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Color is an integral part to all types of creativity, it influences our moods and emotions, it’s linked with memories, and it’s everywhere! As we tune our eyes in to notice it, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.
What is TWELVTY?
TWEVLTY is an online program all about color.
How much is it to join TWELVTY?
A full year of color is yours for just £97, or 3 monthly instalments of £33. Click here to Join now!
What happens in TWELVTY?
You learn about the meaning of color – its application and use, the meanings and symbolism each color has throughout history and around the world.
You get access to a wealth of knowledge and resources to enhance your use of color in your own creative practice.
Color is an integral part of creativity, influencing our moods and emotions, linked with our memories, and it’s everywhere!As we tune our eyes in to notice it,life becomes brighter and more vibrant.
Who is TWELVTY for?
Whatever your creative interests, as a hobbyist, a professional, an educator, if you’re curious to learn, the resources in TWELVTY are sure to enrich your understanding of color. In each step around the color wheel, we dive deep into each color’s meanings, how it’s used, and how it features in our lives.
What is the color wheel?
The color wheel is the roadmap to our adventure
We’re using the 12 part color wheel, it looks like this:
Comprising: 3 Primaries:Yellow, Red & Blue; 3 Secondaries:Green, Violet & Orange. (Made by mixing each pair of primaries) 6 Tertiaries:Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Violet, Red-Violet, Red-Orange & Yellow-Orange. (Made by mixing a primary with it’s nearest neighbouring secondary)
Primary & Secondary colors are separated by the ‘in between’ Tertiary colors
The tertiary colors, the in-between colors, sit in between the primary & secondary from which they are made. The difference between these and their neighbours is subtle – they are not quite one or the other.
Some choose to skip over the tertiary colors and just use the primary and secondary colors for a simplified TWELVTY.
You can opt to take a rest in between to spend some extra time in Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Red & Orange, and still have all the resources for the tertiaries to revisit any time.
How long is the program? How much time will I need?
The program runs throughout 2018.
Beginning in January with a bird’s eye view of the color wheel to see the territory we’re going to explore, then preparing for the adventure ahead.
The steps around the color wheel take place March through November.Starting with Yellow we step around the wheel one color at a time, spending 3 weeks in each color. In the first part of each segment I share the resources I’ve gathered together for you; the second part is all about the creative process, working in just this one color!
For each 3-week section you’ll want to allow an hour or two to read and look through the ebook, guides and resources in the first part. In the second part you’ll need the about the same amount of time to review the process material. How much time you spend in the creative section is your call.
Of course,the more you put in, the more you get out, as with any learning experience.
My aim is to make TWELVTY as much fun as possible, I’ll give you prompts and ideas to play with at the start of the color, we have photo challenges and games to play through the year as well, so there will always be plenty to choose from.
There’s a guided project that runs throughout the program. In each segment I’ll show you what I’m making, playing with different mixed media techniques including collage, mark making with paint, print, ink, drawing and doodles, some stitching and textile elements, we might even dye some paper! Lots of ideas!
At the end of the individual color segments we have time to reflect on the process, consolidate what we’ve made and share what we’ve learned through the experience.
What do we make?
Ooh! I’m glad you asked – this is the new exciting part 😀 We’re making a 3D color wheel!
What’s a 3D color wheel? What’s it for?
Well, I don’t want to totally give the game away, but if you’ve seen my previous 12 color art journals, you’ll know they get decidedly chunky with all the lovely layers of mixed media and collage and stuff.
That’s what inspired the idea. It’s a bit like a mini art journal. But much more fun!
Once it’s complete you can use this to inspire color combinations for future works of art. It’s a place to explore new techniques, so you can refer back to it when you want to find ideas for a new project. You can keep going back and adding to it too!
I keep my 12 color art journals open by my work table in the studio as a source of reference all the time. They’re both jammed full of all kinds of mixed media, doodles, collage, and experimental techniques and a constant source of ideas to springboard into new projects from. What we’re gonna make in TWELVTY 2018 is like this – only WAY BETTER!!!
What if I don’t want to make a color wheel?
Totally cool. (Although you might change your mind when you see what fun we’re having…)
Seriously, you’ll get loads from TWELVTY without making a color wheel. The core reason for TWELVTY is to have fun, and bring more color into the world around us. If you only used the ebook and online resources, joined the photo challenges, or just hang in the background watching what other folks are making, you’ll still get really good value from the program.
