Color ~ Written by Steph Schirmer

What would we do without color in our life?  Color affects every part of our life, how we see the world, decorate, garden, dress and yes even stamp.  The color combinations are endless and our life is like an endless color wheel. 

The color wheel consists of primary, secondary and tertiary colors.

Primary colors are red, yellow and blue.  These 3 colors cannot be mixed or formed by any other combinations of other colors.  All other colors are derived from these 3 hues.

 Secondary colors are green, orange and purple, these colors are formed by mixing the primary colors.

 Tertiary colors are using a primary and a secondary color and forming a two name color such as yellow-orange, red-orange and red-purple.

There are lots of trends when it comes to making cards, color combinations change quite a bit and form around the item being stamped.   Shading plays a big part when coloring with markers, pencils, chalks and even paints.  We associate colors with different holidays from traditional red and green for Christmas, pastels for Easter, red for Valentines Day and green for St. Patrick’s Day.

How do we get ourselves to play with other color combinations?  We get into a rut of using the same color combinations over and over again, how do we change this?  One way is to not use that color ink or paper when making cards, pick a color that you wouldn’t think to use and try creating something with that.  Rotate a color combination for each card, make a green and blue card, then a green and purple rotate around the color wheel.  Challenge yourself to use colors you are not fond of, to create a beautiful card and push yourself outside your box. 

One other way is to use simple colors like black, gold and silver, adding colors to all of these can be very elegant.  Black is very striking with a lot of different colors, try taking one color and combining it with black and see what beautiful cards you can come up with.

Combining texture papers can give a simple stamped item a framed or custom look.  When layering your paper, pick colors from the main piece of art to accent it even more.  Use shimmering and texture together to give a completely different look, a little shimmering can go along way in framing a piece.

The most important thing is to have fun and experiment, put things together to come up with different combinations you wouldn’t normally think would work.  By adding fiber, texture and embellishments you can come up with a whole different look by enhancing your color.

I want to thank Lis for giving me the ideas about black, something I know I forgot about.

If there is a topic you would like to discuss just tell me and I will gladly post it.

Steph Schirmer

sschirmer@stampersmall.com

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