Colors?

I do love well-executed black and white cloths, but I tend to mix one or more grays. My warp turned out to be black and white and a light gray, plus three greens. I'm wondering if it's a little too severe for a wee boy's blanket. For the weft, I think I'll use the softer merino in gray, but I love the darker cone.

Tell me, what colors are your loom right now??

Hemstiching

Thanks to Elaine, and Syne, I discovered I've been hemstitching correctly all along. But wait, something about mine looks different, so it may not be correct. No, not showing you just yet.

Lest I Forget

110/2, the size of merino and merino mixes I like to use at around 18EPI, is between 2/16 and 2/18 Nm depending on the manufacturer. I learned 110/2 was a New Zealand measurement only about a year ago, but couldn't remember its size in the internationally understood measurement.

I may have mentioned this before. I can remember 2/17; I was supposed to be born around February 17th.

A Day of Colour - LONG (AND SLOPPY TOWARDS THE END)

Last Sunday, I went to the lecture on color by Michael Wilcox. In addition to speaking, he illustrated his points with wet paint in front of us, which was a treat.

He started by saying that in the olden days, artists (painters and tapestry weavers in particular) knew the science of paints and color theories well, but now our/their understanding is muddled by manufactures and marketing. As with your food, he recommended we read the contents of the tubes and never trust the name of the color. With some colors, the more expensive paint is of superior quality, but with others, (including earth colors), student grade and top of the range are similar in constitution.

He next explained about lights, wavelength, surfaces and reflections making our brains interpret colors. This bit always puzzles me, but suffice it to say molecules/surfaces absorb certain wavelength of light, and whatever is reflected/rejected is seen by us as colors. So, my favorite red yarn has the magical power to absorb all other light wavelength but that which is innate in my favorite red, even though the yarn itself is not red.

Now, mixing. He used six primary colors as our bases: orange-red, orange-yellow, green-yellow, green-blue, violet-blue and violet-red.

Violet-red can be described as reflecting a lot of red, a little of violet, and a tiny amount of orange. Orange-red reflects lots of red, a little orange, and a small amount of violet. And so on. So the difference in the proportion of violet and orange distinguish these two reds in our eyes/heads. (He has his own color wheel but I cannot post it for copyright reasons, but if you could draw a crude wheel with these six positioned in order, it may help make sense.)

• If I need a clear, saturated violet, I mix violet-blue and violet-red, not because I want to mix red and blue, but because this combination generates the greatest amount of purple to be reflected.
• If I want a nuanced violet, I might mix orange-red and violet-blue, or violet-red and green-blue, but I know these combinations will never create a saturated, "true" violet.
• If I want a dark, muddy violet, I might consider mixing orange-red with green-blue, but if it turns brown and ugly, no amount of adding orange-red will create a nice violet, because I will not be adding any more violet to be reflected.
  
• This is a page from one of his books, which may help.
  
• We've not had, apparently, pure blue nor pure red paints, but if we had, theoretically the pure blue will absorb all red, and the pure red, all blue, so the mixture will be black.

The next issue was complementaries and harmony. First he took two complementary colors, and mixed a small amount of one to the other. Mixing complementaries desaturates the hue, resulting in the mixture turning more and more into what he called "gray" (i.e. lack of discernible hue), until enough of the second color is mixed so the mixture starts to gain the hue of the second color.

Michael stated that in painting, "pure" black can be too harsh and look like a hole, and to create harmony, if this is what the artist desires, colors derived from mixing complementaries or neighboring colors, or these colors mixed with black, (or white in place of pure white,) may suit better. Then he discussed shadows in paintings, how we were taught vs. how they look in reality, the two being opposites, and about glazes.

Lastly we experimented with after images; we stared at a number of colored shapes and then turned our eyes on to a white board to see blurred shadows of the complementaries of the colors we had been looking at. We also looked at different colored shapes to see the influence of the first color on them. As with values, I have a hard time seeing after images, but apparently we can train our brains to see these. Still, it was easy to see how important simultaneous contrast is in my work and I need to revisit this area. I asked Michael how texture (shiny/matt) influences hues, but I did not get an answer I understood.

Our best reference, I believe, remains Lambert, Staepelaere and Fry's tome, "Color and Fiber", 1986. I have not dyed enough to know how, practically and immediately, what I learned can help me with dyes including overdyeing, but my mind was abuzz with shot and shadow weave ideas.

At the end of the class, we viewed a dozen paintings, discussing the base colors in each. It was easy to pick them out in some paintings, but as the number of base colors increased, or the range of the base color widened, (e.g. from yellow to blue-green with violet to orange-red), my eyeballs became exhausted and my brain scrambled. But the lesson was, know the craft of your art. Indeed.

It was a fabulous day, everybody coming out with his and her own ideas and topics to research.

Workshop organizer Alison may bulk-order for Michael's books and paints for NZ residents; if that happens, I will let you know.

Something Going on with Blogs?

