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Color in Quilting Books

A Workshop on Hue

Contents:
Definition
Physics of Color
Color Notations
Color Wheels
Color Temperature
Psychological Effects and Symbolism of Color
Variation within a hue
References
Practice making a color wheel
Practice Block in primary colors

Definition
Hue is the word for what we usually refer to as color. A hue, such as red, refers to a specific wavelength of light. Hues range from red to violet and the full spectrum of colors or hues can be seen in a rainbow.

Physics of Color
Color is a function of light and represents one portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. White light contains the full spectrum of color. Objects absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others. The color we perceive is the wavelength of light, which is reflected. As an example, a red ball absorbs all the colors of the spectrum except red, which it reflects. Our eyes and brain process the light and we perceive a color. Go to http://humboldt1.com/~color/UC3.html for a short explanation of the physiology of color perception. Humans perceive the spectral range from 800 millimicrons to 390 millimicrons as colors or hues from red to violet, including reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, indigos and violets. Beyond red is infrared, which we experience as heat, and beyond violet is ultraviolet, which we can't see, but is visible to certain insects.

Sir Isaac Newton http://humboldt1.com/~color/UC2.html was the first great color scientist and proved that white light contained all colors. In a series of important experiments in color in the late 17th century, he split light into the colors of the rainbow by passing it through a prism. By passing the rainbow through a second prism he was able to reform the white light thus proving the colors were in the light not the glass of the prism.

Color Notations

Color notations are based on either an additive model or a subtractive model.

When working with light, the color notation is based on an additive color model. The starting point is black which is defined as the absence of color or light. Lights of different wavelengths are added to the black void to create the different hues. When all wavelengths are present, the light is white or contains all colors. The primary colors in the additive notation are red, green and blue (RGB). The additive color model is used for describing color on computer monitors and TV screens or whenever the color is based on light, not paint or pigment. An excellent technical resource for understanding color on your monitor and for making monitor adjustments can be found at - http://www.lava.net/~colorcom/comput.html.

The color notation used for paints and pigments is a subtractive system. The starting point is white. The combination of all colors is theoretically black. As pigment is subtracted the hue moves to white. The absence of color is white and the presence of all colors is black. This is opposite for the additive color system used for light. Painters work in the subtractive system for mixing the primary colors of red, yellow and blue to create the other hues.

There is another important subtractive color system, which is used, in the four-color printing process. All printed colors are derived from mixtures of yellow, magenta, cyan (turquoise) and black. Yellow, magenta and cyan are the primaries. Black is theoretically a combination of yellow, magenta and cyan but the addition of black is needed to give printed images their "punch". Go to http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~matt/courses/cs563/talks/color.html if you would like to read a more extensive discussion of color in printing.

Color Wheels

Newton conceived the color wheel by augmenting the light spectrum with purple and joining the purple end to the red. This is the basis for a commonly used color wheel.

The famous colorist, Johannes Itten(http://humboldt1.com/~color/UC2.html) established the 12-part color wheel. It is his wheel and system, which is described first.

Red, blue and yellow are the primary colors in Itten's notation of color.

The secondary colors are made from the primaries.

Red + yellow = orange		+
Red + blue = purple		+
Yellow + blue = green		+

Combining a primary color with its adjacent secondary color creates the tertiary colors.

Yellow + orange = yellow-orange		+
Red + orange = red-orange		+
Red + violet = red-violet		+
Blue + violet = blue-violet		+
Blue + green = blue-green		+
Yellow + green = yellow-green		+

Many great colorists have devised color wheels and systems for organizing color. For more details on this highly interesting and complex subject, I would recommend Color by Zelanski and Fisher. Two of the other most important color systems are Runge's color ball (http://www.externa-net.de/~r.strasser/colour1.html) and Albert Munsell's color sphere (http://humboldt1.com/~color/UC2.htm).

Another color system of special interest to quilters and other who deal with paint and pigment was devised by Ives and is also a subtractive color system. Joen Wolfram uses the subtractive color notation in much of her book, The Magical Effects of Color. The primaries in Ives system are yellow, magenta and turquoise (or cyan). We'll come back to the Ives Color Wheel when we study complementary colors.

P = Primary = yellow, turquoise, magenta
S = Secondary = orange, green, violet
T = Tertiary = yellow-green, blue-green, blue, purple, red, yellow-orange

Click here to see sample quilt block.

Color temperature

Colors can be categorized as warm or cool. The yellow-orange-red hues are warm and the blue-green-violet colors are cool. Red and yellow are associated with fire and the blues and greens with water. The warm colors tend to be stimulating and the cool colors relaxing. Colors can actually affect our physiology. Red light increases our adrenaline level which increases our blood pressure, breathing rate and temperature. Be aware of the effect you are trying to create with your quilt and choose your colors appropriately.

Warm colors tend to move forward in a design and the cool colors recede. Warm colors draw attention. Use the temperature property of color to cause the viewer's eye to move to the portion of the design where you wish to draw attention.

