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Saturday 7 June 2014

[Tips] Making Radial Colour Charts

An idea hit me 2 days ago when I saw a pile of my leftover watercolour papers. What if I can turn them into a radial colour chart? After a little research on how to make a stack of papers rotatable, I made some for my self and I think it is a fun activity to share with my fellow botanical artists. The colour charts are really useful for our painting reference and, as we all know, we need to manage a load of colour charts, which keep growing over the time.
Tools: Cutter, ruler, hole punch plier, split brassed paper fastener.

Step by step:
1. I cut my favorite watercolour papers, Fabriano Artistico 140lb, into 2x6 cm pieces using a cutter and a ruler. I chose the form of small tags to make the best use of the leftovers :p
 

2. I made clean, 2.5 mm-sized holes with a punch plier (usually for leather belt) on the deckle-edged side of the paper.

3. I applied the paint on the other edge of the paper (to the very edge!) and write the colours' name soon, for fear of being buried in a pile of unnamed colour tags.


4. I arranged the colours by tone and fastened them with the split pin/brassed paper fastener. Since a cover would be a nice touch, I painted the cover with many colours to represent the content of the chart.

I have never made a colour chart before. Instead, I used to mixing and testing colours on an unused paper when I painted and throwing it after the painting was done. I also couldn't really use the common, tile-system colour chart because I couldn't make a side-by-side comparison between each of the colours and the object I painted. To me, the physical juxtaposition was important in finding the right colour. Yet, the tile-system colour charts did not help much in singling out the right colour. Then, I remembered the Pantone's colours chart and I thought that a radial watercolour chart was what I wanted all along.
 

Now, I really enjoy my radial watercolour chart! I can compare the colours side by side just by rotating them or put it side by side to the object of painting. I can add new colours or rearrange the stack easily because the split pin can unlock and lock without a sweat. I can also write additional note on the rear side. I can release the picked colour from the stack if I needed to. Well, am I easy to be satisfied or what? :p

*I made the blue, purple, yellow, and green colour chart as well and I will enjoy making the earth colour chart as well as any other colour in the future.

12 comments:

Unknown said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates


Very good idea. I can never seem to keep my colours right.

Janene said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Great idea, Eunike! I think I am going to try this out.

Salty Pumpkin Studio said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Thank you! Great tutorial for a very useful color reference tool.

Krzysztof Kowalski said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

I've been making some color charts lately, it's great fun and very helpful exercise. And your color charts are really useful and they look awsome! I have to try! Thank you for sharing! :D

Taika Taiga said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

hmmm. very good idea, but I think I'd paint it the other way round, the lighter end inside

Eunike Nugroho said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Dear all, thank you for your kind comments. Glad that you find the idea useful :) Cheers.

Laura Ashton said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

What a great idea, I can't wait to try this out! Thank you for sharing the idea.

Pappersdraken said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

What an excellent idea- I will do one at once! I always seem to make endless colour samples, but they are useless when I really want to try them out againts the object I want to paint!
And it is beautiful too;-)
I came here via a link from the blog Making a Mark

Eunike Nugroho said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Thank you, Laura Asthon. Glad that you are interested in trying it out :)

@Pappersdraken, I found the split pin was the key for managing the endless colours samples/tags. You can rearrange the tags easily.
Thank you for leaving your kind comment. And I thank to Katherine Tyrrell for bringing you and others here. Cheers.

ConstCreations said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Hi Eunike,

Glad I saw your amazing blog and lovely work. I was free enough to try out your DIY colorwheels, and posted an article in Dutch on my own blog:

http://www.constcreations.blogspot.nl/2015/07/kleurstaaltjes-kunstlievend-lid.html

Ofcourse referring back to you!

Regards,
Stefanie

Eunike Nugroho said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

@ConstCreations Thank you for letting me know this, Stefanie. I am sorry that I can only reply you now, I've been very occupied with this and that lately.

Such a lovely and interesting blog you have. Thank you for linking the post to my blog. So nice to see you :)

Unknown said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Brilliant idea Eunike! I will start one soon. Thank you for sharing this.