific colouring schemes due to material constraints (woodwork, leather-craft and sometimes wire-wrapping fall under this category). So it's time to take it one step beyond. We will cover some of these techniques with examples below: 

1. Monochromatic colours - as the name implies, these are items that use different tones and shades of the same colour as its basic scheme. While some might think this is boring, it can be used very effectively, especially with high-intensity hues as the starting point. 

 Monochrome Eumelia Eridas Bead Dress by pinkythepink My little pony custom Monochrome swap by AmbarJulieta 
Monochrome Grey, Pink and Green. You can do lots of things with a monochrome scheme!

2. Analogous colours: These colours are neighbours on the colouring wheel. They tend to easily blend into one another so you aren't always sure where one begins and where the other ends. Using analogous colours tend to give the artist a little more room for expression that extends further than a monochromatic scheme. 

Ruby Draike Sear by Meltpixel Brazing Flame 2 by Bright-Circle tree of life corset by KandRArmory
Gradients that go from yellow-to-red, violet-to-teal and dark yellow-to green

3. Triadic colours: Instead of going for the exact complimentary colours, sometimes it's possible to use the analogous colours of the exact complement to create harmony. If red's exact complement is green, then a triadic colouring scheme would use yellow-greens and blue-greens instead. That's when the colour wheel gets really interesting. 

umbrella with flowers by ZinziDemina [Crochet] Small Volleyball by Gary30727 
I can't keep giving the answers away. Can you guess which three colours are at work here to make these pieces work?

As you can see, there are a lot of things that can go into how to choose the right colours and colouring scheme for your work. And colour theory is not something exclusive to visual artists who paint or take photographs. It is equally as important to crafters and artisans, because... after all, what we do is very visual. And a well-planned piece can go a long way to grab people's attention to what you have put in your hard-work to do! 

Keep exploring, my fellow artisans and crafters. And best of luck! :w00t: 




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pinkythepink's avatar
:la: I love color tutorials, this is so helpful!