More Color Choices

I asked several additional Gallery artists how they choose colors for their nonrepresentational work.  Here's what I learned.

Silk painter Clara Graves told me "When I create one of the woven pieces from my New Worlds series, I have no plan in mind at all. I simply go to my collection of painted silks and pull colors that appeal to me. This is usually quite a large and colorful pile of silk. As I go through them again and again, a particular color pattern within the fabrics attracts me and I begin working to find other pieces of silk that will work with that initial piece. Sometimes I want to subdue it a bit, as in the area of blue green blended with the violet in the piece below.

Clara Graves, Toward the Sun

"Not wanting the whole work to be too quiet, I then put together some more vibrant and complementary silks to play off against that original section of the piece."

Anne Sanderoff-Walker, a weaver and felter, says "Weaving is all about color. I find inspiration everywhere. I remember when I was a kid, blue and green were never seen together, but looking at a bluebird sky and the trees in leaf, it seems so obvious that green and blue should be used together and I do. Recently I’ve been going outside my color comfort zone and using reds, oranges and pinks together. Now that I’m comfortable with the “hot” colors, I need to look beyond my newest comfort zone for something new."

Anne often decides the colors in her woven work by her selection of yarns.  Sometimes she defers the decision on color by weaving a white garment, then dyeing it, as seen in the shawl below, which was dyed using a fold and clamp (shibori) technique.  She says that "This is my newest passion in use of color. Every time I dye I look forward to the surprise results."

Anne Sanderoff-Walker, shawl

Janet Barnard is a weaver, silk dyer, garment maker, and silk paper sculptor.  Her palette is distinctive.  She says that her color choices change with the day and whether she is weaving or dyeing because the colors interact very differently in these techniques. She continues that "I prefer darker palettes as opposed to pastel, and muted colors as opposed to  primary ones. Since I rarely use real images, I can play with color and be surprised with what I get."

Here are examples of two of Janet's recent dyed fabrics:

Janet Barnard, silkscreened cloth

Janet Barnard, silkscreened cloth

You can see examples of Janet's other work and other color choices  in our January blog post on Wondrous, Lustrous Silk.