Egg Shell Shades

Today I'm playing around with polymer clay and using one of the colour resources I now am lucky enough to own- these great ready-made colour samples (I previously recommended them on one of my resources posts).

I was experimenting with an idea I had a few years ago and had yet to actually sit down and play with: using egg shells to add a mosaic look to the clay.

I knew I wanted a beige colour as the background but had no idea how to mix it- so my new toy turned out to be a great help.
I flicked through all the sections and chose a colour that I liked and learnt that I needed 2 parts white to 1 part each of yellow and brown.


I cut these amounts, chopped them up and began mixing...


and conditioning.


Soon I had the perfect colour to be the background for my shell pieces without having to sit there and spend ages adding colours and getting it wrong.


This will appear as a project in issue 24 of Bead magazine- out 21st July 2010.

New book

- Testudinarious
- Divisia
- Coloury
- Flemingin
- Porret
- Glenting

I'm loving my new book- "A dictionary of colour" by Ian Paterson. Now I just need to try and fit those words into everyday conversation!


The definitions are:

- Gleaming, shining brightly
- A yellowish green- linked to a baby's leak!
- having colour/ possessing an abundance of colour
- Having the colour (and other characteristics) of a tortoise or tortoise-shell
- A yellow dyed used for silks
- The coloured ribbons used in bull-fighting

Now, obviously I'm not going to make it easy for you- so see if you can match up the definition to the word.

New colour links

Evolution of a colour scheme
Polymer clay colour mixing and matching
Kris' colour stripes
Cool ready made polymer clay samples- I want these!
Colour Basics- dos and don'ts
Maggie Maggio's colourful polymer clay work
Maggie Maggio's colour tutorials
Maggio Maggio's colour blog
Louise Fischer Cozzi's polymer clay work
Why pencils are yellow
Colour mixing with Sculpey

Hue 100 test

Want to test your colour perception? Try the Hue 100 test- I scored 34- can you get a lower (and therefore better) score than me?
Beware- may send you cross-eyed!

Blue

Research
Red makes us more attentive vs blue which makes us more creative here and here

Red

Research
Red makes us more attentive vs blue which makes us more creative here and here

Playing with polymer clay - day 2- part 1

My second day at The EuroClay Carnival and two new classes today.

The first one I was looking forward but had no hope I would actually be able to do it as I don't think I can work intricately. Ok, I know I do intricate work with beads but I think that's different- the holes tell me where to go and there's no hope of me squashing it all as there is with clay!

Our teacher for the morning was Iris Mishly (and here) and our project was flower canes.

As you can see I got on ok with these in the end!

We began by choosing 6 colours- hmm- looks like only 5 in the photo!

For some reason the violet just wanted to appear exactly the same as the blue. So I messed around with a few setting on my camera and managed to get a photo which looked a bit nearer the reality.

A bit more fiddling on my computer and the colours I really chose were these. I have no idea why this happened and have put this top of my list to look into on my colour investigations!

Anyway, I didn't like the garishness of the orange so decided to alter it by adding blue and brown- the colour I started with is on the right and the resulting mix is on the left. I ended up adding roughly double the quantities of the blobs of blue and brown you see in the photo.

The two main things I have discovered about the advantages of working with clay over beads are:
1- Colour mixing- what a joy to be able to come up with your own colours and as long as you have the basic colours of clay, the colour world is your oyster!
2- Speed- I can't believe how quick it is to make thing using clay- such a change over my beadwork.

I next needed to come up with a Skinner Blend using a colour and white and decided to choose my violet clay. Note the speckles in my white clay- it was impossible to keep clean!

Skinner blends are wonderful things and enable you to come up with so many shades within minutes- imagine trying to track down all those shades of bead to get a blend like that- impossible!

If you want to work out a colour scheme that blends from one colour to another than this useful online tool will help

Lastly I made a striped stack to use for the centre of my flower canes.

This was rolled with white to make a cane and here's a close up of my sheet so you can see the tiny stripes.

The next part of the class was assembling all we had made into flower canes and this was great fun and I was better at it than I thought I'd be- but my no means any good at it compared to anyone else- one of my flowers just looks like slices of an orange!

The last part of the class was spent layering our canes onto a sheet of backing clay. I struggled with just my flowers at first as the pink/ violet ones didn't go well with the orange ones but by putting slices of the flower centre canes they all came together- just a shame i didn't like it- it was all too bright for me- and I can't get over thinking it now looks like slices of oranges and strawberries- still better luck next time.

I used my sheet to make pillow beads- another first - and bracelet sections- and am hoping that if I string them with dark purple beads inbetween they'll stop looking so "citrussy"

God- how much did I make?!?!? doing all of that in seed beads would have taken me weeks or months- this polymer clay stuff is growing on me by the second!

Resources updated

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

My first steps with yellow- geometric beaded bead

Yellow is not a colour I have used before and one I think I dislike so I am interested to see if there are any versions of it I do actually like.

I'm beginning using it on one of my geometric beaded beads and immediately I'm running into problems.
I'm finding it really hard to just use yellow. I want to add in purples, oranges blues etc to add some interest. Yellow by itself just doesn't seem right.

