Copper And Colour

I'm having fun playing with some copper seed beads this week.
Of course using a trusty colour wheel and contrasting/ complementary colours I have paired them with blues.



After my posting about disliking blue I seem to be using a lot of it recently- but I keep managing to sneak in that touch of contrast!

Red and green should not be seen PT 2

Still working with red and this time have decided to match it with its complement- green.



This isn't usually a colour scheme I like at all- not even really at Christmas (which I really like!) so I wasn't too enthusiastic about using it.

But, as has freqently happened during this challenge, once I sat down and worked with it my feelings changed and I like it now.

In fact I can't think of a scheme I have used that I haven't grown to love.

Does familiarity breed love?

Red and green should not be seen?

Still on red and at the moment using using that classic complementary scheme- red and green.

I have so often heard "red and green should not been seen" but that makes no sense. Mind you I also often hear "blue and green should not be seen" so I guess it's used for anything "and green"

Red and green are opposite each other on the colour wheel which makes them ideal partners - and a classic combination which begins to be especially apparent at this time of year.

I'm still working away on my red beaded beaded but as a bit of variety I've decided to crochet myself a necklace inspired by a scarf fringing I saw recently.

I want lots of red cherries with green leaves hanging from a long, green crocheted chain- well, that's the plan.

I can't decide at the moment whether to mix up the reds I use or stick with one. So, I'm just working with one at the moment.


I think looking at them that just going with one will be best as then they'll be more cherry-like.


We'll see!

Onye 3

I'm on an Onye Roll!

As soon as I came up with original pendant I knew I wanted to bead a version with eyes in.

It took me a while but I eventually manged to track down ones in the right size and colour, now how to complement blue eyes?

Well, orange and blue are complemenary colours so they work perfectly. But after already beading 2 of these in strong oranges I wanted to tone it down so based the sheme on browns and oranges.

This pendant will appear as a project in issue 19 of Bead magazine.

Yellow Lover Beads

After realising one of my favourite outfits was yellow based I knew I had to create something directly inspired by it.

So, out came the polymer clay:

I rolled snakes, chopped then up and combined them into a larger snake:

Into my extrduer they went and voila- long, dull grey tubes:

but ye of little faith- look at the ends of them- how fab are they?!?!?

A bit of playing around and I make some flat and pillow beads to add to my ever growing colelction of beads waiting to be strung.

You can learn how to make these beads in Donna Kato's canes book.

Playing with polymer clay - day 2- part 2

The afternoon of my second day at EuroClay carnival was spent with Sylvie Peraud doing her project based in in-filling colour into baked polymer clay.

Once again the clay was provided and by the time I chose it was pretty much yellow left- fate huh?

But as I knew we were potentially combining it with black I once again couldn't bring myself to use the "warning colour sheme" so made a Skinner blend with some white and brown added- which of course completely altered the yellow.

After I had baked my pieces I began to carve into them to add patterns.


I decided to in-fill my two pieces using colour theory- so one one piece I added brown to create more of an analogous colour scheme.


On the second piece I added a violet for a complementary scheme- I used a "soft" violet so it wasn't so bold.

My yellow colour schemes in actual beads

After my post yesterday I thought you might like to see the colour schemes I talk about in actual beads so they make more sense!

Yellow and black
This I rejected right away as it was too bold and too much like a warning sign.


Yellow, black and gold
Still too alarming for my liking.

Yellow, black, gold and lavender
This is more to my liking but want to soften it further as just using the contrasts of yellows and violets is still a bit too strong for me. I want something that will calm down the black.


Yellow, black, gold, lavender, khaki and grey
Just right!
And here is the actual beadwork started

Finding a yellow colour scheme I like

So I know what I want to bead next- a new triangular bracelet (to continue my geometric series of work) using yellow beads and some great new crystal shapes. But the crystals only come in the solid colours (i.e. without a coloured backing which would show as I plan to use them side-ways) of black and clear (ok, I know clear isn't a colour but you know what I mean).

So I went with black.
Now alarm bells are ringing.
Yellow and black.
Do I really want to spend weeks beading something that will look like a hazard warning sign?
Or as though I've skinned a thousand bees?

No- so my first challenge with this piece is to come up with a colour combination I like- so out come the beads.
- Yellow and black- already I have given this a big no
- Yellow, orange and black- not really much difference
- Yellow, orange reds and black- this is a colour scheme I have planned for another project later on so don't want to use it here and be sick of it before then
- Yellow, violet and black- too bold. I'm wary of the black being such a strong colour that I need to bring it down in some way and create something that is appealing with yellow rather than shocking.

So after a long time playing with my colour wheel and looking at lots of different schemes I decide to resort to google for ideas.

Googling "yellow colour schemes" I get the following:
http://desktoppub.about.com/od/colorpalettes/l/blcpyellow.htm
The first colour scheme is the yellows and reds I have already rejected but I like the next two and the use of the greys and blues- but I don't really want to use oranges as I don't want this to be an analogous scheme.

Next I get: http://www.colorcombos.com/yellow-color-schemes.html
There are lots of ideas here but no way I can see of narrowing it down to ones with yellow and black without scrolling through lots of pages and I need to leave with my beads in a few minutes.

So onto: http://www.squidoo.com/colorcombos where I can choose different colour combinations with yellow. But none with black so I move on but will definitely return here for future ideas.

http://desktoppub.about.com/library/weekly/blcplimited.htm gives me a yellow and black theme but just using shades of yellow- nice but not what I want. The black crystals I'm using will be very large in the piece and I think I prefer this idea with less black.

More on yellow and black here which gives me the idea of adding shades of grey- I like the thought of this.

This website confirms my worries about using black and yellow- I do not want this piece to pop!

So I begin searching for colour meanings etc with yellow- lots of great info here but no time to read it.

In desperation- I really do have to grab some beads and go- I turn to Colour Lovers.
Perfect!
Their blog post for yesterday was on "thin line colour schemes" and as I'll be using my new crystals as lines in my work I am delighted- this is just what I want.

On this one page there are so many ideas I have to try and narrow it down!
I love:

Color by COLOURlovers
Black with colors- but maybe too bold still and I want the yellow to be the main focus


Color by COLOURlovers
Having fun- too subtle maybe and my yellow are stronger


Color by COLOURlovers
Aqua Yellow Orange- again maybe too strong and too much aqua


Color by COLOURlovers
Art Deco- wow- but too like the analogous scheme I plan to use later


Color by COLOURlovers
Boat Floaters- perfect- just what I want

This combines yellow and black with lavender, khaki and grey- just what I was looking for- the khaki colours were something I hadn't thought of and really make this palette.

So beads selected I'm off and raring to go

More yellow- plato and archimedes beads

More beading with yellow today and as this isn't a colour I usually use, and think I hate, it was a bit of a struggle at first to get up any enthusiasm for it. But once I had I am really enjoying using it.

The main beading I have done with yellow beads so far is to make some of Laura Shea's Plato and Archimedes beads.

So far I've made 4 of them in preparation for my Valerie Hector class tomorrow.

But again, as I said about using yellow for my geometric beaded bead, I'm struggling with just using yellow and end up adding in some gold and violet beads.

I've also ordered some great crystal beads to mix with yellow Delicas for a new geometric experiment I'm itching to try out. I hope to get them Saturday so I can dive in and get beading.

To add to my chores I also now do a blog for my work on Bead magazine and if you're so inclined you can follow me on my 'day job' twitter.