Color
seems to be so psychological. I've been know to think "What
color is this day?" Often a group of people gather and they
are wearing the same color! No one planned it that way, yet
is happens.
In
the Fashion world, the same colors appear in various collections
in the same season. There are color cycles in my life, color
cycles in the world around us, color cycles seasonally in nature.
I've asked my Grandchildren
"What is your favorite color?" . . . (looking for some further
insight into their personalities) . . . Lucas, now age 9, a
budding artist, used to answer pink, then yellow and now says,
"They are all my favorites!"
Ryan, my 7 year old needlepoint
student chose strong browns, blue, purple and fuschia. Great
colors for Hockey uniforms!
For me my passion for purples
stays constant in most of my work . . . yet ALL colors can become
my favorites at certain times!
My home is neutral in décor
and I even gravitate to a neutral wardrobe. Blue jeans and white
t-shirts feel comfortable and peaceful. Gone are the days when
I thrived on dressing in Valentino Red!
My stitching is vibrant
because that's what I look at for long periods of time. The
colors that I touch with my eyes and my fingers, seem at times
to pulsate and somehow transfer their energy to me!
Visitors to stitchamaze.com
often write and ask me what colors I've used in a certain piece.
My colors won't be their colors. Sometimes a painted canvas
has to have colors changed to suit one's mood at the time .
. .
Colors affect each other.
Place an orange/red against black, then against brown, then
against green and observe how the red changes. The orange might
become dominant or the red . . . or maybe a brown tinge will
appear.
When doing an original piece,
I don't choose colors at random. I have a plan. I choose
an exciting print fabric, a colored magazine picture, a painting
or I even recall a dream image . . . whatever has a feeling
that I love. The color scheme is right there in front of me.
I take that fabric or picture
to the needlepoint store and shop for threads that match my
colors. I use a variety of fibers, as long as the colors
are right. In fact, the more variety of silks, overdyes,
beads, velvets, metallic, cottons, wool, or whatever is available,
the more inspired I become. If a thread is too heavy, I couch
it. If it's too fine, I use more strands. It's all workable
and it's a color story to express an emotion.
Color is intuitive for me,
though I don't think that it was always this way. I've developed
a trust with color, knowing that it's just so much
fun to use color to surprise, excite or calm. Using color on
the canvas without too much prior planning allows me to express
'feelings' in stitches. For me, 'color theory' seems too cerebral
. . . too far removed from my emotional approach to my stitching.
I
like to remember to balance areas of color. If an area
becomes too chaotic or colors are too vibrant, I can always
mute it down by juxtapositioning some softer or darker colors.
I will
admit that this takes a lot of practice. I'm continually learning
and experimenting. Frustration is often my companion in
the studio. But when I create what I love, I feel happy, satisfied,
and even smug! Then I'm inspired to go further and further into
this exciting facet of my stitching in spite of the numerous
difficult choices and hours spent in distracted ruminations
as I attempt to turn my vision into a stitched canvas, which
I hope will become worthy of being seen as 'art'.
Rosalyn Cherry-Soleil
C
L O S E t h i s w i n d o w
http://www.stitchamaze.com
