Color

I'm back to weaving again. I still am not quite wild about what I am doing. The gold does work much better than the paler yellow. But enthusiasm for weaving off this warp has definitely waned. My plan has now become to weave a yard, which is the weaveable length I think is left. If, after washing and pressing everything, it looks like the two are incompatible, then I will use this last portion as samples for the Complex Weavers' Crackle Exchange this winter. But I think, at worst, this yard might work as an interesting front facing.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about the next warp. And since I've been doing all these dyeing experiments, I've been thinking about color. I had recently taken a look at David Box's book on embroidery and found he has some interesting things to say about proportion in terms of color. The proportions he favors are one-third of color A and two-thirds of color B. Other colors should be used in much smaller quantities.

One place to derive these colors is from either Color A or Color B, if one of them is a mix. If one of the colors is a mix, then bits of the pure colors making up that mix should be included. For example, if using a lot of violet, bits of reds and blues could be incorporated. Another place to derive these supplementary colors is from the complements to Color A and/or Color B. For example, if using a lot of violet, bits of the complement, yellow-orange could be incorporated. .

But I want to turn to my own plans. Let's say I am thinking of a color scheme based on 2/3 neutrals and 1/3 blue. I already have a problem with that idea because I want two neutrals: a gray version and a brown version. One thing I could do, and it seems to make sense, is to break that down into a 2/3 to 1/3 ratio. There would still be the overall sense that neutrals make up roughly two-thirds of the whole. Blue is a pure color but its complement orange is not. It is made up of red and yellow So I could use bits of orange, red, and yellow. Oranges are already latent in the browned neutrals, and something more like yellow in the more golden of the browned neutrals. But wouldn't just a bit of red put a little bit of a sting in the whole thing? I think that could be quite interesting.

Ah, but how do I make this a reality in a piece of crackle fabric?