I am teaching four one-day workshops at The Artway, Polymer Clay Express, in Damascus, Maryland over the Veteran’s Day weekend. Join me for just one day or for all four. Registration is easy, or at least I hope it will be. I am trying something new, a Wufoo form. If all goes well, you can […]
Smashing Color
with Maggie Maggio
Page 7 of 15
“If one says “Red” (the name of the color) and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.” This famous quote from the first chapter of Josef Albers book, Interaction of Color, […]
The photos and videos of the royal wedding in Bhutan are starting to stream in via the internet. Its a joy to see all the vibrant color! The first time I heard of Bhutan was reading Ancient Futures by Helena Norberg-Hodge. I’ve longed to visit this beautiful country that measures success on a Gross National Happiness scale […]
Sherwin Williams is opening a new store in our neighborhood and offering 40% off on all paint. Even though I am not planning to repaint my living room anytime soon, it did get me thinking about changing the color. Don’t get my wrong. I love the color it is now. We wanted something warm and […]
My freshman year of college I took Color 101. We used Josef Albers’ classic Interaction of Color as the text. That experience opened my eyes to the difference between what a color is and what it appears to be. Almost forty years later I’m still learning new ways to look at color and loving every […]
Steve Jobs was the ultimate designer. He believed in the power of function married to elegance. In his honor, the website Fast Company put together a slide show of obituaries from around the world. If you haven’t had a chance to watch the video of his commencement address to the 2005 graduates of Stanford University, here […]
One of the challenges of teaching a color workshop is asking students to stop thinking of red as a primary when mixing pigments, dyes and inks. Even after demonstrating that magenta and yellow make red, its still mind boggling to relegate red to secondary status. Why is it so hard to give up the […]
The last day of the retreat we focused on placement and proportion. The flag exercise is a fun way to see the six different options for three colors in a simple design. To be effective, all three colors need to be visible when the flag is flying on top of a capitol building. As you can […]
One of the reasons I wanted to host a Color Retreat was to see how the exercises I use in polymer workshops could be translated in other media. When the time came to check contrast, I challenged the group to come up with their own designs for Contrast Tables. Here are the results (some still […]
Log Cabin quilt blocks are studies in light and shadow. The fun comes when they are combined. Here are a few variations to try with your dark and light Stripe Blends. Weekend Extra Exercises 1. Play with the Spiral. Here’s the diagram showing the order to put the strips for a spiral effect. The construction […]
We are playing with Log Cabin designs inspired by quilting in Saturday School tomorrow. You can find Log Cabin images all over the web and in a gazillion books but I just recently came across Brenda Ratiff’s quilt as you go versions on her Flickr site, justabitfrayed. Because I get very frustrated when I sew, I […]
Color collaging is one of my most important studio tools. I use it in all my workshops as a way for students to get in touch with color combinations that resonate for them. Along those lines, I want to share with you the wedding planning blog, The Perfect Palette. Chrissy started planning her own wedding by collaging […]
Red dresses made the news last night at the Emmy’s. My husband says that they must have all called (texted?) each other to ask “What are you wearing.” I’d like to think of it as a switch from the stereotype of women wearing red as a symbol of seduction to women wearing red as a show of […]
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