A Color Study~ Red

Monday, August 23, 2010

Hey everyone! It’s Lu today & I’m back to give you a little color inspiration. According  to the calendar, we’re winding down summer & headed towards early fall (not in my neck of the woods, however). Still, if you’ve been to the malls~ and who hasn’t, with school starting~ you’ve certainly noticed the fall attire. As with almost everything, the first thing I typically notice is… you guessed it, color! My goodness, the fashions these days take me back to my school daze … all the 80′s styles & neon color, not really as inspiring as they were when I was younger, lol! But one color that always grabs my attention, and thankfully one that never goes out of style (for me, anyway) is RED. And with a username “reddoor”, that is probably no surprise. There is a lot of symbolism associated with the color red, from power to prosperity, to love or anger. Basically, red conjures up strong feelings… and perhaps strong reactions: either an intense like or dislike for it. But regardless, red packs a punch & makes an impact. Whether or not it’s a favorite color, it is certainly one that most can identify with, at least on occasion. Specifically, we typically think of red for Valentine’s Day, the Fourth of July and Christmas. I also usually associate it with school: red plaids, a red apple for the teacher. So when I came across this fabric swatch, it just said “fall” to me & I knew this would be my next inspiration.

 On various online shopping excursions, I’ve spied lots of my favorite color (okay, one of my favorite colors. I can’t really commit to just one. Moving on…). Here are a few of the items that have caught my eye.

As much I love red, I was really intriqued by that fabric swatch & wanted to create a color palette based on this combo. I  love how the cool, sky blue tones down the heat of the red. The vibrant yellow brightens the palette & keeps it from becoming “muddy”. The sage green provides a bit of calm and the dark brown grounds it all. Although quite vivid, it is very much a “natural” palette (earth, wind & fire).

With my color scheme established, this is the layout I created.  In order to keep it balanced, I tried to assign about the same “ratios” of colors as my theme swatch. Although I am focusing on red, it can quickly overpower the other colors.

 And here is my credit list:

Brown  & Blue paper~ Believe

Red Damask paper, red stitches, red heart tag~ Sweetie Pie

Green paper~ Damask & Dots

White paper~ Hopscotch

Green & yellow flowers, yellow buttons, string with green buttons, red heart stitch, yellow scroll (recolored)~ Clementine 

If you’re interested in reading more about the symbolism of the color red, I found this article to have some interesting tidbits. There are oodles more, of course. I hope that this has post has you inspiRED & seeing red, lol! Don’t miss tomorrow’s post with Kathy, as she rolls out the “red carpet” for this week’s product spotlight. Okay, I’ll stop now.  Have a wonderful week & happy scrappin!

LuBeauty & Fashion, Inspiration, Uncategorized 9 Comments