Hello! It’s Leslie Lightfoot here and I will be leading this week’s blog on Hero Arts - I couldn’t be happier! It’s a first for me and I’m really thrilled to be a part of this fantastic blog. I have a fun week planned with lots of projects, prizes and fun. Be sure to participate in this week’s great challenge for a chance to share your talent and maybe win some prizes too! Check out the details of the weekly challenge at the bottom of today’s post.

Color is a key component in our everyday lives - from what we decide to put on each morning, to how we decorate our homes and of course, how we add flair and personality to our projects. This week we are going to go over a bit of “color theory” (in a very simple and easy to understand way) which is basically the guidelines we follow to create eye pleasing palettes of color. We are also going to try our hand at some unexpected and inspiring color combinations - we want to show you how much fun color truly can be. I hope you will learn some helpful color tips this week and most importantly I hope you’ll have fun along with us here at Hero Arts!

Today I want to start with some color basics. In my past life, I was an Interior Designer and one of the first things I learned in Design 101 was the color wheel.

Although many rules of the color wheel can be twisted and turned to meet your own personal preferences, it is always good to start with a solid foundation and understanding of color. We all learned in Kindergarten that all colors begin with the 3 primary colors - blue, red and yellow - the primary color scheme. I created a card with these colors and found them simplest to work with by determining which colors would take “center stage” and which would be used as accents. Because yellow is such a bright color I chose to use it in limited amounts. Blue and red make up the base of the card and the yellow gives the card the punch it needs to keep it sunny and cheerful.

Here is the Primary color scheme (red, blue and yellow) as well as the card I created:

Supplies:

• Bird on a branch
• Birthday Wishes
• Clear Design: Share Laughter
• Blue note cards
• Kraft note cards
• Clear mixed gemstones
• Green & Red Gemstones

Our very own Shari Carroll tackled another interesting color scheme – the secondary color scheme. The 3 colors in this color scheme are determined when you mix 2 primary colors in equal parts. If you take equal parts red and blue and mix them together you get PURPLE. If you mix equal parts blue and yellow together you get GREEN. If you mix equal parts yellow and red together you get ORANGE. These 3 colors make up the secondary color scheme you see here in Shari’s beautiful card example below. It is a very popular color scheme for Halloween projects and crafts.

Here is the color scheme (purple, green and orange) Shari worked from, along with the card she created:

Supplies:

• Happy Haunting
• Bold Caps Alphabet
• Summer Notecards
• Black ink
• Black Gemstones
• Other Supplies: Bazzill Scallop edges, Bo Bunny paper, Grey color pencil, foam mount tape

Shari said… “Thanks Leslie for this challenge. You are right, these colors are screaming for Halloween! Now that my boys are grown, I don’t have many chances to make cards for the occasion so this was great fun. I cut and layered my card stock, stamped the ghost cat on the strip of orange and again onto white card stock. I colored the edges of the image on the white card stock, cut it out and put it on the card with foam tape along with my stamped and cut out letters. Oh, I used my Japanese screw punch to make the holes on the green panel. I added a few gems and that’s about it! Thanks!! :o)”

Take a look HERE for another example of this color scheme in action, also made by Shari.

Now, it’s time for this week’s challenge! I challenge you to create a project that uses one of the following 3 very unique and inspiring color combinations. It may be challenging but it guarantees you will learn to think outside the box and embrace trying on a new color combo. Later in the week you will see these same 3 color combinations in action by me and 2 very special guest artists.

Here are the color combos for you to choose from:

hot pink, lime green and soft pink…

pumpkin orange, yellow and purple-blue…

red, purple and light blue…

After creating a project with one of these fun color combinations, load it into the Hero Arts Flickr group and tag it with the code word “color.” Post your projects by Sunday, August 10^th at 11:59 PM PST. From the entries, we will pick winners of the following prizes:

• 1st place: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• 2nd place: $25 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• 3rd place: $10 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog

As you can see, it is going to be a colorful week around here! Be sure to check back tomorrow for more color lessons, as well as beautiful card designs from 2 very talented guest artists.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 4:12 am and is filed under Motivation Mondays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.