Color Mastery » color journal

Color Journals – I Miss You!

mpeagler — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:36:50 +0000

It’s been strange over the past couple of weeks without my color journals. I lovingly packed them off to Quilter’s Newsletter for an excerpt of the book they’re planning for a spring issue. I was hesitant to send them, they are so much a part of me. But I wanted to share the color journal process and its potential with quilters so they could explore their own color styles.

To fill that void, I’ve started a new journal. Still a color journal, but more of a visual journal and business plan in one. I’ve been following the exercises in The Creative Entreprenuer by Lisa Sonora Beam and part of that is to create a mandala that ties together four pathways of business. I was at a local cafe with my journal and supplies and created this.

I doubted the whole visual journal process at first (does this sound familiar to quilters who doubt color journals?). I own plenty of beautiful books on journals, but they all seem to be recycling other people’s art and the makers spend more time creating the pages than getting meaning out of them. But I forged ahead anyway and was pleasantly surprised. This visual journal process works for creative business owners. I really don’t like filling out state tax forms, doing accounting, cash flow projections, and the like, but they are necessary parts of my business. And Lisa’s visual journal process helps creative business people visually map out their strengths, weaknesses, and plans. In a method that speaks to them.

So again, it’s journals to the rescue. For color. For business. For quilts. After all, it’s always about the quilts.

Posted via email from mariapeagler’s posterous

Master Color Using Only Six Fat Quarters

mpeagler — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:43:41 +0000

Maud shares her Renaissance quilt from the Color Mastery workshop I taught this summer in Dawsonville. My students use their color journals to discover the three elements of color and build unique palettes around their favorite color. Even if quilters start out with the same blue, they’ll develop completely individual color palettes. They truly discover their color personalities.

Last, I have students select one of their color palettes and build a fat quarter bundle from it: one fat quarter for each color. And I teach them how to use the Three Bears Rule of Color to know exactly how much of each color to use. They can use that bundle to make the Renaissance quilt shown here. Maud used a double-complementary color scheme of blue, orange, yellow, and violet, and what gorgeous results she got!

Maud was so inspired by her Renaissance quilt she decide to make a matching valance, and here she’s laying out the fabrics for it. Discovering a new technique sparks the creative juices and gets new ideas flowing, and mastering color gives quilters the courage to try all kinds of new things. Make time for an artist date for yourself and try these exercises. You’ll never look at bolts of fabric the same way!

Color Journal at Work

mpeagler — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:00:12 +0000

Debbie and I met at FoxTales Book Shoppe during my book tour, and she is a fantastic lady who was so ready to learn about color in quilting. Debbie read Color Mastery and applied the lessons, and look at her results. Wow. Debbie made this beautiful quilt for her niece Karen.

Debbie has never taken one of my workshops, so she was able to do all this from the book alone. She knew what quilt she wanted to make – a Yellow Brick Road, and she knew she wanted blue as the main color. She used her color journal to figure out what blues to use, and what other colors would give her the effect she wanted with those blues.

Fabrics are cut and ready to be put into a quilt. Debbie’s “artist date” in her color journal paid off big rewards. You can already see the effects of those colors working together. Blues and greens blend nicely, while the yellow and pink sparkle.

Here’s a close up of all those beautiful fabrics together, plus a few more. Debbie is thrilled with her results, and her niece Karen is one lucky girl! Imagine what you can do with your fabrics, a color journal, and Color Mastery!

Try out the Renaissance quilt, one of the nine quilt projects in the book – it takes only 6 fat quarters, shows you how to select your colors, how to decide how much of each color to use, teaches strip-piecing, and has no triangles. Super easy and totally rewarding! In only one day, you can be a color master and have a gorgeous quilt. Send me photos of the projects you make from Color Mastery and I’ll post them here on my blog!

Extreme Quilt Makeover Video

mpeagler — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:31:40 +0000

I have so much fun making these videos! Short, quick, and satisfying – just like candy. I took advantage of all the gorgeous light coming in from the windows in my studio and I shot this video today. It’s all about remaking a quilt if you could do it all over again. I call it Extreme Makeover: Quilt Edition. How often do you look at a quilt and say to yourself, “If I had it to do all over again, I would make that quilt so differently.” Well, here’s how you can!

I also teach a class based on this concept, and it’s a blast: it’s like going to a quilt show, as everyone’s quilt and results are different.

Enjoy! And you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel here.

