Wednesday 26 May 2010

Subtle shades

I don't usually use subtle colours so this scheme is a bit of a change for me!

To create this pendant I used cream tiny beads combined with gold/copper/ brown beads and a copper chain.


Pentagon_Pendant
Color by COLOURlovers

Sunday 9 May 2010

Onye 5

I'm busy working away on my 5th version of my Onye design.
This one uses some light mint green vintage buttons I was given and I have teamed them with some gold and turquoise seed beads.


Onye_5
Color by COLOURlovers

Friday 7 May 2010

Metallics And Mint

I seem to only be working with metallics at the moment- specifically silver.

I normally try and involve this in beads as I am so wary of the galvanised finish. All that work for the colour to just rub off- I hate it!

But some guidelines I decided to try and work to specified the following colours: "Gold, silver, pale blues, sweet mauve, gunmetal, hint of mint green"
So I headed to my silver beads and have found it hard to leave them every since!
First up is my Miriam Bangle which I first beaded using silver, gunmetal and these lovely violet Swarovski rivolis.



Miriam_Bangle
Color by COLOURlovers

I have previously written (nearly 4 years ago- yikes!) about making sure you mix matte with shiny and that still applies and the gunmetal beads perfrom that task in this piece.

Next up was another version of the bangle and this time I took inspired from the mint green mentioned in the brief.
I matched the green up with a dark forest green and a crystal that is mainly clear.
Miriam_Bangle_variat
Color by COLOURlovers

After beginning with the silver on my bangle I continued it for these crystal interlocking pieces. I have combined them with olivine green crystals which I absolutely love.


Crystal_interlocking
Color by COLOURlovers

Monday 3 May 2010

Crystal Balls (Primary and Secondary)

Phew- it's been a while!

I haven't done much beading recently and what I did I was either keeping secret or making in silvers which didn't seem very colourful.

Anyway- here is one of my latest pieces which uses colours based on the colour wheel- but nice and sparkly.

You can see more about the actual project here.

The colours I used for the crystals rotate through the colour wheel and use the primary and secondary colours (red- orange- yellow- green- blue- violet- red).

My first choice when beading this was the colour of the seed beads.
This I wanted to be a "neutral" colour i.e. one that would compliment the crystals but not to be too strong to take over.

The most commonly used neutrals are black and white- but I wanted neither. I hate using white and black is a nightmare to photograph and show detail with so they were out for those reasons.
My next choice would have been grey (I love this as a neutral and used it in my "Freeform Cuffs"
But I didn't have just the right shade of grey I wanted- they were either too silver, too dark or too matte.

So I rummaged through all my bead boxes (I have a few...) and came up with a lovely copper colour.

This is not a colour I have used as a neutral before but when I put it with the crystals I wanted to use it went with all of them perfectly so I may use it again.

It was just the right shade and finish- it was reflective so took on the colours of all the crystals, it was quite clear and shiny so didn't absorb light or distract from the crystal- just perfect.