The Language of Color

As an art student I took a few painting and foundation classes that focused on the basics of the visual arts. So everything like line, color, form, ect. It was a lot, we had 2 foundation level classes and each subject (painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, ect.) had another introductory level class.




I thought I would share some of my basic knowledge of color after seeing that my language is pretty different than the language that my clients use.
This is going to be a very informative post with some definitions and technical talk but it is something that can help with everything from color schemes for a new room design to a painting hanging on your wall!

**I am NOT an expert on this topic, yes I've had a few classes but I didn't focus in a subject that was too involved with color. So PLEASE just look at this post as an introductory to color theory and know that there is MUCH more to it than what I can hit here. 

First, this is what my "desk" looks like whenever i am about to paint. 

Yes I have a LOT of paint. Mostly craft grade paints but I have some nicer acrylics, oils, and watercolors too. So I pull them all out to make sure I can see all my options :)

 Now lets talk about what categories colors can fall under. I'm gonna keep it basic so many of you probably know this from kindergarten :)

First, there are PRIMARY, SECONDARY, AND TERTIARY colors on the color wheel.
Your PRIMARY colors are, Red, Yellow, and Blue.
SECONDARY colors are the colors made by mixing two PRIMARY colors together. Like orange, green, and violet.

TERTIARY colors are made by either mixing one secondary and one primary or two secondary colors together. So examples are red-violet, blue-green, yellow-orange.

Today I'm going to focus on just the primary colors for showing how TONE, SHADE, TINT, and HUE.

Now to start lets define a few things. Most of these words you have probably heard and used before. But not many people really know  what they mean when referencing a color.

Hue: refers to a "pure" color. So the colors on the color wheel. (Yellow, yellow orange, orange, red orange, red, red violet, violet, blue violet, blue green, green, and green yellow.) Hues are basically what we learn as children.

Tint: Tint is a mixture result of color. Tint refers to the lightening process of colors, so adding white to any color is tinting that color. So pink is a TINT of red.

Shade: Shade is the opposite of tint. Meaning instead of lightening a color you are darkening it by adding black. So taking an original HUE and adding black is referred to as a SHADE of that color. For example, garnet is a SHADE of red.

Tone: Tone is greying down the original color. By some definitions adding any neutral or greyscale to an original hue is considered tone. So you can change the tonal value by how much grey you add to your color.

Now that you have the definitions of some of the language commonly used in art or by anyone interested in paint we can talk about how you actually do those things!

*I know earlier I said I have a lot of paint. And I do, but some how I didn't have my artist grade acrylic red. So bare with me on some of these examples! 

In the picture above I've shown the differences between TINT, SHADE, HUE and TONE using red, blue and yellow. You can see how each tint and shade of the different colors seem to match in intensity or value. That is because of the level of white, black or grey that has been added to the original HUE. You can do this exercise for any color or color scheme. It helps a lot when trying to create a color scheme for a painting or room because you can see all the different tints, and shades of the colors you have chosen.  

Now lets talk about the color wheel. I already mentions the PRIMARY, SECONDARY and TERTIARY colors but didn't get to show you what those where. So when you lay out a color wheel it usually looks like the one above. You can see the rainbow effect that it has because of the blending of each primary and secondary color to create the tertiary colors. 

Color wheels are another awesome tool to use when looking to create a color scheme because you can see the options of your colors and how they relate to one another. 

Now a color wheel is split in two. It has warm colors and cool colors. (This can become much more complicated but I am going to keep it at the surface level of these terms). Typically the yellows, oranges, and reds are considered WARM colors. While the Violets, Blues, and greens are considered COOL colors.  

Like I said earlier, the color wheel is a big tool in selecting color schemes. And part of that is because the language used on a color wheel is already a color scheme.
What I mean by that is you can have a color scheme of ANALOGOUS colors. ANALOGOUS colors are simply colors that are side by side on the color wheel. Our basic color wheel has some of the themes I've shown above. Yellow, yellow orange, and orange or even violet, red violet, and red. Each set of those colors are ANALOGOUS to one another and therefore flow together smoothly.
You can take those schemes and add even more to them by changing the TINT, SHADE, and TONE of each giving you TOOONNNNNSS more options to choose from.

Another color scheme on a color wheel, and the one that is more widely known are the complimentary colors. These are colors that are directly across from one another on the color wheel. The colors listed above are examples of COMPLIMENTARY colors. Christmas colors are complimentary. Most sports teams colors are complimentary. This is because complimentary colors typically have a high contrast which draws the eye quicker. 

