Day 11 – Let’s Play with Colors! Part One
Day 11 – Let’s Play with Colors! Part One
Welcome to Day 11 of 31 Days to Build Your Creative Confidence. My husband was looking over my shoulder as I worked on yesterday’s post asking, “Are you still feeling creative?” Of course he was being facetious but perhaps a bit curious, too. Can I really right 31 posts on creativity? I could probably write 131. I haven’t even touched on some of the current research on why creativity matters and how critical it is to make sure our kids are allowed to practice creative thinking, develop their art skills, play games that require their imagination. Current research also shows that adults are seriously lacking opportunities to build creative confidence and we need to spend way more time in creative endeavors than we currently do.
While the bulk of this blog series is dedicated to art and writing, each of us has a unique creative expression. Perhaps you love photography, music, clay, acting, singing, dancing, or are a closet creative genius at designing interiors or iPhone apps. The point is, when you engage in creative activities like making art or journaling, it opens your mind to see new possibilities in other areas of your life.
When I work with coaching clients I often have them color, journal, doodle, make mindmaps… I use all kinds of creative tools. What I find is that the more they are willing to engage in creative play, the more ideas begin to flow around improving their life and their business. Click here if you want to learn more about my creativity coaching.
Engaging in creative play can help you grow your business!
My point is to encourage you to engage in creative play. To do that, I am going to spend the next several blog posts discussing ways to play with color! We are going to take it slow and easy and have fun with color. I think I mentioned in another post about the joy of opening a new box of crayons, that’s the feeling I want you to capture with this lesson. I love this quote on color from Larry K. Stephenson. I found it on SensationalColor.com, a great site full of fun quotes and information on colors.
Lesson 11 of Build Your Creative Confidence: Let’s Play with Colors! Part One
1. Get ready: find a box of crayons, colored pencils, watercolors, oil pastels…. the tool doesn’t matter. Use what you have at home or go to the Dollar Store and treat yourself to some new art supplies.
2. Use a page in your journal or find any piece of white paper. Drawing paper is great because it is thicker and holds color better but any paper will do. The key to making this program work is to make it easy, so use what’s available.
3. Make your own color wheel. Remember in school learning about primary, secondary and tertiary colors? Or maybe learning about cool and warm colors? If you want more details about color theory, read this excellent post from Tigercolor.com.
- The primary colors are red, yellow and blue.
- The secondary colors are green, orange and purple. They are created by combining two primary colors.
- The tertiary colors are created by mixing primary and secondary colors.
4. To make your color wheel, use a plate to trace a circle onto your piece of paper. Then use a ruler to draw even spaces around the circle so you have a series of triangles like in the image above.
5. Follow the order of the colors in the wheel above, but have fun mixing your colors. You could allow them to flow into each other more like a rainbow than the segments of the orange.
6. Admire your color wheel! Keep it somewhere where you can find it, I will refer back to it in my next post on playing with color when we take colors off the wheel and play with them even more!
Happy coloring!! As you look at the color wheel, do you have a favorite color or side of the wheel that draws you in? Leave your comments about color below.
My favorite color is blue, and this sounds like a fun idea! Thanks for your informative post. I am from the UBC.
This looks like it would be fun.
I don’t do much art anymore but I think I will do this.
Thanks,
Kathy
This looks like it would be fun.
I don’t do much art anymore but I think I will do this.
Thanks,
Kathy
Hi Kathy, there are various fun and simple ways to incorporate art into our lives. Keeping ourselves open to creativity is a powerful tool for personal growth. Have fun with it.
This looks like fun! I think I might do something like this with the kids.
They love to color and I usually watch and help around the edges when they ask, but now I’m going to jump in 🙂
Great post!
Yes, Shay, kids are great for keeping us creative. Do jump right in! Now there are tons of adult coloring books on the market to help us remember how much fun it is. The more detailed the better so you can really focus on the moment.
This looks like fun, a kind of releasing the inner child activity! Who among us didn’t at some point, while away hours coloring? Now where did I put those crayons?
Sheri, coloring is one of the most relaxing activities for any age. Grab a piece a paper and enjoy the rainbow of colors in that crayon box!
Yes indeed it looks fun. But i was stuck at the start..what if i really do not have any creative instinct. I believe that i have no special talent or interests. I am just kinda average!
Hi Sweety, I guarantee that we all have a creative spirit within is, you just have to be willing to rediscover it. Also, the point of this blog series is to have fun with creativity and just give it a try. We are not attempting to create masterpieces, but learning to enjoy the process again, like we did as kids. So what if your horse looks like a washing machine? No judgement here, just playtime!
Great post. Working with color is so fun. I’m a big quilter and have also made a color wheel using fabric.
Ohhh, love the idea of making a color wheel with fabric. I bet it’s gorgeous! Thanks for stopping by Sue! I have found that I often get stuck in one medium and it’s fun to step out and explore others sometimes.
[…] roses? In yesterday’s post in the Build Creative Confidence series, I asked you to create a color wheel and to enjoy playing with colors. Most of us walk blindly through our days without really seeing or […]
Good advice! As an artist, I play a lot. I did a series of small paintings where I replaced the natural colors of the motifs with others.
Ohh, Linda, that sounds like fun! Would love to see some pictures of them. Are they on your blog?
[…] sure to check out part one and part two of this mini-series on playing with colors. On day one, we made a color wheel. On day […]
[…] lesson in building creative confidence is to encourage you to play with words about color! For the past several posts, I have been talking […]