What do architects and quilters have in common?
A lot! Design, harmony, structure, balance and a little math just to name a few.
On a recent trip to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles I came across a set of cards called “Color Game” by Ted Naos (more on Ted in a moment.) There are 16 cards in each set (Ted also has designed several different sets varying in colour and shapes) – each card is about 4″ x 4″ and has its own colour and a die-cut out pattern. The purpose of the ‘game” is to learn about color interactions and experiment with color harmonies.
More than likely these cards were never meant for quilters, however I noted that when the cards are individually set against a neutral background or even better, stacked on top of each other (1, 2, 3 or even 4 cards) they create quilt blocks (see some of my examples below).
These cards are great inspiration and quite fun if you like to play around with colour (like I do) – and I might add – quite handy if you like to design your own quilt blocks!
Now a little bit about the inventor of ‘The Color Game” – Professor Ted Naos. Born in Athens, Greece, Ted came to the United States to study architecture at the University of Texas at Austin followed by Columbia University in New York. Some years later Ted moved to Washington, D.C. to join the faculty at the School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America. As a Professor of Architecture at CUA, he has taught design for many years while also pursuing his professional practice and his passion in painting and three-dimensional graphics.
On his website you’ll not only find the “Color Game” card sets, but also a wide variety of 3-dimensional greeting cards, calendars (these are pretty neat!) and free standing, die-cut paper city scapes, all designed by Ted Naos.
So the next time you visit the local bookstore or an art museum, you might give that gift shop a second look for some color fun like these “Color Game” cards. If you can’t wait and like what you see, you can order them directly from Ted Naos’ website here (and full disclosure: no, we were not asked or paid by Ted to link to his website – we just think this is a neat idea and wanted to share it with you…)
So check it out and have some colour fun…..!!!! Until your next colour fix~
Carl (and Linda)
Colourwerx 