Now that is a lot to take in and its is just the very BASICS of color. But now when you are talking to a designer, or artist you can be able to tell them you want your room full of warm red tints and know that you are getting softer/lighter reds and no dark heavy reds. Or that you want a tone on tone color scheme meaning you would like a greyed out theme that remains more neutral with little contrast!
Isn't it cool how color has its own language :)

I really enjoyed writing this post and it helped a lot with making me feel more like an artist again! I think I may do some other posts that go a little further on mixing colors and a few other definitions that I didn't have a chance to talk about. Would any one be interested in that or was this just interesting to me as an artist??? :) 

Foam Core Cornice Board

I showed y'all our living room tour a couple weeks ago. (If you missed it check it out here.) 

Now that we have lived in the house for a little while I realized its not really as "finished" as I thought. There are a few things that still need to be done; 1. cover our plaid chair!! (I would LOVE to make a slip cover but I'm a little nervous, any suggestions?!) 2. figure out the wires behind the TV 3. how to make our AC unit less huge and ugly and finally add some window treatments.
I added some sheer curtains to the large window and want to get some more for the single window but just haven't gotten around to it. But it still didn't look as finished as I had hoped.
Check out this before and after shot and you'll understand :)

So I added the cornice! I've never lived any where with a cornice, my mom just didn't need them. She always had nicer treatments that finished the window well. But the cheap curtains and rods that I was able to get on our budget just didn't look good. So I needed a cheap fix.

Annnd after searching the web I found this post on how to build a cornice out of nothing but fabric and FOAM CORE BOARD! 

Yes. you read that right. FOAM CORE BOARD! 

The lovely ladies over at Creating a Beautiful Life shared their version of this project a few weeks ago on my Making Monday link party (A weekly link party to help inspire you on those rough Monday Mornings, Please join us any time!!). I saved it to my computer and knew this was the solution to my window issue.
This week I finally had the time to go buy the supplies and sit down to make my own foam core cornice board! 

If you know me at all I don't really follow directions. Not that I don't listen, but I am queen of reading a tutorial, recipe, or directions over once or twice and then putting it away while I make it for myself. Reed thinks it's weird but I say it just helps me keep my creative juices flowing :)
So the tutorial from the ladies at Creating a Beautiful Life was great, I didn't really follow it to a T.

So lets get started!
Materials:

-2 elmers foam core boards
-packaging tape

- 4x10 drop cloth (it was the cheaper paper style drop cloth)

Step 1:
I decided I wanted my cornice board to be 10in tall and it needed to be 54 inches to cover the window width. So I measured out the board and it worked out perfect that I could use 1 board split in half.

Step 2:

Now break out your tape, I used packaging tape because I have loads of it on hand. But I think you could get away with almost any type of tape. I found that taping across the seam first helped sturdy it up and then wrapped the seam completely once or twice (sorry forgot to photograph that part!)

Step 3:

cut the sides for your cornice. I didn't really know how far I wanted the cornice to stick off from the wall so I just chose to do 5 inches. I think it works really well and it left just enough room for me to add a curtain rod if I want to later.

Step 4: 

To attach your side panels you can do a few different things. Pictured below I hot glued and taped the panels together. Using a thin bead of glue to secure the board and then tape to round off the edges.
However, I took a different approach for the second board, simply because I was to lazy to get out the glue gun :) So what I did this time was just use lots more tape!  I used the same technique across the seam as I did when taping the two larger halves. Basically I just taped and taped until it didn't wiggle to much :) 

Step 5: 

Adding the fabric! This is the point where my tutorial differs the most from the tutorial from Creating a Beautiful Life. So what I did was take the drop cloth and cut it large enough to fold around the cornice board. Then I took a stapler and got going!  Yep thats it. An office stapler that I just took around the edge of the board rotating from one side to the other to keep from pulling the fabric one way over the other. 

Step 6: 

When I got to the edges I folded it like you would wrap a present.  I don't think I'm gonna be able to explain it in words so here are some pictures to explain better than me :) 

Step 7: 

HANG IT!

Yep thats it you are done building the cornice board!

Now I didn't take pictures of how I hung it mostly because I forgot. But also because there are lots of ways to do it. You could use D hooks and simply hang on a nail, or even just use velcro to attach directly to your curtain rod/wall. What I did was a cheap version with just what  I had on hand. I used some thick waxed thread that  I threaded through the side panel and tide in a knot and hung on nails. With how light weight the board is it doesn't seem to really matter how you hang it :) 

I really like it a lot! SO simple to make and I'm pretty sure it took maybe an hour at the most. Great way to finish up a room with out spending much money at all! Now I just need some help figuring out how to clean up that window unit and nest of wires!! 

Check out HERE for where I link up