But I'm trying to stick just with yellows but it seems to me that there just aren't enough yellows to create contrast and variations so when I use them together they very quickly blend into each other. Any yellow I pick up that gives me variation is actually a shade of gold, orange or even green. Even when something seems to be yellow when I put it next to another yellow it turns out to be green- and whilst I like these colours I'm trying to stick to a true yellow scheme so reject them.


But in the end my all yellow colour palette has had to be stretched to include a gold or I don't think you would actually see that I'm using three different colours.

My research has now shown me that my thoughts about yellow are true- there aren't many true yellows- who knew?!?!
what would in other colours just change the 'shade' i.e. adding black, white or grey completely changes the 'colour' in yellow so it appears green when you add black rather than a darker version of yellow.
I wonder if this is the reason why I feel there isn't enough variation for me to use?
Does anyone have any other experiences using yellow?

All about yellow

As well as exploring using yellow with my beadwork I also want to explore its social and historical background so here are some interesting article, links and facts associated with yellow:

History and all about yellow
Yellow on Wikipedia
All about the colour yellow

Reactions/ Meanings/ current thoughts
The meaning of yellow and pink t-shirts in Thailand

Colour Therapy
using yellow in colour therapy
Balancing the solar plexus

Research with yellow
Pale yellow and almond are the best colours for not irritating people and are perfect for a learning environment- from Dunn and Dunn research

Using yellow in design
Using yellow in knitting- how to use it. Very interesting article which looks at yellow on the colour wheel and in reality
Using yellow in interior design
How to use yellow in a children's play room
Using yellow in the garden

Fashion
How to wear yellow- mainly in children's wear
How to wear yellow and orange- for women

Using yellow in beadwork/ jewellery
Someone else who doesn't usually use yellow!

Colour Inspiration

Rachel Goodchild's beautiful paper
Rainbow chain maille
Maggie Maggio's colourful polymer clay work
Louise Fischer Cozzi's polymer clay work

The colour wheel

The colour wheel is a useful tool for playing with colour and learning about schemes.
I really recommend you get one and play around with it, learn where colours lie on the wheel and how different schemes work.

These links and resources will give you more information in this area.
Myths surrounding the colour wheel
History of the colour wheel from Charley Parker
Handprint's colour wheel information
The history of the colour wheel on Colour Lovers



Different images of colour wheels
Colour Lovers unusual colour wheels
147 smarties colour wheel
Patchwork colour wheel
Threads colour wheel
Colour wheels painted by children in Canada
Colour wheel in eggs
Paul Jackson's insect colour wheel
Easter eggs colour wheel
Paint pots colour wheel
Dolls colour wheel
Origami colour wheel
Jelly colour wheel
Lego colour wheel
Liquid colour wheel
Crayon colour wheel
Tights colour wheel
Toy car colour wheel
Cut out colour wheel
Mosaic colour wheel
Apple logo colour wheel
iPod colour wheel

Useful resources

I plan to add to this list as the year goes on so keep coming back to see anything new

General colour sites
Some great colour websites are:
Colour Lovers
Margie Deeb
Suite 101 - just search for colour/ color to find a fantastic range of articles on colour
Fashion trendsetter/ Colour trends
Nita Leland's colour website
Nita leland's colour blog
Art stories with Julie Duell
Charley Parker's art blog
Maggie Maggio's colour tutorials
Maggio Maggio's colour blog

Books
Some of the books I will be using along the way and recommend if you're interested in colour are:
Color Works
The Beader's Colour Palette
The Beader's Guide to Colour
Colors- what they mean and how to use them
Colourful World
Nita Leland's links page with lots of colour books listed
A dictionary of colour

Colours and their meanings
Rose colours and their meanings
Colour symbolism
Colour idioms
Colour meanings, symbolism and psychology

Patterns and mixing colours
Spring 2009 fashions and prints

Colour schemes
Colour Combos
Squidoo
Limited colour palettes
Colour schemes which pop
This online tool will create a blends of colours for you when you choose a starting and finishing colour
Online colour scheme generator
Evolution of a colour scheme
Polymer clay colour mixing and matching
Kris' colour stripes
Cool ready made polymer clay samples- I want these!
Colour Basics- dos and don'ts
Colour mixing with Sculpey

Fashion
The meaning of colours in fashion
Colour matching for fashion

Research
Red makes us more attentive vs blue which makes us more creative here and here
The creation of colour in the 18th century
All you could ever want to learn about colour!

My Colour Challenge

I decided nearly two years ago to set my self a colour challenge but life and work took over and so the idea got shelved.
This weekend I have been thinking a lot about my work and my beadwork and decided that now is the time to get out of my rut and put some enjoyment back into my work. The way I plan to do this is to set myself this colour challenge:
Spent the next year working around the colour wheel and experiment with each of the three primary colours (red, yellow and blue) and the three secondary colours (orange, green and violet). I will give each one two months of my time and explore not just using the colour (by itself and in different colour schemes) but also the historical and social aspects of each one and see if that influences my work with it.

I will post here regularly giving updates on what I'm up to and also photos of my work so you can see where I am with it. Feel free to comment and also send me ideas and photos.