Blue and green

My grandmother used to tell me that 'blue and green should never be seen'. In the same way that I've never quite understood what's wrong with putting pink and red together, I've never understood the problem with blue and green. And googling it only reveals that there are a lot of other people out there asking where the saying comes from and what it means, and an intriguing range of variously improbable answers.

We've just had our first attempt at batik, in honour of the little boy whose Christening we couldn't attend today...

Pink and red

I was always taught that pink and red clash, and should therefore never be worn together. I never understood this. I mean, given that pink is only red plus white, why does pink clash with red? And what's wrong with clashing colours anyway? My aunt loves pink and red, and manages to wear them together with great style. We thought we'd have a try too...
 

Red on a bright pink background. Little circles. A bit too bright but with a subtle pattern.

Red on a pale pink background. Big circles. Bold. 

Pink, red and a bit of green on a cream background. Checks. Clashes.

Circles

Tiny Girl loves letters. T is her favourite, because that's what her name begins with. V is her second favourite, because that's what Tinier Boy's name sometimes* begins with. I've been experimenting with tie-dye circles as a way to put initials onto T-shirts.

* It all depends on the rendering and nicknames. I'm not going to curb her enthusiasm.

Purple and yellow

We're still thinking about the colour wheel. Purple and yellow forms the final of the three pairs of complementary colours, and is usually considered the most challenging combination to work with. We wanted to see what would happen if we applied the yellow without having left the purple to dry completely. The result was the shade of green known as a tertiary colour. 

Ummmmm....

We then experimented with different shades and tones of purple without the yellow.

 
And we listed them on eBay.

And then Tinier Boy was tired.

Green and red

Green and red are also complementary colours. We've been adding them to yesterday's orange and blue bags. 

Some results... 

Orange and blue

Orange and blue are complementary colours, which means that they're supposed to work well together. We were experimenting with various shades of orange, so I suggested we combine them with a navy blue in tie-dyeing some cream tote shopping bags.

Tiny Girl enjoyed rinsing out the fabrics between colours.

Meanwhile, Tinier Boy loved rearranging the cutlery drawers.









The finished bags were, well... a fantastic illustration of how easily blue can out-dye orange. I'm aware that the convention of this sort of blogging usually mandates an instagrammy snap of the final product, but I'll leave you with an image from Renoir instead. He balanced orange and blue together beautifully...