Color Chords

This layout started with the Week 6 sketch for Ella's sketch challenge by Donna Jannuzzi.  Once again she had a 2 page option which I was very excited about.

I decided I wanted to use some photos of my oldest son roller skating this summer.  These were perfect photos because they could be cropped into landscape easily.  I also had some really cute pics of my son falling that I thought would work well in a series, as seen on the left page.

When trying to decide what to do on this layout I went looking for color inspiration.  I found an article that talked about color combinations in the context of music.  There was one part that really inspired me: 

Complementary / tritone

A complementary color scheme is very striking and gets your attention.  It is good for adding interest, but a little goes a long way.  In music, the tritone is the most dissonant of intervals and is used sparingly to create tension.

Split complementary / chord

Rather than using the color directly across on the color wheel, a color on either side is used.  This creates a pleasing combination without the stark contrast of the complementary color scheme.  Similarly, a musical chord creates interest, potentially even more than a dyad, while not being as dissonant as the tritone.

I wanted to use 3 complementary colors but I loved the idea of creating a "chord" with the colors on my page.  I then went to Scrapbooks Etc looking for more color inspiration.  I found these two layouts.

 

On the swim layout they talked about how using a blue-violet background made bright colors brighter.  The father and son layout put the photos on a slant.  I thought that looked really cool.

So I looked to my color wheel.  If I used the blue-violet, what were the colors that were not directly across but to each side?  

Yep, orange and yellow.  Since my son was wearing orange, and the skates have orange wheels that went well.  I then tossed in a little green with the yellow for pop.

I used a funky orange cardstock to back the photos and added a yellow and green strip to the side.  I thought it gave the page a fun 70's feel.  It reminded me of the 70's blue shorts with colored stripes on the side...you know the ones I mean.  And roller skating just screams 70's to me!  :)

This blue violet paper is the ONLY solid purple paper I had.  Not because I don't love purple, but because I have boys and generally don't buy much purple.  I'm branching out more now though, partly because my boys LOVE pink and purple.  So my son was very excited to see a purple page.  The words printed on the paper gave a fun feel to the layout too and really expressed the feel of the event I was scrapping.

I made the roller skate myself with my cricut and a SVG file from the SVG cuts blog.  It was in their free section!  They have so much cool stuff, you really should check them out!  It was a lot of fun cutting this cute roller skate and piecing it together.  I love that I didn't have to go searching in a store for a roller skate embellishment.  I could just make it myself!  Yay for SCAL!!  For the title I added Glossy Accents to the white letters.  Once again, it helps give the layout that 70's feel I was going for.

I stretched myself in so many ways on this layout.  Colors I wouldn't have normally used, a true paper piercing project, photos on a slant (difficult for this straight line girl!)...lots of fun!  This is the last week of the sketches challenge.  I'm sad to see it go, but I have found new friends at Ella Publishing and I can't wait to see what they come up with next!