White

Yesterday I took some photos for Marly of her mittens.  My sister graciously agreed to model for me on her lunch hour.  I took some pictures right outside her office.  There's a busy highway and a big building behind her but you can't tell because it was a cold and snowy afternoon!  I designed these pictures to be so white and I'm giddy about how they turned out! I just wish I'd had some of my own projects to shoot. 

On a slightly different topic, you know what they say about beauty being in the eyes of the beholder.  That's very true, don't you find?  But beauty and artistic talent are not the same thing.  I don't know if you're anything like me, but I've seen some pretty hideous stuff in galleries and museums.  Then I really stop and think about it, and I know, it's not something I could duplicate.  Someone has talent, there, they just aren't using it the way I would.  My point is that some talent is not necessarily appreciated by the beholders but that doesn't mean it's missing. 

I have been thinking a lot about art class, lately; the many I've taken and all the things I've learned.  It's funny how I thought those silly acronyms were silly, but years later, I still remember them.  One thing I learned in my first college art class was that designing with white in mind, and leaving white in the background because I don't know what else to use that space for are not the same thing.  (In fact, anything besides line drawings with white on the page was automatically a grade lower!)  Hence the difference between white rooms that are designed and white rooms that look like a blank canvas.   

I'm coming back around to where this mental train started from:  color. I was recently given this book: ColorSense Creative Color Combinations for Crafters by Susan Levin.  It is simply about color combinations: primary, tertiary, complimentary, etc.  The first 22 pages have text but after that, it's all colors. Literally hundreds, maybe thousands of color combinations fill this book.  Lots of great ideas.  One tip I've always remembered with regard to picking a color scheme for quilts is when you find that ad in a magazine that you love visually, rip it out and save it.  Next time you're designing a quilt (scrapbook page, room, whatever) you can use that ad as a starting point.  I just discovered this website where you can play with color combinations, too.  Lots of neat stuff out there. 

If you're wondering just which station I jumped onto this train from, it was Ravelry.  I think I'm going to do a block-a-month knit-a-long.  I just don't know what colors to use!!