Picking colors that go well together can be a challenge when coloring. Sometimes you have no idea where to start, spending too long staring at the blank page afraid to make a mistake that will ruin the whole thing. You might find yourself gravitating to your favorite colors, only to have all your FOs start to feel the same.
Artists of any kind can have the same struggles, whether it’s choosing the right combinations of yarns for colorwork knitting or crochet, selecting floss shades when going rogue in an embroidery pattern, or blending the right fondant color to go with your iced cake base. This problem isn’t only for artists either! Think of matching accessories to an outfit or selecting the accent color for pillows to give your living room the spark it needs.
Colors can be hard. I’ve mentioned Sarah Renae Clark‘s Color Catalog here before as a solution I’ve turned to when coloring and I’ve found myself referencing it often for various projects.
The digital catalog is easy to search and scroll on my ipad and I like to take a screenshot of my chosen reference image to keep with my project notes and refer to as I work. For digital art it even provides RGB, CMYK & Hex codes for every color palette included in Vol 1 or Vol 2.
I’d also treated myself to her Color Catalog Companion to make swatching the right colors easier – it provides the color names/numbers to match the swatches for a number of popular marker and colored pencil brands.
The only problem with the catalogs is that they’re fully digital which could be an issue if my devices were low on battery or I was working outside and couldn’t see my screens well. I love swatching and always had a scrap of paper with my color scribbles on it but more so than the colors themselves I really benefit from the reference images in the respective palettes. They really help me to see how the colors work together and the various shades and tones of shadow and light.
Turns out having a hardcopy version has been a popular request and now it officially exists! This week Sarah introduced the Color Cube!
It’s available for pre-order now and *cough* I may or may not have treated myself to the bundle of both Vol 1 and Vol 2. I love the idea that I will be able to keep my chosen palette in my project bag or tucked into my coloring book for easy, convenient reference.
I also really, really love that not only does the back of the card have the same color codes as the digital version, but that the colors run right to the edge of the card – making color matching super easy.
The Color Cube is available through Sarah’s site right here. You can get Vol 1 or 2 (or both) or get them in a bigger bundle with the catalogs and companion too. I’m really excited about adding this resource to my crafter’s toolkit!
jeloca.com 