My head is buzzing, and it’s not just the meds that’s causing the buzz. I just returned from my second Color Institute workshop at Earthues, in Seattle. The first session was at the end of January. There were 16 or 18 of us in the first session. The class size was too large, too hectic. This time, Michele divided us up into 2 smaller groups. My group consisted mostly of people in the SF Bay Area: 3 of us from the Black Sheep Handweavers Guild.

This time, we focused on independent study: working in areas that we needed to develop our color memory. My study area? Cool vs. Warm. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Except that I confuse the two. I never really thought about what colors make up the cool vs. warm colors. In fact, I had it backwards in my head. So I threw away all preconceived notions and worked through the progression from cool to warm, and back again. I used Color-Aid chips and created my own series of cool to warm in primaries, secondaries, more secondaries, and then just plain played with color progressions.

Last day was spent on setting up our independent work project for the next session. I picked 3 photos (1 sunrise and 2 sunsets) and will designing a yarn and a fabric that will convey the colors and sense of light that are depicted in these photos.

I also retook the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue Test. I did marginally better than I did in January. My area of weakness is where blue-green transitions into green-blue. I have to find some exercises to develop my color memory in this area.