Find Out If You’re a $100 Winner + Create in Color with Sandy Allnock

Before we get to today's post, we have our randomly selected New Product Launch winners. Both of these lucky winners will receive a $100 Shopping Spree in the MFT boutique.

from Karolyn’s blog: Ruth G

from Alberto’s blog: MaryLeigh

Congratulations to you both! Please send an email to erica@mftstamps.com to claim your prize. Thank you to everyone that commented on our Design Team blogs — we appreciate every comment!


Having a basic understanding of color theory goes a long way in aiding your decision-making when choosing a palette for your projects. Sandy is the perfect tutor, and the new Picture Perfect Party Animals stamp set, with its variety of standalone critter selfies, is an excellent option for testing your skills. Let's see what she has in store for us this month!

Hello, coloristas! It’s Sandy Allnock, here to bring some schoolin’ to the card-making world! Today the topic is split complementaries. Now don’t get all glassy-eyed on me — I’m going to break it down with some real-world cute stampy examples, okay?

Handmade cards from Sandy Allnock featuring products from My Favorite Things #mftstamps

Understanding the color wheel will help you more than you can imagine as a crafter. One way I love to use it is in choosing colors. There are groups of colors, based on their placement on the color wheel. The split-complementary theory is related to complementary colors, which are direct opposites on the wheel. The split complements are the ones right NEXT to the complement, and using them gives you another color to play within your coloring! See this little graphic — you pick the color, the yellow, for example, go across to the opposite color, and select the colors on both sides. Just look at all these potential combos!

Now watch the video to see how it plays out in the painting of the image, and how it can go wrong in the loose background!

 

Out of the twelve possible combos - I started with blue-violet (Imperial purple plus Cobalt blue) for the primary color, and the splits are yellow (New Gamboge) and orange (Aussie Red Gold). Tip: one of the more prominent elements, the image or the background, should be the primary color, so the other two can be used more as accents.

Handmade card from Sandy Allnock featuring products from My Favorite Things #mftstamps

The gorilla is painted with two colors, so don’t forget you can also add various saturations on each of the three colors.

Handmade card from Sandy Allnock featuring products from My Favorite Things #mftstamps

The elephant has the main color in this trio — the yellow-green (Sap Green plus Nickel Azo) as the background, and the red (Anthraquinoid Scarlet), and violet (Imperial Purple) are the accents.

Handmade card from Sandy Allnock featuring products from My Favorite Things #mftstamps

See how playful these split complements are?

Handmade card from Sandy Allnock featuring products from My Favorite Things #mftstamps

Last but not least, the birds use blue-green (Cobalt Teal Blue) with orange (Aussie Red Gold) and red (Anthraquinoid Scarlet) — this time I broke the rules and made the blue-green the minimal color! Sometimes that can work too, so try flipping around the amount of each color and see what happens.

Handmade card from Sandy Allnock featuring products from My Favorite Things #mftstamps

The splatters on each one were created with the main color spattered and dried, then other colors added so they didn’t turn to mud!

Handmade card from Sandy Allnock featuring products from My Favorite Things #mftstamps

I hope this little lesson helped you understand just a little of color theory!

 


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17 comments

Thanks for the tips!

Yolanda Valverde July 20, 2020

I love to learn new techniques and I Thank You for sharing more than just a product. Gotta get one of those color wheels ;-)

Cecilia Lewis July 17, 2020

Great fun stamps and awesome lesson on working with split comlimentary colour and watercolour.

Allison Bunt July 12, 2020

Thanks for such important information.

Yolanda Valverde July 11, 2020

Thanks so much for sharing your wonderfully watercolored images and the design ideas behind them! I often look at super cute images and think that they were intended to be colored with alcohol markers, which I have not invested in, so seeing them watercolored and looking fabulous encourages me to go for the cute stuff!
Have a great day and thanks to whoever at MFT that pulled my name out of the random number generator hat as a $100 winner! I couldn’t be more excited to do some guilt-free shopping with my new-found realization that I could have a lot of fun watercoloring some cute animals! Happy weekend, everyone, and stay safe and healthy!

Ruth Gauss July 11, 2020

I would really like to get one of those color wheels but can’t find the link. Could you please let me know how to get one.

Loved the cards and lesson. Thanks

Susan July 11, 2020

Love everything you do. Thank you. I did order that stamp set.

Ruth Siegel July 10, 2020

Enjoyed this video and coloring lesson! Your cards turned out fun!

Anita Christensen July 10, 2020

Sandy, you’re amazing! Love how you water colored these super cute characters! Great tip on drying the splatter between colors! Tfs Hugs and blessings, Christine

Christine Johnson July 10, 2020

Great lesson. And very cute festive cards. TFS

Karen Zemko July 10, 2020

Very interesting… I am new to watercoloring ( for me way way prefer it to the copics), everyone says dont color next to wet. So suprised there was no bleeding in your video. Thanks for the poopy help, will hold onto that tip. Color wheel always fascinated me( dad dabbled in oils in his elder years.) Thanks!!

Carol Wortman July 10, 2020

Thanks for the tutorial Sandy. I always for get to utilize these when choosing colors.

Susan White July 10, 2020

This was so helpful and inspirational! Thanks especially for the video as it really helped me piece together how you achieved the wonderful results in your cards. Thanks for the colour wheel as well. I’m going to give that a go!

Kate Dykstra July 10, 2020

Sandy, you’re an amazing artist and make everything look achievable. I love watching your videos. You inspire me no end!

Karen Murray July 10, 2020

Love this! Thanks so much for the tips, Sandy!

Karen L July 10, 2020

I’m always up for learning and reinforcing color theory. Cute stamps and a nice reminder of how to use color successfully in our cards and crafts. Thanks Sandy.

TeriS July 10, 2020

Thanks, Sandy – you always have a way to make me look at my stamps and colors differently! Love the idea of the “loose” background piece.

GiniK July 10, 2020

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