The way TWELVTY is designed, you can take any of the elements and fit them into your own creative practice. You might choose to take on a totally different 12 color project instead!
What else could I do in TWELVTY?
Well, you might like to make a regular art journal, with single coloured spreads for each segment. I’ve done this twice already (I’ll share my pages & the process from each as we go along – but I’ve got flip throughs in my youTubes over here).I love both these books! A few of the TWELVTY 2017 group have made art journals and they are all fabulous.
You might want to do something totally different and make a 12 part body of art work featuring each color. This could be
A series of photographs or drawings.
You could make a vlog about each color, showing where you find it and how it makes you feel.
You could write a poem inspired by thoughts on each color
Or paint a landscape through the seasons and times of day showing color changes.
Really – anything you can do in color you can do in TWELVTY! how about cake decorating? I’d love if you made 12 cakes through TWELVTY, iced them in the 12 colors and showed us photos!
This year we had a Twelveteer make a prayer flag in each color, and these are just awesome! I strongly encourage you to find a process you want to explore in different colors 🙂
Color is everywhere: the ONLY LIMIT is your imagination!
What do I need for TWELVTY?
Is there an art supplies list? Do I have to get loads of new stuff?
I’m a big proponent of using what we already have.Firstly so we don’t get freaked out with the expense/bewildering variety of art supplies. Mainly cos I like the way it stretches the creative muscle to be inventive.
I use a range of different paints and media which I’ve spent a lifetime collecting. I also use a load of recycled and reclaimed materials – scraps of paper and card, old magazines and junk mail, offcuts of fabric and trimmings… packaging I don’t want to end up in landfill often winds its way into my art!
There’ll be a comprehensive list of suggestedsupplies in the welcome pack, and I’ll explain how we’ll use them so you can make up your mind if you need to get anything extra.
The minimumyou’ll need to play along is some paper, and the three primary colors: yellow, red & blue. This can be acrylic paint, craft paint, poster paint, watercolor, or it could be crayons or markers, or coloured paper to collage, any combination of these.
(That said, if you’re asking permission to run around the art store squealing Woohoo – new project – gotta get me all the new colors!! And it’s not gonna get you in trouble with the grown ups in your life or your bank account then go right ahead!)
Is there anything else you’re still wondering about? In my giddy excitement did I forget to answer your question? Comment below or message me if there’s anything else you’d like to know!
To be first to hear about my colorful antics and get discounts on courses like TWELVTY , just hop onto my email list right here.
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
Your email is utterly safe to me. I’ll sing it to sleep when it lands with me, and bring it tea when it wakes up.
If you’re a list-writing, journaling, planning kinda person, if you’ve explored the online circus of delights that cater to folk like us, you’ll understand the mental-quick-sand-iness of it all.
There are two sides, separated by a void. There is no middle ground between. The title of this post will either have meaning to you or not, and that will depend on which side of the void you reside.
If you’re a list-writing, journaling, planning kinda person, if you’ve explored the online circus of delights that cater to folk like us, you’ll understand the mental-quick-sand-iness of it all.
Alternatively you might live a hundred lifetimes and never know such wonders exist.
Folks in the latter group: click away now. Anywhere. Just away. You won’t like this.
I’m going to geek about diaries. If this isn’t your jam, click away now. I wasn’t joking about the quicksand. It’s very real. (In a metaphorical sense)
As a long time list maker and glutton for stationery, this appealed to me on a number of levels, and for almost two years this system served me well.
This Leuchtturm 1917 book was my travelling companion, my mental back up, home to a hundred post-its and the landing place for my brain dumps for longer than a usual diary, and I like how it provided a home for the lists that would otherwise be swirling inside my head.
But before moving forward, we need to rewind…
It was in the quest to reduce the anxiety-inducing levels of chaos I had going on in my life that lead me to discover bullet journaling. It’s when I first encountered these youtube rabbit holes: these whole communities of planners, people with planners, people planning their planners. A number of these folk have planners to organise the videos they make about organising their planners on youtube. It’s pleasingly meta and terrifyingly quicksandy all at once. That is why this is a blog post, not a video.
As I neared the final pages of my trusty turquoise book I revisited some of the many channels devoted to listing, journaling, planning, and the like. Because it had been a while I was ready to reconsider my listing and planning options. I was ready to hop back in the quicksand.
The that thing I missed when bullet journalling was having a readily fill-in-able set up for the months ahead. (There are ways around this – downloadable-printables, suggested hand-drawn-layouts, and more. But in two years of trial n error none of these gelled with me.)
