In the literal sense, a marriage is the union of two or more things (usually two people); which work together to compliment one another. In order for a marriage, between two people to work, they must have a lot of things in common. Yet, we all know that opposites attract one another. If all couples have 100% of everything in common with their partners and never had any differences of opinions, the situation could be represented, in two ways on the color wheel. 1) Both partners being the exactly same color on a color wheel. There’s no coordinating, nothing to compliment one another, no pizazz; nada, zip zilch; in other words…boring. 2) There is no partnering but this is a single color that does well by itself (such as white, ecru, black, gray, and brown-what are known as the neutral colors). These colors stand alone and do well that way.
How does one go about coordinating colors that do well together? By watching TV programs or reading web sites that deal with color choices. Also, you can simply take note of what’s around you: look at the things you see everyday and pay close attention to the variety of colors in everything. Here are a few things for you to take into account when deciding upon color choices.
• Nature: Tree leaves-notice the different colors of leaves on the same tree during autumn and how pretty they look next to one another. Look at flower petals and the different shades on the tips-how well they look together.
• Color wheel groups and opposites
• Pairing up neutral colors with non-neutral colors. These colors can be patterned or not (variegated mediums).
In a color wheel (shaped like a pie) you’d find three slices to represent the ‘prime’ colors. One would be red, one blue and one yellow. Now, if we made each slice smaller and inserted another slice between each color, we’d come up with our secondary colors. Between yellow and red, we’d now have brown (red and yellow make brown). Between red and blue, we’d have purple (red and blue make purple). Between blue and yellow we’d have green (blue and yellow make green). And, we could continue to insert ‘slices’ and create new colors. That’s how a color wheel is created.
Looking at the color wheel, which we’ve just created, we can use colors within the same group to put together or we can use colors on the opposite side of the color wheel. This is a great way to find color choices for your tatted items.
Depending on your item, you may choose to use one-four colors, but rarely will more colors work well together. This will make your pattern too busy for the eye to focus on any one thing and only two colors right next to each other, on the color wheel, can be too bland and boring. And, while fads come and go; some are good and some are bad (in our individual humble opinions), they’re still popular and for a time some rules are broken and abnormal color choices are made Sometimes color choices are made and for a period of time become a fad. In the 70’s, bright oranges and greens were put together. Bold purples and the darkest of blacks were married. And, various other wild statements of color choices were used and everybody seemed to like them. But, fads change and those ‘runs’ of color marriages do as well; while the rules of nature and the color wheel continue on.
Tatting Specials
