The Ives color wheel consists of a representation of the color spectrum in a circular shape, with one wedge devoted to each of 24 colors. This wheel has long been a resource for dyeing fabrics, but it can also be used for sewing, painting, and art in general, to determine which colors go together well. It is also useful for understanding the relationships between different colors and how they can be combined to create new colors.
Instructions
1. Use colors that are directly across from each other on the wheel, such as red and aqua green or violet and yellow, when you are creating designs with two colors. These colors are called "complementary" and generally harmonize well when used together.
2. Use colors adjacent to one another in groups of odd numbers, such as three, five, and seven. These colors are referred to as "analogous." Because they do not complement each other and are sometimes very similar shades, they work well when used in uneven groups. Purple, red violet, violet, blue violet, and blue form a series of five analogous hues that could be used together.
3. Use the wheel to determine whether certain colors go together according to analogous and complementary colors when sewing quilts. Choosing prints that are primarily one color on the wheel will help you figure out whether they go together with other prints. For example, if you choose green and turquoise green textiles, you may consider finding materials that are blue green, aqua green, and aqua blue to fill in the gap between the two colors, making it a string of five analogous colors.
4. Create "tints" by adding white to the different colors of the wheel, which lightens them. Create "shades" by adding black to any of the colors in the wheel, which darkens them. Create "tones" by adding different levels of gray to a color, which will create a slightly muted version of the color on the wheel. These different versions of the color wheel hues are useful when you are dying materials because you can decide whether another type of neutral dye needs to be added to create a tone, shade, or tint.
5. Differentiate between warm colors (red, yellow, orange) and cool colors (blue, purple, magenta) when painting or sewing with colors that may be relevant to the seasons. Tones are associated with winter, tints with spring, natural hues with summer, and shades with fall.
Tags: color wheel, aqua green, colors that, colors together, colors wheel, colors wheel which
