I like to limit the number of colours I use in a painting, but while working with my paintings for the exhibition this summer, I have realised that I tend to get stuck in certain colour combinations that I know work well. It feels like I´m playing it safe, and I need to get out of that comfort zone to create something new and fresh.
I´ve been trying to find ways to force myself to work with new colour schemes, and one day I was thinking I should have had some kind of lottery tickets or dice to randomly decide what colours to use – and there the idea for these little “colour dice” was born!
I made a template in Illustrator, cut it out in cardboard, traced a number of them on watercolour paper, cut them out and painted them. When they were dry I glued them together, and started rolling the dice! I just roll them all together and see if something nice lands on the table in front of me. It´s turned out to be a great way to find new and surprising colour combinations.
These first ten dice are a great start, but I want more, so I´m making another batch now, with both single and mixed colours.
Wanna make some? Download the template pdf below (right-click, save link as), draw/trace it on watercolour paper, cut out, colour it, and glue!