Transcripts
1. What You'll Learn in This Class: Do you shy away from
color or do you need to take your colors
skills to the next level? Hi there, I'm Cynthia Harrison. I'm an interior
designer and artist. Join me in this
class while I show you my fun and easy
techniques for studying color and for creating a custom
signature color palette. Whether you're an artist, a graphic designer, or an interior
designer or decorator, or maybe you just want
to explore color, this class offers
engaging exercises and resources so you
can up your color game. I'll walk you through
some color theory basics and then we'll start building
a color palette using your inspiration images on
your iPad in Procreate. Then we'll be creating some unique artwork to
study your color palette. You can even print and
display your artwork to showcase your custom signature
color palette if you like. This class is suitable
for all skill levels and some procreate experiences
helpful, but isn't required. You can study your
custom color palettes using the artwork
you create yourself, or you can download the free templates I created
for you in Procreate, which are available in
the Resources Section. You can even apply your
new color palettes to your own custom
wallpaper designs, which I show you how to do in my Custom Wallpaper Design class. So check that out too! All you need for this
class is an iPad Pro with Procreate, an Apple pencil and your unlimited imagination. Now before we get started, I just want to take a moment
to encourage you to keep practicing and learning
new creative skills. Just remember that this
isn't about perfection, it's about creating space in your life to explore
the 'what ifs'. I hope you practice
these new skills and put them into action and have
fun with this class. And thanks so much
for joining me.
2. Your Class Project and Resources: Your class project is to create your custom signature
palette in Procreate. You can post a JPEG or a PNG image of your
palette color study. You can also post an image
of your strings color study. And I'd love to see the kind of strings or yarn that you used. And you can also post images of your digital
quilt color study. To help you get going, I've included some Class
Downloads in the Resources section. There are some
templates for palettes, string line work, and a digital quilt, as well as some links to my Pinterest color
palettes board and some really handy
color websites. I've also created a Color Theory Basics cheat sheet
for your reference as well if you like. Up next we'll be
reviewing Color Theory Basics. See you in the next lesson.
3. Color Theory Basics: In this lesson,
we're going to cover some basic color
theory concepts. And this is just going
to help us when we're coloring and looking
at palettes later on. If you'd like to take a deeper
dive into color theory, I have included a list of recommended readings in
the resources section. So this is our handy color
wheel and we're going to use that to study the
different aspects of color. The first aspect is Hue, and we've got our
primary colors, red, blue, and yellow. From the primaries, we
get our secondary colors, which are orange,
purple, and green. If you mix our primary
and our secondary colors, you get tertiary colors. Red-purple, blue-purple, etc. Some colors are warm in
temperature and some are cool. Value is the next aspect. And you can create a tint or a lighter value of a
color by adding white. On the other hand,
adding black creates a shade or a darker
value of a color. Chroma is the next aspect. It's kind of related to value, but you can change the chroma of a color by adding
another color to it. For example, adding green to pure red lowers the
chroma of the red, and adding red to
a pure green lowers the chroma of the green. There are lots of different
color combinations that create harmony, and we're going to
review just a few. The first is monochromatic, which is using
different shades of all the same hue like
this purply blue one. An analogous color combination
is a combination of two to five colors that sit adjacent to each other
on the color wheel. Complimentary color
combinations are colors that sit opposite each
other on the color wheel. These colors usually create a lot of energy
when used together. A triadic color combination
is a combination that uses three colors that are equidistant on the color wheel, making the shape of a triangle. A tetradic combination
is a scheme that includes one primary and
two complimentary colors. It also uses one additional color
that highlights accents. Color space, or a
color system is how we humans use our words and
numbers to describe color. And some systems are better for digital versus printed objects. Display screens show
colors in RGB space. RGB stands for the three colors, red, green, and blue. The color space uses red, green, and blue light
to make new colors. RGB space is best for
creating digital designs. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key, which is
just another word for black. CMYK color space is recommended for any
printed material. In the digital world, colors are represented
by a six digit code, known as a hex code or
a hexadecimal color. This combination of
letters and numbers tells your computer monitor or
TV what color to display. When we start putting together our palettes in Procreate we'll be using a hexadecimal number to record and log the
colors that we select. There's also a couple
of websites that you can input this
hexadecimal number and it will translate that into an RGB or CMYK or a PMS color. PMS stands for
Pantone Matching System, which was created by Pantone. And it's a tool that
organizes color standards through a proprietary numbering
system and chip format. And you usually
have to buy these through Pantone or you can pay for membership to get access to some of
their online tools. The last thing I
want to touch on is the subjectivity of color. Everyone perceives
color differently, and that's what
makes it so elusive sometimes. Colors can elicit some pretty strong emotions in some people and also some
physiological responses. My neighbor actually has a
condition called synesthesia, where she can physically
hear loud colors. So you can imagine how
disruptive that might be for someone who's trying to
sleep in a bright red room. It took me a long time
to embrace color. I wear black all the time. My whole house is gray, but I'm starting to integrate some blues and other colors. And to quote David
Hockney, he said, "I don't believe there are any off-putting
colors" out there, so I can do agree with that. Up next, we're gonna be using our inspiration images to build our color palettes using the
Procreate palette template. See you there.
