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!

No Rest For The Wicked

I'm on a roll now- after months of not feeling very creative, this colour challenge has had the desired effect and I'm itching to create at any opportunity!

I'm currently working on a new herringbone rope necklace. I have made a couple of these before, see here and here.

This one will be like the second one and will have a hidden clasp.

To fit in with my colour challenge I'm going to make a couple of these based on red colour schemes.

My first one matches reds with greens, blues, violets, oranges, pinks, yellows and golds- in fact every colour on the colour wheel and every shade inbetween!

An analogous colour scheme is where you use colours next to each other on the colour wheel.
Previously when using red in an analogous scheme I have matched it with yellow and orange- but this time I'm matching it with every colour but using red as the dominant colour.

The reds I am using go from bright "red, red" to pink, to violet and to orangy-reds. Click on the photo for a larger view.


The contrast colours I'm using go from blue, to green, to violet, to gold, to orange, to yellow and just about everything in between- I just grabbed tubes and tubes of beads and went for it! Click on the photo for a larger view.

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

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.