For one full year my personal art work expressed my obsession with the color and texture of eucalyptus trees.  The bark, peeled back to show subtle green-grays, ochres, peaches; the leaves, crisp and olive or dessicating and rusty; the curves and lines.  I sought out the visual experience in every park within miles and compulsively worked to recreate the colors and textures in fiber.  I painted white fabric in grays, rusts, ochres and sages; I cut; I pieced; I quilted textures, I appliqued.  I exorcised my obsession in several quilts that year. Haven't used these colors since.

Understand, for the artist or crafter color is sometimes a difficult decision and other times the driving force in their work.  With any craft, however, color is one of the important design elements.

Bloghers love to share their color stories and obsessions:

Grumperina's used underpants to plan a baby blanket.

Cara (a professional photographer) used photographs and PhotoShop's Stained Glass filter to choose the colors for some of her mitered squares this past spring. The idea was originally discussed at Knitting on Impulse. where Ruth Stewart has created an entire catagory on Playing with Color that could be a any crafter's tutorial. Instead of Photoshop, Ruth uses PhotoFiltre, a free download.

And She Knits,Too! made a beautiful copper bracelet, then blogged about how she chose her palette.

Lisa Condon is addicted to monochrome.  These pieces strongly argue that "all color all the time" might not be the best way to go. Melody Johnson, however, might argue otherwise.

These color inspirations can be used in other ways, too.  For example, designing a websites or scrapbook palettes:

Colourlovers looked at knit socks... for palette inspiration.

Posh'd used Rolling Stone's Top Ten Albums of All Time to create color palettes. Looking over these I desperately want to design something "experienced!"

Have you ever been grabbed by a color obsession?  How did you finally express it?

Detail of Eucalyptus I from my own Flickr Surface Design File.

Debra Roby blogs her art at A Stitch in Time and her life at Deb's Daily Distractions .