Now it was time for me to re-explore a more structured planner route for a while, to find out if I could mash up a hybrid of the bits of all the systems I like.
Back into the rabbit hole of youTube.
In the intervening years the rabbit hole had become much deeper, much more rabbitty.
[There are squillions of videos devoted to this challenge: the quest for the system that fits an ever-changing, ever-busying life. Deep down we all know there isn’t one solution, but we enjoy the quest too much to stop.Because of all the reasons.]
I emerged bleary-brained some long while later, ready to invest more than I’d usually consider because this could be the ‘Neo of planners’, the one true solution to any papery chaos and confusion. Also, these particular journals have an almost cult like following – and I needed to know why!
Unavailable in the shops here, I ordered my first Hobonichiplanner through Etsy (the 6 month: July-December version) in order to dip my metaphorical toes.
There is no limit to how much you can spend in Hobonichi stuff: all the special covers and stickers and doodads that can go along with. I didn’t. I used a clear plastic cover intended for another this-size book & a postcard of a peacock to make it pretty.
The book itself? I’m kinda sold on it. I mean, enough to try a year long experiment and see if I can make this fit. These are my impressions after a few months…
Hobonichi Pros & Cons
Pro: Paper
One of the features that gets folk all ravey about the Hobonichi books is the super thin Tomoe River paper. It’s crazy thin, so much that a book with a year’s worth of daily, weekly, monthly, and other pages is still under an inch thick, but this paper isn’t so flimsy it tears and lets bleed through. What the what?
If I’m honest – that in itself is what almost sold me the first book. Then there’s the other big thing:
Pro: All the options
Daily pages with a time line for appointments, weekly spreads with hourly timelines on each day, monthly spreads with a good size box for each day. And the year with 6 months to a spread. Too much? almost certainly! But until I give it a good thorough try I won’t know which part is superfluous, so 2018 is my year of discovery.
Pro: Box grids.
I’m very much into box grids instead of lined paper. I have a dislike of lined paper which gives me flashbacks to school, but boxes and dot grids have a multifunctionality that appeals to me. It’s a yin/yang with my outside-the-edge-what-edges?-?-inherent-inner-discord-and-anarchy.
They are in an unimposingly faint print too.
Con: so many the options
4 months into my current half-year book, I find I’m still bouncing lists chaotically between the weekly and the daily pages. One will win out over the other before long, cos I’m stubborn by nature and hate to write the same thing in more than one place.
Right now I’m enjoying having a page that ‘belongs to today’ in order to list what I’ve got to do. But what doesn’t get done today has to float unfinished in the near past, and that unsettles me a bit. The Bullet Journal system made more allowance for floaty ‘to do soon’ lists. I think this will figure itself out into a system before long. I’m nothing if not inventive!
So……
I have two new planners lined up for 2018: My first full year long version for 2018 A5 size Hobonichi Cousin which I anticipate will become list centraland the Hobonichi Weeks which is a year full but without the daily pages so it’s just regular diary size and can travel about with me. This one’s also got dozens of blank pages at the back which I plan to utilise for the bullet journal style lists. (BuJo folks call these collections, which is just gratingly quaint for me. As is BuJo. I’m absurdly sensitive to words and things, but also lazy and will take the easier typing option.)
Moving along…
Look! I got me a new pencil case. It’s predecessor (which is almost as old as me) has been retired to box of sentimental nonsense. The part of me that associates ‘new pencil case = new start’ did not leave when I finished school.. That was the best bit of school!
Are you a planner person? …I figure if you’ve read this far either you’re already a lister, a journaller or a planner of some kind, or you’re considering it as an option. What’s you book of choice? I’d love to know!
These new books of mine are part of a larger getting my ducks lined up strategy.
They’re coupled with another new found interest – the Getting Things Done methods of David Allen. I also discovered him somewhere in my rabbithole adventures and was instantly hooked, I listen to GTD podcasts, I bought his book which systematically working through.
The essence of this system is the idea the human mind is better used for thinking things up than stuffing full of things to remember. If we have an alternate, external way to store all the what-I-gotta-do-next things all that brain-RAM can work more efficiently too.
Theseare going to lead me into 2018 with my act far more together than ever before!
I know it’s popular to joke ‘things won’t change though’ in a self-deprecating way, but I really feel this becomes a self fulfilling ‘see – I told you I’d screw up again’ and I just don’t have time to spin in circles like that any more.
