Wanda And Her Color Lab

Hi I’m Wanda Kerr, the creator and hostess of the Welcome Mat, RHM’s dyeing guru and the author of The Colour Lab. I’m excited to hear you’re enjoying my book.

You’re reading it now and by all accounts, understanding the concepts, that’s sweet music to my ears.

I want to help you learn all you can about colour in the easiest possible way.

I use my methods everyday in my own hooking work and when teaching others about colour.  Over time I’ve made lots of colour mistakes and was determined to conquer them, that’s how I learned about colour, the hard way. I’ve listened to my students and their struggles with colour and tried to explain things as clearly as I could and these two experiences are the foundation for my book and my teaching. When I switched the way I was thinking about colour I went from hooking cartoons to hooking realistically, practically overnight.

Let’s be honest, all of us run into colour trouble while hooking. After you can pull a loop correctly the only thing left to master is colour. Every thing we create raises a bunch of decisions and problem solving with colours. 

The knowledge of colour, what it is and how it works is the key to unlock your hooking desires and dreams. My book, The Colour Lab is a great start on your road to better hooking. You are gathering up what I call “head knowledge” as you read it. I’m all for that! 

I’m also all for you learning as deeply as you can. To learn things in a way that makes a difference, I call this heart learning, we all need to take action. To support your heart learning I’m holding an online, lifetime class for readers of my book or anyone else who wants to know more about how to use colour. The principles in my book work for all colourists no matter the medium. The Color Lab will be our class text book. 

This is your chance to work with me through each chapter. You will have questions about the contents of this book. I’ll answer your questions about the chapters as you work through them.  I couldn’t possibly put in everything you needed to know between two covers.  I just barely started a conversation with you in the Color Lab.

My class will help us continue our beautiful dialogue. Everyone will go faster and further in a community.

In my online class I’ll build on the ideas in the book chapter by chapter. I’ll help you overcome gaps in your colour know how. I’ll meet you where you are right now in your colour journey, I’ve been there and know the way home. I’ll support your lab work as you complete it. I’ll deepen your colour understanding at your own pace. I’ll be your colour bitch. For life.  For $200 USD. 

Just imagine a time a year from now when you are part of the colour lab alumni and you run into a problem with your rug and instead of trying out 20 different colours you pick the perfect one right off the shelf? Imagine the power. Imagine the savings!

Well, What are you waiting for? You can take as long as you like to do the class work.

Join us, I’m here to help you grow!

The deadline for sign up is March 31, 2018. 

Click here to join.

The Colour Lab Book

My book is being delivered to you as we speak. It is very exciting for me.
I thought you might be interested to learn a bit more about me and why I wrote this book on colour use.

I’ve had a life long interest in color especially when it involves fashion and textiles. I’ve handcrafted since I was 7 or so, my mother was incredibly generous with her tools and textiles. When she got a sewing machine she taught me to use it and kept me steadily supplied with fabrics. We had a sample case of yarns. I don’t know where it came from or what it was for but it was covered in delicious purple chevrons and when unzipped it was an Alladins Cave of Wool. There were all colors and thicknesses of yarns in what seemed like an endless variety. I was delighted by it. I had deep yen for the button can and would look at and sort those buttons endlessly. All of this was what I call color play and was very enriching. 

Thirty years later when I started rug hooking I was enchanted because of all the colors that could be incorporated. Unfortunately I found my love of color did not parlay into effective color use. I didn’t understand how to make color work for me, how to use the right component of a color to create the effects I wanted to represent in my rugs.  I have always considered my wool color work to be equal to paintings. When I wanted to recreate what I saw in my mind’s eye or make something look realistic I was missing some important tools. I had a strong desire to be able to hook whatever I saw or wanted to competency and verve.

Slowly and diligently I worked  at becoming a better colorist.  I observed the work of other types of artists and nature for color cues and began to discover what was going on with color in my work. I saw how colour shapes become representations of objects if placed carefully.  I began to look at color and the things I wanted to represent in new ways. I got out of my own way and expanded my love of color into a real marriage of passion and practice with a smattering of discipline. 

I realized this knowledge I was accruing was useful to anyone who uses color and began teaching what I discovered in easily graspable units. I built a very successful online class about color and how to use it more expansively and expressively.

This was an incredibly freeing class that informed you so you might hook whatever you like effectively and masterfully. My teaching is always about color. My aim is to help you know more about color so you can do more with it. It took a long time for me to discover how to use colour in a more effective way and my book opens the door wide and lets you revel in this knowledge in a simple, straight forward way. 

The Color Lab, will take the mystery out of color and replace it with mastery. It is a fresh way to look at colour and holds the building blocks of creating great rugs no matter their design. This book is useful to someone who is a beginner to a very experienced colour worker. The suggested exercises in my book that are included at the end of every chapter, are revelatory and enriching as well as being easily completed. Even if you only did one or two of them you will notice a remarkable difference in your color competency.

I’ll be offering a lifetime online class beginning April 1, 2018 to support the practitioners of the Color Lab Book as they work through each chapter. You will need to buy the book to participate. I’ll answer questions and support students as they discover color in a new and richer way. There will be additional gems revealed as we progress. Go to www.thewelcomemat.ning.com or wandaworks.ca for more info. 

I love the idea of rug hookers diving deeper into the use of color and swimming swiftly and with strength to the far shore. If you are like me that shore is a place we didn’t imagine possible to reach. I’m excited to imagine the possibilities you might realize with this useful collection of colour ideas.