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Lessons

One Color Study will be sent out every other week for 12 weeks.

(Tien will provide feedback on exercises and answer student questions for up to 6 months.)

  • 1

    Getting Started

    • Getting started
    • What time is best for you for the weekly Q&A sessions?
    • Tools and Materials
    • How to participate in the forum and get feedback on your exercises
  • 2

    Color Study 1: Understanding and strengthening your preferred color palettes

    • Color Study 1: Lessons to view + additional (optional) reading
    • Exercise 1. Examine how a piece uses hue, value, and saturation
    • Exercise 2. Explore your own tastes in hue/value/saturation - find your own voice!
    • Exercise 3. How would you like to change how you use color? How would you like this course to help you?
    • Post your exercises for feedback in the discussion forum!
  • 3

    Color Study 2: Blending (or not blending) colors in your handwoven fabrics

    • Color Study 2: Lessons to view + additional (optional) reading
    • Why color in weaving is complicated
    • Exercise 1: Seeing simultaneous contrast and optical mixing
    • Optical mixing: Dot size
    • Optical mixing: Color choices
    • Exercise 2: Exploring optical mixing
    • Understanding simultaneous contrast
    • Creating simultaneous contrast in handwoven fabric
    • Exercise 3: Exploring simultaneous contrast
    • Woven exercise (Optional!)
    • Drafts
  • 4

    Color Study 3: Exploring color mixing in handwoven cloth

    • Color Study 3: Lessons to view + additional (optional) reading
    • The theory of color mixing
    • Examples: How to estimate the hue when you mix two colors
    • Exercise 1: Estimating the hue when you mix two colors.
    • Munsell color charts
    • Color mixing in handwoven cloth: The role of the draft
    • Stripes and color mixing
    • Exercise 2: Choosing drafts for effective color mixing
    • Predicting how colors will mix when woven
    • Exercise 3: Designing with color
  • 5

    Color Study 4: Pattern Clarity: How to get a bold pattern, a subtle pattern, and shading

    • Color Study 4: Lessons to view + additional (optional) reading
    • Pattern clarity, aka value contrast
    • Creating complexity in pattern clarity: Shading
    • Exercise 1: Bold, subtle, and shaded
    • Exercise 2: Finding ways to create shading; "Borrowing" vs. "Stealing"
    • Exercise 3: Critical analysis: What if?
  • 6

    Color Study 5: Designing a project with just the right visual interest/busy-ness

    • Design a project with as much visual complexity/interest as you want through your choice of contrast level, pattern scale, and pattern clarity.
    • Color Study 5: Lessons to view + additional (optional) reading
    • Visual Complexity: Overview
    • Design elements: How to attract the eye
    • Exercise 1: Attracting the eye; creating emphasis
    • What creates visual complexity
    • Exercise 2: Analysis - Using visual complexity
    • Composition and complexity: Some examples
    • Exercise 3: Design your own project
  • 7

    Color Study 6: Creating mood in your fabric

    • Pick a mood to convey in fabric and choose colors and weave structure to convey that mood.
    • Mood: An overview
    • Creating emotion: Color
    • Creating drama: Contrast
    • Exercise 1: Creating mood through color choices and contrast
    • Creating intrigue: Visual Complexity
    • Exercise 2: Write a "visual story"
    • Multiple moods in a single piece
    • Exercise 3: Party Time!

What students are saying

“If you are looking for an in-depth course to improve your weaving by understanding how color and value and weave structure affect your results from a knowledgeable instructor who offers individual feedback, this is the course for you! The amount of time you put into the course will be rewarded with results! ”

Kathy Fennell

“The Color Courage course was fantastic, I learned so much. Not only does Tien teach about color theory and how it pertains to weaving, but she also teaches about using the color principles to design fabric.

Tien's videos are full of woven samples and demonstrations of drafts to illustrate the content she is teaching. Throughout the course, students are given exercises to reinforce their knowledge of the material.

Tien's remarks and suggestions about the exercises were a great way to learn. I highly recommend this course to all weavers and look forward to using my new knowledge to better my own weaving.”

Dolores Jacobs

“Tien Chiu is an amazing color guru and this course changed the way I see color, how colors interact, and that value is more important than hue. We learned how to create motion and tell a story. I got better at designing drafts and understanding tie-ups. I have enough ideas to last a lifetime.”

Debbie Fister

“Before this class I chose colors with gut instinct. Sometimes it worked out fine, but it never felt perfect.

The Basic course is fine, already giving you some insights on color, but with the workshop you enter a whole new world.

After doing all the exercises color isn't something foreign anymore but starts to feel natural.

Now I can not only pick colors that work well together, but I also know how to set the right mood in a piece.

Tien is a great teacher, taking her time to explain every question you can think of, guiding you through every lesson with kindness and patience.

I wholeheartedly recommend this workshop. It's worth every penny!”

Veronika Weinand