I know someone who's unjustifiably on Blogger's bad books. Another who is virtually stalked. Something going on with Blogger or with blogs? I you all come out right, ladies!

Post-Tidying Warp 1

But of course it's the cones on the shelves I love to use the most...

"After"

Finished, as best I can for the time being. Klik stays in the living room for now, and the "To Be Culled" pile in the hallways is big and unsightly. But now I use my stash.

The pictures will be hung tonight. I never liked the black and white drawing until today, when I propped it next to the others. I was going to put one of Ben's photos in it, but I think it will go up as is.

Ben's stunned I'm not putting the big bulletin boards back; for now I prefer the bare walls, (as bare as I can make them), though I have a project in mind for the wall behind the door.

Good Medicine

If you want to feel good about yourself as a weaver, go into your thrum box/bag, handle each one, and remember the times. I was going to throw my thrums away, but memories of past projects and what I was thinking and how I enjoyed each project came rushing back, and I couldn't dare to part with them. It might give your soul a boost, too.

The Goddess of Procrastination

I am nearly finished tidying the stash room, err my Design Room. At least, I've vacated the bedroom tonight. As it grew darker, I finished by moving the last boxes from the bedroom to the stash, err, Design Room. And I'm shamed to admit the actual work took me one hour on Thursday, one hours on Friday, and about half a day today. Ergo, my new title.

All the yarns have been sorted, boxed and put away, except about a dozen cones that will sit on the floor until I use things and make space. Art supplies need sorting, and they will sit on the floor in corners until space under the tables become available. And in the immediate future, I will not have workable surface, because I will have "things" sitting on them; for the same reason the Kilk loom will reside in the living room further notice. The pictures need hanging, but I'm not sure if I'll hang the bulletin boards here, or in the studio. And if I plan to work in the Design Room at nights, I need better lights.

As to my second biggest problem, books and magazines, I need more ime. Over the coming summer we are reworking the office and the living room, where we have more books and bookshelves, so we have to pick a few days when both Ben and I feel like dusting, sorting and boxing. We've always had 2-3 times as much books as we have bookshelf space, so this is a known, familiar "issue" which need tackling with sensitivity or gusto or both.

I had planned to have the "rack" on the right side of the dresser, but it looked wrong in that corner so it went to the left side. Funny how most things went back to where they came from. This is partly why it took so long: I was thinking hard about why I procrastinated so long, (not counting the weeks that were too cold to paint,) and what the 4-months hooha was all about. I came up with no answer, but decided to see it as a kind of cleansing; I was shedding something of the old and moving elsewhere. I also wondered if I'm masking a deeper emotional problem by buying and stocking yarns and books, going Dr Phil on myself, but wasn't enlightened.

The yarn sorting was good. There wasn't much I'd forgotten, but I witnessed my navy-blue period, whites and naturals phase, and gray-to-black craze. I remember who gave me what and when, and I thought of them. I swear a couple of bags were from my mother's knitting (pre-1990!) stock I grew up with. Some were horribly coarse yarns I bought because they were the only skinny yarns available the time. For now I'm keeping everything.

My upstairs Design Room and downstairs Studio and their contents is more stream-lined, for want of a better term. Everything I need in order to weave in the Studio is downstairs. Everything I need to design, think or weave on the smaller looms are upstairs.

The last few years I dedicated the four-shaft jack loom for my cashmere scarves, but they will now be done on a smaller loom upstairs; it will now be dedicated to joy-weaving, using up my thicker yarns, experimenting with textures and colors and creating unique (i.e. not in series) pieces either for my future Etsy store, or to give to friends and charity. In fact, I was looking at Davison last night and was quite excited about these projects. It's been a while since I've woven just for the enjoyment, without too much thinking, so it will no doubt be good for the soul.

And since my Design Room is the only room in our house looking out to our garden, it will, hopefully, give me a great incentive to venture out into the wilderness and do something.

But tomorrow, I have the color course.

Trying to Feel Upbeat

I've not been productive of late, begrudgingly sitting amongst my stash with an intent to sort, tidy and whatever you do after you tidy yarns. (New goal: moving back into the bedroom by October 11, after four months in the living room. Dread.)

There are plenty of lovely yarns I could play with, and I'm dedicating my four-shaft Jack loom for joy weaving with these thicker yarns, as soon as I finish the last cashmere left on it.

Yesterday Bronwyn Lloyd kindly gave me feedback on "Feel of Fibre" at Waiheke Art Gallery and through her blog, I discovered that one of my pics were used in the hardcopy invitation. With her partner Jack Ross's permission, I've downloaded the invite from his blog. Thanks!

Here are links to their beautiful blogs.
Bronwyn's blog: Mosehouse Studio (We've already seen her work here!)
Jack's blog: The Imaginary Museum (Don't you just love that name?)
Pania Press (Brownwyn and Jack's business) blog

Be careful; among other things, they are book binders. You are allowed to gaze at their pics and enjoy reading, but remember, we have too much yarn and too many looms to swap crafts now. Right?