It took getting really ill a few months ago, have most the time and energy sucked out of my days to make me realise I need to stop floundering about and get organised.I don’t know how it’s going to take shape yet, but I do know that it will. For now that’s all that matters.
I share my journey, my creativity and random thoughts, each month in a newsletter you could have delivered direct to you emailhole. You’ll also get special discounts on things I make like online creative classes, and actual tangible things too. All you have to do is pop your email address in here and I’ll do all the rest.
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle & a kitten until the spring arrives.
If you love learning about color, you’ll love my Year full of Color eCourse: TWELVTY. Find out more & Register now for 2018
What’s really beautiful, is within the group of creatives brought together by TWELVTY, there’s such a diversity of talent and such a fabulous range of expression. When you take a subject like color which can be applied to most every medium, it translates such variety of techniques and media and manifests a constant source of inspiration
The What & The Where
Throughout 2017 I’ve been running an online program called TWELVTYin which we explore the color wheel one month and one color at a time. It’s been a fantastic journey (which isn’t over yet: we still have orange-yellow left to explore)
What’s really beautiful, is within the group of creatives brought together by TWELVTY, there’s such a diversity of talent & range of expression.
From painters to weavers, textile artists, photographers, mixed media creatives and writers. Between us we are much more than the sum of our parts.
When you take a subject like color which can be applied to most every medium, it translates such variety of techniques and media and manifests a constant source of inspiration:
I see that embroidery and it inspires an idea for a photo series;I see this painting and the idea for a video starts to come to life. The drawing which tells a story, inspires a song or a poem.
Ideas are cross-pollinating all over the place!!
When I set out on this adventure at the beginning of the year, I really thought it would be a one-off. But so much has surprised me along the way.TWELVTY soon began to gather momentum, to take on an energy of its own, and it seems like it doesn’t want to end here.
So I’ve made a couple of little tweaks, and I’m excited to present:
TWELVTY 2018: What’s new?
The structure has shifted: Instead of each month dedicated solely to one color, we are quickening the pace of the color steps in order to spend a little more time exploring the territory for our color adventure.
This gives us time at the start of the year to get to take a bird’s eye view, get to know the the color wheel, and gather our colors together.
Then we’ll take each segment of the color wheel in a three week block.
At the end of our journey there will be space to consolidate what we’ve learned, and bring it all together.
As well as all the resources I’ve gathered and curated for each color through this first year of TWELVTY, I’m also planning something new!
Something colorful and fun! Something that will bring joy to your inner kid (or actual kids – this could be a family project)
Each color segment will have a step-by-step illustrated guide where I show you ways I like to play with mixed media. You can use these for inspiration, or your own techniques, as in each color we are going to add to our year long project:To create a 3-D Color Wheel!
This will be a resource you can come back to again and again when you ‘re looking for ideas in your creative practice.
Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.
Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.
(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)
Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.
Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.
(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)
A few years ago, rattled by some mid-life reminders of mortality,I finally fulfilled my life long ambition. But being an art student was as far as I’d thought this plan through. After spinning around in a self made feedback loop of regret for two decades, while I loved my time at college, I’d completely lost sight of the purpose.
My confusion was confounded when my course was cancelled after the foundation year. Before I’d time to consider my options my personal life fell apart, as a few weeks later my mum died.
Now I was free falling and had to find something to grasp onto, something simple I could rely on to slow the descent.
I needed a project to latch my focus to. I needed a subject I could immerse myself in. It had to be something creative, it had to be something colourful.
It just had to be color.
I hadn’t the bandwidth for anything more complex. I needed colors, but one at a time. No other rules. Just me, a book, and whatever paints and pens and things I had to hand. In just one color. I began with the color I felt most drawn to at the time, which was red-violet, magenta. It was soothing. It was all I had space for.
I took that year, one color at a time, one month at a time.
After another family bereavement a couple of months into my year long color project, I knew I needed some accountability, some way to keep this project afloat.That’s when I started this blog.
By the end of the year I’d created a this whole book full of color.
It’s still with me in my studio as a resource for inspiration – (that’s something I didn’t foresee when I began this project.)
As I showed my book of 12 colors to more of my artist friends, the idea of revisiting a year full of color began to develop. And they wanted in on it too.
So in 2017 I invented “TWELVTY“, a way of sharing the adventure around the color wheel with other creatives as an online program.
