The July Free•For•All

[Gare]

This month let’s turn to color and color sets. It’s an unfortunate reality that the human brain is attracted to brilliant, over-saturated colors. As consumers, we fall into this trap when we buy detergent, cereals...who can say they don’t enjoy over-stimulation in their choice of attire, cars and occasionally beverages?  I make it a practice to eyedropper from digital photos when I need to retouch or create textures for models to avoid colors that just aren’t Real World ones.

So this month’s competition is to create and then apply a color set to the scene below; color coordination is a given, natch’. And Barbara and I have a little assist in the form of a truly handy swatch generator called GenoSwatch (Win only for the moment. A Mac version is in the works). Unlike a programmer’s first experimental applet—a color picker—GenoSwatch is not designed around mathematic color opposites and harmonies. We had a chance to talk to the principal architect and the company is big into creating algorithms that produce serene, sophisticated color sets, and we agreed that Pixel Dust members would appreciate a discount on the retail version, so stay tuned. The demo won’t save a palette, but you can certainly hit PrintScreen after eyedropper sampling any color on screen (or write down the RGB values at bottom left). The slider goes from “subtle” variations to “obnoxious, my first Web page” mixes.

Color coordination is big business, don't scoff. I get junk mail (not spam) from Pottery Barn and Pier 1 all the time, and I sample the au courrant colors! You can even do a Google on fashion colors and download PDFs of Pantone samples from here and other places, so you're not at a loss for the competition this month.

So get out your dropcloths and clothes you don’t care about and go for it! Additional points will go to adding furniture, not coloring outside the lines and putting a painting in the empty left frame in the image. The winner, in addition to receiving a personalized, engraved Pixie Award gets to paint our family room. Travel arrangements and meals will be discussed, or just use a really long handle on your roller.

HSV & CIELAB,

Gare

[Raven Song]

My attempt...

[Gare]

Raven--



This is exactly what I wanted to toss around!

Good colors, good color coordination, you even added textures and put a painting in the frame!

It's a comptetion, folks! Wanna challenge Raven Song's submission with a post of your own?

My Best,

Gare

[ronmatt]

This ones gonna be fun. Do I have to use that 'GENO' thingy? or can I just 'go for it' Make 'em hard Gare, make us work..

[Gare]

Hi ronmatt--

GenoSwatch is just an option for creating a palette. Barb and I really like the folks--they're ethical and have a pretty profound understanding of color--so we're promoting them, but no, you don't have to use GenoSwatch in this month's competition. Pixel Dust's membership is quite heavily skewed toward Mac users and we realize that not everyone owns both a Mac and Win box and GenoSwatch is Win-only at the moment.

So use a different method or create your own. I'd appreciate it, too, if anyone who uses a secret recipe then shares the recipe--that's what PDF is all about.

And it would be educational if all competitors posted the palette they whip up, because it won't be obvious from the painted work--the grayscale will influence some of the colors. Patterns are legit, too--perhaps a striped sofa or polka dots...

BTW, here's a tip: you can use Color mode on a Photoshop layer to tint the contest image, but Overlay and some of the other modes produce interesting blends. Em, I neglected to mention that a pixel program will make compositions easier to build; this month doesn't really lend itself a vector drawing app, but it's possible.

My Best,

Gare

[ronmatt]

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3679/isttry0df.jpg

This is my first go at it. I broke a bunch of rules, but I got so caught up in the fun of it that I just barreled ahead. My color pallette was the oriental rug. everything is based on those colors. I decided that I didn't like the pinapple so I got rid of it.
The room motif is eclectic, with the oriental rug wall hanging and some chromies and the deco style hanging lights. Anyway, fun and I'll be doing more

[BarbaraB]

I've posted Ron's image here. It is the same image he posted at http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3679/isttry0df.jpg.

IMHO, it makes it easier for everyone to see all the cool entries by scrolling through the posts, and not needing to jump out to other pages to see the artwork.

In the words of Gregor Vorbarra (from the Miles Vorkosigan saga) , " I request and require" that all contest entries and other artwork that is meant to be seen with a post actually be included in the post as an image attachment. If the image is too big to attach, please attach a lower res version and then add a link out to the higher resolution version in your Member Showcase or your image hosting service. This has the added advantage of ensuring that the post doesn't lose the image it is associated with if the link out to the image hosting service gets broken for any reason. 

Ronmatt's Entry in the July Free -For -All!:

[BarbaraB]

Guys! I love what you're doing with the living room!

Good for you Raven Song for turning that empty frame into one that sets off one of your pieces of artwork. Everyone really should check out Raven Song's Member Showcase gallery for more of her fine physical and digital artwork and photography.

Ron, I'm not crazy about the pineapple either but I  oriental rugs and what you've done with them. Where did you get your digital rug?

I can't wait to see what else the membership comes up with!

[ronmatt]

Barbara, God only knows exactly where most of the 'objects' I have on file, come from. But I've got about 10 of them (rugs). Actually, I do remember now. about 10 or 12 years ago, I did a catalog for a Turkish rug importer, in Chicago. ( whenever I do something interesting, I file the images supplied. I've got quite a rogue's gallery).

[Raven Song]

  Just popping in after work and before I nod off -- wanted to thank everyone for the kind words and to say I, too, am a oriental and Native American design rug enthusiast!  I like the room you decorated ronmatt  it really is lots of fun changing the colors around and the possibilities are endless especially if you change out the fixtures and reupholster/texture things.  Very fun!
Come on everyone and try out some digital interior decorating (and remember the Pixie Award is solid digital chocolate -- now that's a real reward!) 

---Crow

[nikkie]

hehehe interesting challenge, i am a bit late but see what i can come up with....

BTW i love what you did Raven and Ronmatt 

Nikkie

[Raven Song]

Hi Nikkie!!! Thanks and  I hope you get a chance to have some fun with coloring and decorating the room -- It is lots of fun!
---Maya

[Gare]

Nikkie--

Do it!  The competition ends tomorrow!

-g-

[Gare]

Okay, we need to wrap up the July competition so we can move on to August.

The pickings were slim, but outstanding in quality:

For Nicest Color Set , Raven Song takes the cake. Beautiful makeover and I hope you like using GenoSwatch.

Best of Show I think we can all agree, goes to ronmatt. Ron, you outdid yourself, right down to editing out my pineapple and adding a reflection in the bric a brac globe. Incidentally, in case no one noticed, ronmatt enlarged the image with very little artifacting. Here you go, ronmatt.

My Best,

Gare