Using colour

We have looked at ways of altering your book through folding and tearing, and the possibility of adding length to your pages.

Now to consider colour.

Are you going to pick up any colour that comes to hand or are you going to deliberately choose a colour scheme for your book?

If you're going to have a colour scheme then I suggest you might want to find all the media you have on the supply list that are in those colours.

You may have noticed from this blog that I really love turquoise and orange.  But, and it's a big

BUT,

those two colours don't mix well - you end up with brown. 

And this will be true of other colour combinations: red + green or purple + yellow. 

So if you want to use those colours on the same page you need to let them dry first.  This works well with acrylics but you have a different problem with water based inks.  When you spray the second colour it reactivates the first one.  You may need to experiment first.  With Distress Inks if you heat dry the first colour you should be fine and actually the Distress Inks although reactive to water blend well so long as you like the blended colour they produce.

I've found a few pages on using colour and mixing paints here, here and here.  If you find any other good websites please share with us by putting the links in the comments below.

Dina Wakley's book Art Journal Freedom has an excellent chapter on Colour Basics.

I look forward to hearing what you decide to do.