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.