Playing with Color Palettes

A Neutral Christmas Color Palette ©Cindy Rippe 2013

I've been wanting to create and photograph style boards ever since I saw a picture of one in a magazine from 1996.  My friend Kelly Hoernig and I finally started on this project the other day.  We gathered treasures we've been collecting; including fabrics, jewelry, books, dried seed pods, flowers.... you name it.  If it inspires us artistically we save it.  We had a really fun day playing with color and creativity.

I have been struggling with color for the last few years.  I think it's because I've been drawing so much in graphite.  There could be other reasons for it but I'm going to use this exercise to find my internal rainbow again!

One of my challenges will be to work with color schemes that I would normally not choose.  This neutral, primitive style, print was perfect.  I didn't really like the colors at first but it did have pine cones on it. Nature; you know I love that, and it reminded me of Christmas.   I laid the fabric swatch and green knitted place mat onto an old cable knit sweater. The little bird that I display each winter at home, plastic snowflakes, buttons, a wooden heart from Kelly's stash and a few of my pine cones completed the board.  Surprise!  I like it now.

I'll be sharing one of these Inspiration Boards each week throughout 2014.  We aren't all going to love the same color combinations but it might just spark the imagination and become a "jumping off" spot to create something new. My hope is to get back to painting more next year and maybe this will help.  I hope it will help you too!

"Creativity is contagious, pass it on!"  Albert Einstein

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