Color Play: Easy Steps to Imaginative Color in Quilts

December 2014

As you can probably tell from the front cover, this book is exciting. Subtitled `Easy Steps to Imaginative Color in Quilts', it delivers colour by the bucket load. The book starts by exploring colour inspired by nature and then takes a look at single colours: yellow, green, blue, violet, red, orange and finishes with a look at highlights, depth and more. I am not sure that any words can prepare you for how wonderful this book is. You'll find everything you need to know about colour. All about tonal values, shades, tints, complementaries and so on. I love Joen's block colour schemes and the fact that there are many alternatives demonstrating the effect of changing colours. This book is instructive but such fun. There are vibrant examples of work throughout. Using this book will certainly make your quilts pop. Highly recommended for all quilters who love colour.

December 2014

In Joen Wolfrom's book `Color Play' (reviewed in the Books section of this

issue) she refers to her Color Tool. Having found the book fascinating, I

decided to invest in one of these to help me fine-tune some of my colour

choices. There are 24 colour cards with numbered swatches (there are 34 variations

listed for each pure colour listed). On the back of each card, you are supplied with colour schemes that work with that particular colour, be it Monochromatic, Complementary, Analogous, Split-Complementary or Triadic. Each colour within each scheme is listed with its card number so you can then refer back to the correct card in the Colour Tool. Further, within each colour scheme, the relevant swatch number can be cross-referenced across all the colours. For example, if you chose Cerulean Blue (card number 10), using the tint 10-5, you know that the Complementary colour Yellow Orange (card number 22) tint to match 10-5 will be 22-5. Although it sounds complicated (to me) in practice, it is very easy to get the idea and enables good colour choices to be made, knowing that they have been deciphered by an expert and will work! A bonus is that all the colour swatches for each pure colour, its tones, tints and shades are listed with their CMYK and RGB colours. I found this particularly useful in Photoshop, as I was able to match the colour exactly by typing these co-ordinates in the Colour Picker screen. For any work done with image manipulation, this will greatly simplify your colour choices when creating a palette to work with digitally.

After leaving her career in the educational field to become a homemaker in 1974, Joen became interested in quiltmaking and textile art. During a span of fifteen years, she created commissioned textile art for private clients and corporations. Her work is included in collections throughout the world. As a guest lecturer/instructor on the subject of color and design, Joen has taught throughout the United States and in England, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Joen is the author of twelve previously published books and products. Several have been bestsellers in the art/craft field; some have been translated into other languages. Her published works include Color Play, The Visual Dance, The Magical Effects of Color, Visual Coloring, Landscapes & Illusions, The Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool, and The Studio Color Wheel. Joen is the owner of JWD Publishing, a pattern company that publishes quilt-related patterns. She enjoys photography, reading, traveling, and spending time with her family. You may visit Joen's website at www.joenwolfrom.com or her pattern company's website at www.jwdpublishing.com.