Sneak peek – Color Palettes workshop
Yesterday evening I taught once more the “How to Create Color Palettes” workshop. I had to go through my archives to remind me when was the first time I did it—it was in 2014!
Two years before I had started teaching embroidery. It was a time of sharing and focusing mostly on technique, understanding stitches and their infinite possibilities.
But then I began to noticing something. Though the stitches were much neatly done, there was something lingering on the fabric that still wouldn't please my students, that would make them restless. I could see that in their faces.
It seemed to me that the ghost in their samplers was color. Colors that together didn't blend, converse, dance, or tell a story. Can you relate to this? Have you ever struggled choosing your colors? It's no easy thing to pick a beautiful palette.
So I set out to teach a class that would only address color issues. No embroidery technique, just understanding color. How to do that? I asked my own students about their color problems. “I don't know how or where to start, I can't make up my mind, I like all colors, I want to use all of them”, were among the most mentioned headaches.
It's hard to teach color. It's hard to learn color. In both cases you can rely on color theory as a go-to reference. But it's ultimately your eye the muscle you need to train to become your the best tool to help you choose and combine colors.After a couple of years of teaching the “How to Create Color Palettes” workshop, I could pour all (and much more!) of its content into the book Colour Confident Stitching - How to Create Beautiful Colour Palettes.
Now, returning to yesterday's workshop. This was the first time we made these floss color cards during a class. I originally devised these handy tools for the book. They are a cute accessory to have around when you are playing when colors and want to see how two or three colors look like together, especially on colored backgrounds. They are made with DMC embroidery floss and feature 60 colors in all. Did we have a great time? Oh yes! And I'll tell you something: all those color cards and paint chips are so irresistible that you can't help but take pictures of them every other minute!
And finally, one great piece of news is that Colour Confident Stitching will have a version in Korean!!! It'll be ready by the end of 2018 (I'll be updating the final publishing date). The card reads something like “Soon, Korean version also is coming out.” (A friend of my husband kindly translated the text for me). The Korean edition joins the German version (“Farbpaletten entwerfen fürs Textildesign” published by Haupt Verlag) and the original in English by Pimpernel Press.