While seeking information for an upcoming Spoonflower design challenge (“Fair Isle”), I discovered a cool way to choose colors. The original post at Interweave was specifically geared toward Fair Isle knitting, but, I am experimenting with expanding the technique for use in my drawings/fabric designs.
The basic idea is to choose colors more based on their value than hue. There is a simple process described and what you end up with is 3 dark/darkish colors, 3 light/lightish colors and 2 colors that are for accents. So, 8 colors total, but really 9 (sort of) for me because, although white is not strictly a color, it’s necessary to take into account for drawings and for fabric design. (If I leave a white background in a drawing, I will most likely switch it out with a drawing color or another color in the fabric design.)
This process has me considering value much more than I have been, which I find very helpful. So far, I’ve used this technique for the drawings for Days 11 through 16.
Catch up design for Day 12 below (9×12″, crayola markers)