4. Color Study Exercise 1 - Palettes: In this exercise,
we're going to do really fun color study by taking an image and extracting
some of the colors. So I've created a palette
template for you in the Class Downloads
in the Resources tab. Once you download that, it will show up in your
Procreate gallery. And you can click on that
to open the document. And I've set this up on an
1800 pixel square canvas. So I've divided it into thirds. And so the inspiration
image is on the left. And then the palette
swatches are on the right. And we have nine of those. And each one has its
own hexadecimal number. And so I've set it up in the
layers palette like this, the inspiration images
on its own layer. Then the palettes,
swatches are grouped together and each
one has a number. And so the one on
the bottom is nine, and then the number associated
with that is on top of it. We're just going to go
through here and change the image and the swatches with another inspiration image. So I will show you
how to do that. The first thing we wanna do is clear our inspiration image. So we're going to select
that and then select Clear. And then we're going
to insert a new image. And I'm going to select this picture of the Wisdom
Tree I took when we were in Los Angeles for
Christmas last year, and I was just stunned
by all the colors that I couldn't believe
there were purples and blues and some really beautiful
neutrals as well in the bark. I want to do a color study
with some swatches from this. And so once we get
our image in there, you'll see it's on the
inspiration image layer since we have that selected. Then I'm just gonna go through each color swatch
and change each one. I'm going to select a
really light lavender pink almost from this bark area. And because the layer
is set to Alpha Lock, once you have that
color selected, you can just select Fill and
it will change that color. So I'm gonna go
through and do that. We've got nine swatches, so I'm going to do that
nine different times. And then I will show you how to get the hexadecimal number
and we'll change all those. So I'll meet you back
here in just a second. Okay, I think I'm happy
with this palette here. It's hard to believe there are that many colors in
the bark of a tree, but that's what's so
amazing about this image. Now I'm going to build
a new palette by selecting the Palette
tool and then select the little palette symbol at the bottom and go all the way to the top and select the plus sign and then
create a new palette. And I'm going to call
this Wisdom Tree. And then we're going
to color drop all of those colors that we
selected in the swatch. So I'm just going
to hold my finger on each one until it pops up in the color picker and
then I'm going to drop it into the palette. All nine of those will get
their own little square. Now we've got our
Wisdom Tree palette and it's really nice-looking. So now to find the
hexadecimal number, we're going to select
value at the bottom and I have this dark
color selected. And you'll see here kind of midway down it says
hexadecimal and this is the number that
we're going to copy by double tapping and
then select Copy. And I'm going to go
up to that layer where the hexadecimal number is. Double-tap there and
then select Paste. And I'm gonna do that for
each one of these real quick. This one on the light blue is
a little bit hard to read, so I'm going to go up to that layer and I'm
going to select it. Then I'm just going to
make it the dark color so I can see it on top
of that light blue. So now we've got our
inspiration image with all of these beautiful
colors that we pulled. We've got a great
combination of lights, neutrals, darks, and some
vibrant accent colors. So I think this is a really
great palette to work from. Up next we're going to study
our color palette with a string composition. See
you in the next lesson.
5. Color Study Exercise 2 - Strings: For this exercise, you want to
find a long piece of string. And I've got lots
of examples of some of the scrap string that I
have laying around the house. Because if you're
anything like me, I like to regift ribbons and not just not throw
stuff in the landfill. So I just went and
gathered a bunch of yarns. This is just some
black elastic that I for some reason have. I'm not even really
sure where that's from. If you have a big twine
of yarn or something you can adjust the
size if you need. But ideally it would be a dark color because I
would like for us to work with a piece of white foam board on the background or if you have a white table surface or your desk is
white or something, you could use that
for your background. So I'll go ahead and get rid of these lighter colored ones. I'm really curious about
this elastic here. It's really long and it's super flimsy like linguine or something. So I'm going to use this
and see what happens. But basically the
point of this exercise is to create an
organic line shape. And since we have this
white background, that's going to
serve as our canvas. And then the line
work that we get from this ribbon we'll photograph and pull
that into Procreate and use that to study our colors. So I'm just gonna get really
organic and just start. I don't know, I'm not even really trying. I just want like a very
loose kind of weird shape. And I mean, I kinda like that. So that's gonna be
probably one option. The next one I'm just
going to pick it up and start over. I'm just going to throw it. So I've taken
several pictures of my different yarn
and string layouts. And so I'm going to open a 12 by 12 canvas
in Procreate. That can actually be
whatever size you like, but I like to work
with a square. And this is a 150 dpi, which I think is
a fine resolution as long as we don't try
to enlarge it too much. So what I'm gonna do is
insert one of my yarn images. And I'm gonna go
with this one here. And I really like this
loopy loose layout. So I'm going to put
that on its own layer. And then I'm going to reduce
the opacity way down. Then I'm going to draw on top
of that in another layer. So I'll add a second