Wolfrom's The Magical Effects of Color has an extensive section on color temperature. Mary Coyne Penders' book, Color and Cloth, is also very good for temperature and psychology of color.

Symbolism of Color

Colors have symbolic meaning. As examples, in the western world, black is often associated with death, blue with spirituality and purple with royalty. In China, white is associated with mourning and yellow with royalty. Color symbolism is not universal, so again, be aware of what you are trying to achieve and where your quilt will be shown. Use symbolic meaning to add depth to your quilts. http://fallriver.ns.ca/monthly/colour/moncolo1.htm has good information on the psychology and symbolism of color as well as a color/personality test.

Variations of a Hue

The discussion above has focused on the pure hues but hue is just the starting point in describing a specific color. The other basic dimensions are value and saturation or intensity. Value was described in the last lesson and saturation (intensity) will be described in the next.

As an example, when adding the dimensions of value and saturation, the hue of red includes everything from the palest pinks to the deepest burgundies. As white or black is added to the pure hue or color, its value is changed. White changes the pure hue to a higher value and adding black changes the hue to a lower value as discussed in the previous color lesson on value. Adding gray or the complement lowers the intensity or purity of the color. A bright red can become a soft tone when gray is added.

One color scheme, which will be explored in another workshop, is the monochromatic color scheme. A monochrome quilt would be made from only one hue but could have tremendous variation in value and saturation. Try making a quilt in only one hue - you can achieve rich results.

References

Other sites that may be of interest to those of you who wish to look further at color.

http://www.pantone.com/allaboutcolor/allaboutcolor.asp The Pantone page has general articles on color and gives some indication of which colors will be the popular ones in the future.

http://www.prairienet.org/community/clubs/quilts/color.html The Prairie Quilters have some excellent book reviews. They have also created a bibliography and made a topic index on color which covers all of the books collectively. This is very useful if you have several of the books and wish to explore the same topic in several ways.
http://www.bway.net/~jscruggs/notice2.html has a nice description of additive color.
http://humboldt1.com/~color/UC5.html has good descriptions of subtractive, additive and pigment color.
http://exchange.coa.edu/HEJourney/polcom/colort.html has a comprehensive page on color theory although individual topics are described quite briefly.
http://www.externa-net.de/~r.strasser/colour1.html and http://www.externa-net.de/~r.strasser/colour1.html are a pair of succinct color theory lessons. Page 2 indicates that a Page 3 is under construction.
http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~matt/courses/cs563/talks/color.html is good for those of you interested in color in printing.

If you wish to invest in some books, there are three, which I would highly recommend.

Color and Cloth, Mary Coyne Penders
This book goes through the basics of color and is very well organized. The discussions and exercises relate specifically to fabric and quilting.

The Magical Effects of Color, Joen Wolfrom
Joen's book is sophisticated and extensive in terms of color theory. The book goes beyond the basics and explains how to create sophistical visual effects with cloth. Concepts are well illustrated with photographs of quilts.

Color, Paul Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher
Color theory and its application in many types of media are well described. This is an excellent reference book on color.

If you wish to go back to the fundamentals, I would recommend Itten's Book, The Color Star.

A larger reference list is in our book section.

Practice - Construct a color wheel using paint or fabric or both

Painted color wheel.

• Use gouache (an opaque water paint) to create Itten's 12-part color wheel. You will need red, blue and yellow paint. It is easiest to paint the color swatches separately, cut them and glue them into the form of a wheel. The cutting template is below.

• First paint a pure yellow, a pure blue and then a pure red swatch- these are the primaries.
  
• Next mix red and yellow to make orange - paint a swatch of secondary-orange color.
  
  • Mix some of the orange with more yellow to make the tertiary color yellow-orange.
    
  • Add more red to the remaining orange to make red-orange.
    
• Now mix yellow and blue to make the secondary-green.
  
  • Add more yellow to some of the green to make yellow-green.
    
  • Add more blue to the green to make blue-green.
    
• Finally, mix blue and red to make the secondary-purple.
  
  • Add red to the purple to make red-purple
    
  • Add blue to the purple to make blue purple.
    
• Allow the swatches to dry and cut them into the template shapes. You can print out the template and use it to trace the shape on the swatch. Arrange the properly cut swatches in a circle or color wheel.

Fabric color wheel.

• You can use printed fabrics or plain fabrics. It might be easier to use plain fabric if you have it. It not, squint at the fabric to see its dominant color. Choose pure colors. Do not use pastels, deep shades or gray-toned fabrics. You will probably need to look at many fabrics to find of set of twelve that match the 12 colors of Itten's color wheel.

It is useful to organize your fabric stash based on these 12 colors. You would also need some categories for the neutrals - black, white, gray and brown.

Next is the Practice Block to play with the red, blue and yellow primaries. To go on to this month's Practice Block pattern click HERE.