It’s been an astonishing journey, (which isn’t over yet) and I’ve learned so much (more on that in another post).
I didn’t expect to run Twelvty as a program with others again after this year – it’s been all consuming and I had other plans for 2018 – but Twelvty has plans for me too, it would appear.
I think it speaks for itself that some of this year’s Twelveteers have already joined up for a second trip around the color wheel in 2018!
There are a limited number of discounted places available to folks on my mailing list. If you aren’t signed up already – what the hey?!! – scoot down to the end of this post to add your email before they’re all swooped up!
Phew! what a week! and we’re only half way through!
This little black and white photo project has been just the light relief I’ve needed amid all the full color planning for TWELVTY 2018. (TWEL-what? — go look-see over here)
Although it doesn’t begin for a couple of months (cos the name is a clue, right?) you can register now and then in the new year we’ll get started on a new adventure around the color wheel.
I’ve got exciting new ideas for this next run of the program so 2018 will be even more fun – y’know I’ve got folks from the 2017 group joining again for a second trip! That speaks for itself!
If you’re in my mailing list then you’ll have access to a limited number of reduced rate spaces – normal price £97 GBP for the year, or £65 if you nip in quick and snag an early bird place! Lawks!
So if you’re not already, get on the mailing list. I send out newsletters about once a month and you can always unsubscribe if that gets too much 😉
(and I’ll send you my shiny new ebook A Year full of Color (2017 version) as a thank you for joining)
All through this month I’ve been prompted and nudged along by Inktober, seeing daily reminders to keep inkdrawing from the good folks of the youtubes & the instagrams. They kept me company as developed this stream of consciousness doodle running through my sketchbook-project-sketchbook, leading from one page to the next…
Y’know about the Sketchbook Project, right? (If not, and you’re intrigued, I wrote a little about it here.)
All through this month I’ve been prompted and nudged along by Inktober,seeing daily reminders to keep inkdrawing from the good folks of the youtubes & the instagrams. They kept me company as developed this stream of consciousness doodle running through my sketchbook-project-sketchbook, leading from one page to the next, a little like this (also like this)
(the shadows and hiccups in continuity show the folds in the book or the turn of the page… this is just 3 pages, it would be too wide to show it all like this, you get the idea tho’)
And now it’s ready to begin coloring. Which I plan to do throughout November.
I’ll give you a moment if you fell off your chair at the news I’ve not added any color yet …………… ok? ………….before I tell you that the coloring won’t begin straight away either.
For three reasons:
This sketchbook is the foundation to a new project I’m developing for launch in 2018. “TWELVTY EXTRA” – a companion course to “TWELVTY – a year full of color” (which you can read all about here). I’ve got a clear idea of exactly how I’m gonna color my doodle, which colors, even which paints…
As I was nearing the end of my last massive’normous art escapade I planned to reward myself with a little treat in the form of a set of Daniel Smith’s Watercolors. (These aren’t any old watercolors, these are proper fancypants watercolors. The purchase of which was preceded by a full on 2 week dither while they languished in my online shopping cart.) And now the delivery has been delayed!
But I’m saving this book for these colors!
(this is the biggie) I’m cultivating a bit of self control. Instead of running full pelt at my life and my art with wild abandon and all colors flying aimlessly, I’m experimenting with something new (to me). “Planning.“ …….Interesting, huh?
Now I’ve eked out all the enjoyment, focus and concentration I can from the black and white and inking stage, and I’d like to report back: I kinda like this new strategy. It’s still got an edge of impetuous childlike impatience as a driving force, but my inner adult is developing her voice, taking moments of authority, even making some of the decisions.
How will this play out? check back over the next month and I’ll show you how it’s going. Or hop aboard my email list for updates direct to your emailbox every month.
I’ll send you a copy of my (newly updated) eBook ‘a year full of color’ as well as exclusive discounts for my ecourses.
Your email is utterly safe with me. I’ll sing it to sleep and bring it tea when it wakes up.
TWELVTY 2018 launches for pre-registration in November!
“Seven days. Seven black and white photos of your life. No people. No explanation. Challenge someone new each day.”
Seven days without color: day 4
“Seven days. Seven black and white photos of your life. No people. No explanation. Challenge someone new each day.”
<No explanation> that’s part of the challenge. As a serial-explainer-of-things and reason-finder-extraordinare this is the real challenging part to me. Pffffft!
Well, I don’t want to totally give the game away, but if you’ve seen my previous 
Mixy's Art Blog 