Textiles1 Stage 3 Exercise 2

Matching fabric colours

My first try

I picked a colourful piece of fabric with enough colours to give me a good idea of how to match colours,  but not so grey or dark that it would be unnecessarily difficult for me to do it.

Using my colour mixing pages from the previous exercise, I found it easier than I expected to mix the orange and pink. I found that I had a reasonable idea of what kind of purple would turn into that pink when I added a bit of white. And from my colour mixing page I knew which blue to mix with which yellow. The background colour seemed to be nearly as easy to mix, despite the rather subtle colours in it.

Unfortunately, with the background colour I forgot to do a test square at the edge of the paper, and I found that the colour of the paint on my brush was not at all the same colour it became when it was put on the paper. I finished putting it on, and waited for it to dry, and then decided that I would have to start again if I was going to learn how to match colours accurately ie the purpose of this exercise.

Better background, not so happy about the brown

So what I've learned from this exercise is
1. That I have already learned something about what happens to colours when you add white; that I can usually make a good guess about which colours to mix together; when to add a small amount of the complementary colour (when there's anything brownish about it).
2. To ALWAYS test it on the paper before putting it down.
3. That very bright colours can look good together too.
4. That it is best to have the 6 basic colours that can be mixed together rather than pre-mixed ones.
5. That I have a lot of practising to do if I am going to be able to predictably mix colours.