Colour Inspiration Tuesday(ish): More free colour resources for inspiring your quilts
Welcome to the last post in our Summer Crush Colour Inspiration “Week of Tuesdays”! I hope you have enjoyed exploring how to turn colour mood boards into fabric collections from your favourite fabric store. I certainly have!
Today, as promised, I am exploring not one but two summer photos that I like from Unsplash.com. The first colour board, called “Hazy Days”, captures perfectly the feel of a relentlessly hot day on the beach. What could be more summery than a lifeguard on duty? The second board I am calling “Blood Orange and Mint”. This board comes from a photo of iced water with citrus and mint. It makes me think of refreshing cool drinks and good company, watching a balmy summer evening darken into dusk.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Blood Orange and Mint & Hazy Days.
The reason why I have grouped these two photos and their colour palettes into one post is because they are quite related, and have given me very similar end mosaics. Both colour schemes consist of at least one blue, green, turquoise, red-orange and brown colour each. Not the same shades and ratios of each hue, but most definitely representatives from the same set of colour families. Who would have thought? Certainly not I. When I chose these two photos, I was definitely not expecting similar outcomes.
The Blood Orange and Mint Fabric Mosaic
Thanks to Stitched in Color, this week there has been a fun opportunity to use the fabrics available at Quilt Sandwich Fabrics’ Etsy shop to create a collection of nine fabrics that you think capture the theme “Summer Crush”. If you haven’t participated already, there is still time until the 21st August.
To express the colours that I have pulled out of the beverages photograph, I chose the following fabrics. Most of them I chose predominately on colour, but there are a few that I think match the Summer Crush theme in subject as well. Specifically, along the bottom row we have dandelions; a zigzag print that is reminiscent of ocean waves; and …. cameras. Cameras, holidays and summer really are inseparable thoughts, aren’t they?!
The Hazy Days Fabric Mosaic
To capture the colours and feel of the Hazy Days colour palette, I chose tan stripes to represent the colours of the sand. Turned on its side, this fabric could also represent the ripples that form on the beach.
I chose a fabric of graphic squares with a fanned pattern to reflect the spokes of the shade umbrella in the photo. I also emphasised the life saver’s buoy with two fabrics featuring circles and a third with a vivid orange lattice.
The red-orange and turquoise small-print fabrics were chosen to complete the colour way and provide contrast in scale and complexity. Of course, the blue and aqua wave fabric had to be included to represent the ocean. I even rejoiced at the grey of the background in the middle fabric, because it captures the toned-down palette of the original photo. Overall, I think this collection has a good mix of scale and shape contrasts. Love the colours, love the visual texture!
This is my second entry to the Summer Crush fabric mosaic contest.
And the fabric I’d love to put on the back? Sailboats, whales, gulls, and waves in cream on a dark teal blue background by Charley Harper for Birch Fabrics. And its even organic cotton! Whoop!
Final thoughts
As you can see, although I started with two entirely different photos and even two quite divergent colour palettes, I have ended up with two mosaics that could be combined without clashing. One fabric even is in both mosaics! If you like either of these fabric combinations, head over to Quilt Sandwich Fabrics and check out the fabrics for yourself.
Summer Crush Mosaic Colour Inspiration Week
If you want to follow my musings around the Summer Crush mosaic contest for the rest of the week, here are the other three days of mosaics:
On Tuesday we looked at the colours of Ice-cream Tones. Pinks and yellows, with a little brown and blue added for interest.
On Wednesday we explored the freshness of the colours seen in ripe pineapples and tropical beaches. Find out why I called this palette “Digging for Pineapples“!
On Thursday we channeled our inner child and played with this fun flamingo. Hot pinks and blue-greens were the order of the day in the bright and happy colours of Flamingoes in the Pool.
Credit
Today’s photos are from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. Credit is not required to use the photos, but I love to give credit where credit is due, and am always grateful to people who contribute to open source communities. So I would like you to know that the Hazy Days photo was provided by Ludde Lorentz via Unsplash, and the cocktails photos was provided by Monika Grabkowska. Be sure to check out their collections of freely gifted photos on Unsplash.com.
Ludde Lorentz
Monika Grabkowska
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P.S. If you would like to use any photo featured in Colour Inspiration Tuesday for your own projects, you can easily find all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.