Color Journal CD Now Available

mpeagler — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:58:20 +0000

Early adopters of Color Mastery loved the charts and miniature color wheels I included in the book. In fact, they couldn’t get enough of them. I heard from Liz, one of my readers, who just can’t bring herself to cut the mini color wheels from the back, and since color copying never gives accurate results, she wanted more of them. What if I had them printed up and offered in packs?

Well, I’ve done even better. I’m offering the Color Journal CD so you can print and customize your journal to your liking. You know how much I adore keeping a journal, even making my own with watercolor paper, hand-sewn binding, and fabric covers. But they still weren’t right. I wanted to have graph paper and blank paper together, so I could design a quilt on the graph paper, and draw, sketch, or audition fabric swatches on the blank paper. Now you can do both, and each journal page has all six color harmonies listed, so you don’t have to remember those fun names!

Plus, every chart and color wheel is included. I had no idea when I wrote Color Mastery how important the Color Harmony chart would be, and I couldn’t predict you’d want more of them! Now you don’t have to travel to the copy shop to make copies of the color wheel charts you fill in with your fabric swatches. It’s all on the CD.

And I’ve made it affordable. $16.95 for a lifetime of unlimited journals, the way you want them. I’ve already made one journal I keep in a three-ring binder – with pockets no less! I’ll be printing my next one on special paper, giving it a lovely binding, and presenting it as a gift to my quilting friend whose birthday is this month (not naming names in case she reads this!).

Ok, I’m gushing about keeping a journal and the Color Journal CD. It’s available only from the Color Mastery store, and I even offer a special price if you order the book and CD. Enjoy.

A Night to Remember

mpeagler — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:55:05 +0000

Standing room-only last Friday evening at Sew Memorable for the Color Mastery book launch party. Jeanne’s team was so sweet and excited! They made homemade baby chocolate eclairs and weekend employees took off their day jobs to work in the shop all day to help Jeanne set up. Friends, quilters, even both of my sons’ teachers came to hear all the details on color in their quilts. I was amazed at the women who had “thought” about quilting, but never had taken the plunge, who were excited about putting fabrics together in a gorgeous quilt.

I was so touched by the women who told me:

My daughter picks out colors for me and now I can do it!
Thank you for writing this book – we really needed it.
My sister selects my colors and I never like them.

So many quilters who were frustrated about color but now are excited about the prospect of mastering the color in their quilts. Everyone went home with a brand new product, requested by you – dear readers! The Color Mastery Quilt Journal Kit on CD! Printable journal pages, all on a CD, so you can print and customize your own color journal. I’ll have more details as the week goes on – the CD will be available here soon!

Developing Your Unique Color Vision in a Journal

mpeagler — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:52:20 +0000

How can you achieve your own color style, unique and stunning every time? Know yourself first. Don’t be disappointed by using other people’s color choices in your quilts. And rote practice of color theory without combining it with your personal preferences results in quilts that look like a color study.

To use color effectively, you need to discover:

Your color likes, dislikes, challenges, and strengths
The DNA of color (also known as color theory)

Get started by keeping a color journal. It provides you the opportunity to play and to break free from what others are doing by discovering your own creative potential with the fabrics uniquely your own.

Supplies you’ll need:

Sketchbook or Color Mastery Quilt Journal Kit CD (available at the book launch party and on this website soon!)
Glue stick
Scissors
Inspirational photos
Fabrics from your stash or scraps

Three ways to get started in your color journal:

Create a color palette from photos and magazine clippings by identifying their main colors and mining your stash, cutting and pasting swatches in your journal.
Aim for a greater variety of lights and darks in your palette. See how the contrast in your quilt would become stronger with the addition of a greater range of lights and darks.
Take the first step in learning color theory by making your own color wheel with your stash (the color wheel chart is available in the blog sidebar). It’s an eye-opening exercise to see your stash reflected back to you in an arrangement that places similar colors together and different colors opposite each other on the wheel.

The time I spend in my color journal pays off ten times over, as I discover what colors appeal to me, those that don’t, and how I can develop fresh color palettes using the colors I love. And I even learn how to appreciate challenging colors and make them work in my quilts. What can you discover about color once you begin keeping a color journal?

Look for a new product at the end of this month: the Color Mastery Quilt Journal Kit CD. It will have printable pages for your journal, both blank & gridded with color harmonies along the bottom (see photo above), and guided exercise pages. It’s a great way to get started and a journal is as close as your home printer!