Mistakes/Learning

One of my mentors always asked me what mistakes I'd made recently and if I said 'none' she would observe that I wasn't learning anything, then.

A lot of people have a really hard time putting colours together.  I was one of them.  My former favourite colour was white.  Or any hue in both warp and weft.  I felt very insecure about my ability to put colours together in any meaningful way.

After I'd been weaving for about 10 years, I had the opportunity to weave for a fashion designer.  She would send me the yarns and tell me which ones to use to weave the cloth she needed for her clothing designs.

Quite often I was like, wait - what?  Those colours?  Together?  Seriously?  But she was paying me to weave, so I did as instructed and always, always, she was right.  Those colours together were great.

As I wove for her my eye became trained but it was really at a subconscious level.  Then I had the chance to take a couple of seminars from Michelle Wipplinger and began to learn at a more conscious level about how to make colours play nicely.

Value is more important than Hue.

White (pale) washes out
Grey (medium) muddies
Black (dark) intensifies

In 1994 I was very fortunate in getting into a colour class led by Jack Lenor Larson.  He didn't so much 'teach' as set challenges, then - by the process of critiquing what we had done - teach via the examples - good and bad and in between.

To my astonishment, he gave my weaving encouraging comments.  Since he didn't know anyone, nor who had done what, I knew that I wasn't in any way being singled out. 

Getting this feedback gave me the confidence to go further, explore colour combinations in a more adventurous way, and not fret so much in the decision making process.  Because even if the colour combos weren't to my particular taste, if I could still make them work together other people might find them nice enough to purchase.

A couple of years after the class with JLL, I essentially did an in depth study of colour by designing and weaving a couple hundred rayon chenille scarves for the sales I did for the next few years.

I would make a warp long enough for two scarves, sometimes weave the two in different weft colours, but sometimes just make 'twins'.  I didn't worry too much about having two identical scarves because I was selling at quite distant shows and it would be unlikely the two would ever cross each others paths.

By the time I'd finished working so intensely in rayon chenille, I could usually come up with a colour combination that I was happy with.

That isn't to say I don't make mistakes.  I frequently do.  But they are usually more a matter of my not being entirely happy, wishing I'd used a slightly different shade/value.  Nothing is truly 'horrible', just - could be improved upon.

Each time this happens, I analyze and hope that my eye becomes trained a little bit more.

On the other hand, if something is truly awful?  I have a recycle bin and every once in a while I cut my losses and into the bin it goes.  Yesterday a warp went in.  This morning a scarf. 

Neither were hopeless - I just calculated how much time and trouble it was going to take to fix them and decided I was going to spend more time than I cared to 'fix' it when I could easily just start over again.

So I did.  No regrets.  I have also learned not to cling to my mistakes just because I spend a long time making them.

For people interested in learning more about colour with some assistance, I recommend Tien Chiu's on line course.   Having some guidelines and feedback can do wonders for one's self-confidence.  I know it did for me. (Tien is giving a two day workshop on colour at the conference here in June.)

Currently Reading Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idle