Colour Theory
The Green shirt above is using the secondary colour (green) with the primary colour of yellow as the background to the logo of the Hurley company. The yellow draws the eye to the brand name. Green is midway between the primary colours of yellow and blue, making these an analogous harmony. The eye travels back and forth between the yellow and green but keep returning to the black brand name. I think this combination of colours work well because they are very youthful, fun and particularly great for boys.
The ski outfit worn by my son, above, is made up of two colours, a vivid blue, which is a primary colour, and a soft grey colour, which is actually achromatic, meaning without colour. Both the blue and the grey have the same value and work together very well. The blue, especially, works well in snow as it stands out against dark forests, grey winter days and against the various shades that snow can take on in changing light. I also really like it because it is a happy blue and evokes energy and nature. The grey understates the blue a little so it appears a little more classic and not so subject to the changing fashion whims of the ski industry.
The Indian-inspired skirt above uses three colours: blue, brown and a soft beige. The stitching uses brown coloured threads with sequins to jazz up the soft values of the colours. Blue is a complement of red, and the brown here would be an analogous color to red. This means that the eye travels back and forth between the blue and the brown, and both colours would be strengthened by each other. The use of beige, being analogous to brown, softens the effect of the blue against the brown. I really like the way that the colours work in this skirt and I think the brown stitching draws the eye to this section of the skirt to notice the interesting colour combination and the elaborate embellishment. The difficult part is finding the right blouse to work with this skirt as it must be fairly plain and pick up on one of the colours of the skirt.
My sister, the quilter, made this table cloth for me (knowing I love pears) and here we see two complementary colours at work. Orange and green are opposite each other on the colour wheel; this makes the pears more vibrant and the green richer in the play of colour against each other. What calms this vibrancy down are the values of the orange and the green. Both are more muted and are incorporated with various shades of analogous colour. This means that the green is not just one shade but are actually about three shades; the same is true of the pears. The beige pears pick up the lighter tones in both the orane and the green to mute the design further. The pear stems of brown make a nice punch of colour, helping to identify the fruit as being pears. As a seasonal background to a table setting, I really appreciate the softer tones of these colours.
The shirt worn by my partner, above, is made up of a number of colours but the main energy uses the primary colours of red and blue. I love how fresh and clean this shirt looks and I believe it is because of the primary colours used. The eye sees the blue and red richer because of them being complements of each other. To create more energy, the bands of primary yellow is used to carry the eye over the pattern of stripes. I really like how all three primary colours work in this shirt but also how they are mitigated by the softer values repeated in the smaller bands of the primary colours. It is one of my favourite shirts and my little grand-niece thinks so too.
Two sources of learning more about colour theory are:
http://www.sensationalcolor.com (lots on here about colour and choosing for home and fashion).
Color and Composition for the Creative Quilter. Masopust, Katie Pasquini and Brett Barker. Lafayette, California: C& T Publishing, Inc., 2005.
Class activity for colour theory (FST Textiles-7):
After discussing colour as a class, have students look at paint chips from the hardware store. Small groups discuss the appropriateness of the names paint companies give to their colours. Have a sheet of grey felt as a backboard for students to create their own colour wheels on. From a large pile of solid fabric pieces, have students place the three primaries first on their felt, making sure they leave room for a total of 12 pieces of fabric in a wheel. Students then find and place the secondary colours, and then the tertiary colours. An option at this point would be to work in the the tints of the primaries and secondaries on the inside of the wheel and the shades of the primaries on the outside of the wheel.
Students can then hand-sew these on to the felt so that they can refer to their wheel for future projects.
studioart3613aitchison 
Love the idea of a make-it-yourself colour wheel with tints and shades.
Take using word ‘complement’ when discussing colour since this specifically refers to the colours across from each other on the colour wheel. Therefore, the complement of blue is orange, not red (per shirt photo), and the complement of green in red (per T-shirt photo). I think you meant they look well together…not the same thing as a complement.
The plaid shirt is crisp looking – an illustration of the simple aesthetic appeal of working with the 3 primary colours.
The skirts is a mystery…it looks to have been stitched prior to the dyeing. The brown is a shaded orange colour (orange and blue being complementary colours), hence the visual appeal. To find a colour as a top, you can split the complement thus a violet or yellow might work. Finding a blue to match might be the easiest although challenging unless one had dyed the top when dyeing the skirt.
It would be fun to overdye this skirt using black or dark blue. The original dyes would remain and be different shades of black or types of blues. I once did this with a hideous silk scarf…yellows, orange, RED, purples, and black). So gaudy. Yet, the fabric was delicious so I overdyed with black. It is now gorgeous, no longer an eyesore. It went from my least favourite scarf to among my favourites.
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Very interesting food for thought about over-dyeing; ditto for finding a colour to go with the skirt. Dye opens up a whole world of precise and accidental nuances. Thanks for the ideas. And yes, I sometimes will group in colour to the side of a direct complement for the visual advantage they give. I’ll be much more careful in terminology.
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