Have you ever made something and when it was finished you thought "eh"? Have you ever looked at a card or scrapbook page and thought, "what gorgeous colors!"? You are identifying how lovely something looks or not based on the color combination used. Most of us can use help in being able to identify pleasing color combos. Stampin' Up! most have been reading our minds, because they have come to the rescue with their unique color wheel.
Color Theory often seems intimidating to many of us, so Stampin' Up! designed this color wheel to demystify the topic and make combining colors while cardmaking and scrapbooking as simple as possible. "It’s like a toolbox for artists, designers, and creators to help them choose the right colors for their projects.” (1)
The Color Wheel
Without going in depth into color theory, lets take a quick look at some basics. The color wheel is the perfect tool for figuring out how to mix colors in crafting. The color wheel is a visual diagram that represents the colors we see. The wheel is a tool to organize colors in a way that helps us understand the relationship of colors to each other.
The color spectrum is what happens when a ray of light divides into different wavelengths with a prism. Sir Isacc Newton came up with a way to place those different colors (or hues) on a circle, and some pretty amazing things happen when we start looking at how they interact with each other.
Viewing colors like this makes it easy to coordinate colors in crafting as long as you know some important strategies.
Color Coordinating Strategies
There are several ways to look at and utilize the color wheel for color coordination. For example, you’ll notice that the wheel above can be split in half between the violet and fuschia, then across the wheel, and down between the yellow and green wedges. That will effectively divide the wheel into what are known as the warm (upper right) and cool colors (lower left). If you cover the warm colors now using a piece of paper or your hand, can you see how all those cool colors look as though they belong in a family? This means that they can play well together as good color combos in scrapbooking and paper crafting.
But the possibilities don’t end with simply warm and cool color families. Let’s talk about how to find and use monochromatic, complementary, analogous, and triadic colors in your cardmaking. Here are some examples from the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog:
Monochromatic Colors
Monochromatic colors are one of the easiest to work with in crafting projects. To start a monochromatic card design, simply choose a color you love from the color wheel and then pair it with another shade or tint of the same color that’s a bit darker or lighter (or both!). This color coordination technique makes for perfectly matching paper projects every time, plus it comes across as chic and tastefully understated.
Analogous Colors
Ready to drift a little further from the single-hued design of monochromatic colors? Try analogous colors, which are found by combining one color with its closest neighbors on the color wheel. By choosing analogous colors for your card, you’re ensuring a look of cohesion and harmony, as these combinations are known for their calming effect in artistic design.
Complementary Colors
Complementary colors are the first ones that offer a real pop in art and design. While you find them in directly opposite positions from one another on the color wheel, these color pairings prove that opposites attract. They brighten each other’s effect in bold but friendly contrast. Complementary colors add energy and vibrancy to any crafting project.
Triadic Colors
Triadic color schemes are found by finding three colors equally spaced apart on the color wheel. These color combinations can feel just as predictable (think the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue) as they do dynamic or unexpected. If you think of the color wheel as a dial, find a triadic color combination you like by shifting the dial one click at a time away from those primary hues. Then, it’s a good idea to pick a predominant color while letting the other two play important supporting roles in your card design.
Practical Tips for Color Coordinating Your Crafts
One of our favorite tips for color-coordinating in crafts is to look to nature. When in doubt, look at how colors appear in the natural world—it’s hard to go wrong by applying this advice to a craft project. You may be surprised to see how often the color combinations you come across on a walk or while looking through outdoor vacation photos align with what you’ve learned about color theory and the color wheel so far.
Another simple trick for how to coordinate colors in crafting is to look for inspiration online. Plenty of crafters and artists love to share their work and we get to benefit from it. A quick search for pretty color combinations on Pinterest or checking out relevant hashtags on Instagram can give you tons of color inspiration for scrapbooking and cardmaking.
Explore it using the rules you learned about monochromatic, analogous, complementary, and triadic colors to find unexpected new color combinations for your next crafting project!
(1) Interaction Design Foundation
(2) Color Psychology: Does It Affect How You Feel? https://www.verywellmind.com/color- psychology-2795824
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