layer on top of that. And I've got my black
color selected. And I'm going to draw with
this inking pen called Syrup. It comes with your
Procreate brush library. And I like it because it's
really pressure sensitive. So if you push hard or let go, it has a nice variable pressure. And I like that
for this exercise. So I'm just going
to start tracing my yarn with this syrupy pen. And I want it to just be
really loose and gestural. So I'm just going to play with it. And this might take
me a couple of tries, but I want it to
be thick and thin, and weavy and wavy and loopy. So you can see that this is just a really loose gestural
stroke line drawing. And we're going to use this
to study our color palette. And I think it's a
really fun exercise because it's different. And you can also do
lots of variations and try lots of different
color combinations. But in the end I think it would make a really cool print. I was thinking like a series
of three or a series of six. You could just print them on your color printer and cut them out and frame them and
hang them on the wall. I think that'd be kinda cool. So the way I'd like to study
this with the colors that we selected for our palette is to
select a background color. We're going to do that not just by turning on this
background color, but I want to create
another layer. And I'm going to put
it on the bottom here, underneath our drawing. I'm actually going to
group these together. And then I'm going to
duplicate this layer. I'm going to swipe left
and duplicate that. And I'm going to put
both of these on their alpha lock
setting so that I can very easily swap out the color. So for the first step, I want to fill this bottom
layer with a background color. So I'm gonna go to my
palette and I'm going to select this kinda
soft pink color. And I'm just going to
drag my eyedropper. The next thing I want to
do is I'm going to select this duplicated
version and I'm going to move it and create
a shadow effect. I'll have it selected, then I'll grab my
selection tool. And with my finger in the
lower right-hand corner, I'm just going to
tap five times. And I can move it
more if I need to. But I'm gonna pop up to my top layer and I'm going
to select this vibrant, reddish, earthy red color. And I'm going to fill
that by selecting the layer and
hitting fill layer. You can see we have this cool
drop shadow looking effect. I kinda want to move
it a little bit more so you can actually even do this manually just by grabbing it and moving it down a little bit. You might even want to make sure your magnetics and
snapping settings are turned off because sometimes it doesn't give you
enough control. I kinda like it right there. And then I'm going to change
the color of my drop shadow. So I'm also going to select
this dark red color here. This is more of a
monochromatic color study because these are all reds. This one is the
most saturated red. This one has black in it, so it's a shade. And this one in the background is a tint
because it has white in it. So just thinking about the
things that we touched on in our color theory basics and
trying to apply them here. We could also do some
more analogous versions. So I'm going to minimize
that group and duplicate it. And then I'll turn
the bottom one off. Up next we're going to be
re-coloring our digital quilt. See you in a bit.
6. Color Study Exercise 3 - Quilt: For this next exercise,
we're going to open the quilt template that I provided as a download in
the class resources section. Once you download that, it should show up in
your Procreate gallery. Tap that to open
it up and you'll see it's this beautiful
ombre pattern. I found this quilt on Pinterest, and I set it up so that each
color is on its own layer. There are eight colors, and each one, each layer is
on the Alpha Lock settings, so you can just select your color and then select
Fill to fill that layer. I'm going to use the
palette I just built from that Wisdom Tree image. And there are nine
colors in that one, but I'm probably just going
to leave off one of them, either the lightest
are the darkest. So I'm gonna go ahead and select this lighter color here
and this kind of neutral. And I'm just going to
go through and fill each layer with my
new color palette. So that's kind of interesting. It's sort of lost its ombre
effect a little bit because I feel like the ombre
really works when it's more of a
monochromatic palette. So I'm gonna go ahead and
duplicate this layer. And I'm going to
turn this layer off. And I'm going to see
what I can come up with using a different palette, but in more of a monochromatic, sort of more of a
gradient effect to get that ombre pattern. That's really interesting
how differently it looks. This is kinda more of a
teal blue, green palette. I had built several
different palettes with this kind of
gradient in that hue. And it's a variation on the value or
the tint or shade. And so here we have
some green blue colors. This one is gradating
from red to pink. And this one is kinda
more just blues. I've got a red, orange, yellow gradient happening here. And a green, blue, violet one. Feel free to play
around with these. And also Procreate comes with several interesting
gradient color palettes in the default setting. But if you're anything like me, you probably have built a ton
of palettes on your own. But I encourage you to just play around and see
what you come up with. In the next video, we'll
review what we learned and talk about
how to share our work.
7. Thank You!: Thanks for joining me for
this fun color exploration. I hope you feel more confident with using color and creating interesting combinations
and palettes for your art and
design projects. Please be sure to
share what you make in the Project Section and engage
with your fellow students. Don't forget to
leave a review and follow my profile
here on Skillshare if you liked this class. If you share your
project on Instagram, you can tag me
@cynthiaeharrison. Thanks for taking this class
and I'll see you next time.
Cynthia Harrison, designer | artist
