fi gure 5 - before
fi gure 5 - after
“Puppy Love” • 36" x 28"
Working with this color scheme,
I put down 8 violet squares, 4 green,
and 3 orange. With just a little
space for more squares, I cut the
numbers in half and added another
4 violet, 2 green, and just 1 orange.
As your color scheme becomes
more complicated, the number
ratios can also get tricky.TIP: Remember you are playing with
color, so have fun. When you feel that
working the numbers is becoming
irritating, employ two other useful math
concepts: estimate and approximate.Want to learn more?
Watch Lea as she shares her
knowledge about eff ectively using
color in your quilts on “Quilting
Arts TV” Series 2300 available at
quiltingartstv.com or your local
PBS station.fig 5 bf
figure 5 after
Exercise 3: Balance a double
split complement color scheme
Let’s try one more color scheme, this time with 5 colors—a
double split complement.
In Figure 5—before and after—yellow (9), yellow-green
(7.5), red (6), blue-green (5), and blue (4) become yellow (4),
yellow-green (5), red (remains 6), blue-green (7.5), and blue
(9) when the colors are balanced using Goethe’s color scale.
Even though there aren’t exactly 9 blues in this example—and
certainly not 7 ½ blue-greens!—the approximation still follows
the same principle to create a pleasing arrangement.The effect of color balancing is less dramatic as the color
scheme becomes more complicated, but the concept can be
used effectively with any composition. In an artist’s journey to
understand and use color more effectively, this may be just the
thing to take one’s work to the next level.