Friday, July 24, 2020

Sunflowers and Ladybugs

I had so much fun playing with the color palette generators the other day that I couldn't stop myself from picking different areas of that sunflower picture to see the palettes that popped up. Check out this new one with hand-picked colors of brown, dark green, yellow, red, and beige - pretty, right?

sunflower color palette that includes green, brown, yellow, red, beige

And then it dawned on me. Without knowing it, I had used that palette when I designed the Sunflower table runner, purchasing the red, brown, and yellow fabrics on one LQS shopping trip because they played so well together. 

sunflower and lady bug quilted table runner by QuiltFabrication


More Sunflower Color Palettes

With all of that playing, it sent me down the road of finding more sunflower pictures. What do you think of these for sunflower palette inspirations?

yellow sunflower and fushcia flower color palette



yellow sunflowers in white vase with aqua background

 
Notice that I have chosen pictures with the unexpected in them, like the fuschia flower next to yellow, or the yellow backed by aqua. Not your usual sunflower pictures, that's for sure - more on that later.

Ladybug Color Palettes

Here's a few more palettes to share, but instead of sunflowers, they're based on ladybugs. The first one is simple, just three colors pulled from this graphic.

coral white and yellow flower with green leaves and a red ladybug on top


Adding two more color gradients to the mix, plus hand-picking the colors, results in this.

five color palette of black, white, coral, yellow, green


Quite striking, and reminds me of my Ladybug Dance wall hanging, though I chose more red than coral and eliminated the yellow.

ladybugs and flowers with black and green accents in Ladybug Dance wall hanging pattern by QuiltFabrication


More Ladybugs on Flowers

How about these? Here it's the same picture of a ladybug on blue flowers, but depending on the colors picked, results in two different palettes, both quite lovely.

red ladybug on blue flowers for two different color palettes by QuiltFabrication


And one last ladybug, this time on purple thistle. The first one is quite lovely with two greens, red, purple, and a neutral beige.

ladybug on thistle color palette of two greens, red, purple, and beige

But if the dark green is substituted with the black/grey (or even a dark blue) from the ladybug's spots, then an even more lively color palette evolves.

Ladybug on Thistle color palette with green, dark blue, red, purple, and beige by QuiltFabrication

I'm really loving that one - how about you?

Choosing Photos for Color Palettes

Have I given you color overload today? The week started with 3 Ideas for Finding the Perfect Color Palette, which includes a list of my favorite palette generating programs, and concludes today with generating your own from any of the stunning photos found on the web. 

And notice I say 'stunning photos', those whose color compositions that are already exciting. I could have chosen a clear, crisp photo of a sunflower against a blue sky, like this one.

yellow sunflower with green leaves against a blue sky

But I know what I'm going to get - bright yellow, orange, dark green, and blue. Sure, that's okay, but really not very exciting, and not worth my time putting it through one of the palette generator programs. With the other photo examples from above, I specifically chose those photos because they had unexpected color pairings - yellow with aqua; purple with yellow and brown; red with light blue. 

For fun, I'll pull out my favorite color wheel tool, The Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool (or any color wheel tool),

ultimate 3-in-1 color tool for color design


and I see that yellow and aqua are two legs of a triad, as are purple with orange-yellow, and red with blue. Now isn't this all starting to make sense? These colors are destined to be together, though we don't realize it. And that's what makes these photos stand out.

To wrap this up, color palettes are numerous for any given photo. It just takes a great photo, and the willingness to pick colors for a pleasing palette. I hope I've inspired you to study color more closely, and to seek beautiful, inspirational color palettes. It's those bits of unexpected that will make a beautiful quilt!

Happy Quilting!





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3 comments:

  1. These color generators are too much fun!!!! I had to be called TWICE to dinner. Ladybug quilt kind of looks like you put the green and yellow together, sunshine green. Thanks for sharing this.

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  2. Well, that was fun! Lots to think about and try! Thanks,

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  3. That sounds like a fun time actually!

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