Showing posts with label schemes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label schemes. Show all posts

Wednesday, 2 June 2010

St Valery Sur Somme

I'm over in France and I don't know if it''s a combination of the sunshine, rest and good food and drink but this town oozes colour!
I seemed to spend the day coming across unexpected dashes of strong colour amidst all the natural schemes.

I have spent the day taking photos which I hope will provide colour inspiration for future projects.The sky before we set off:

Blue_and_green

The view over the water:


St_Valery_Sur_Somme

Some colourful shutters:


St_Valery_2

Garge doors:

Garage_doors

Painted bricks and shutters:


bricks_and_shutters

Some irises:


French_Iris

More painted brickwork and shutters:


Bricks_shutters_2
Color by COLOURlovers

Tiles:

French_tiles


Bright shutters:

Shocking_French

A boat on the water:


Boat_on_water

Monday, 16 November 2009

One Red Done

I have now finished one of my red projects for Bead magazine's colour special. I can't finish the next one until I get hold of a nice, strong magnetic clasp.

Then I just need to crack on with my fourth version- which will be red and green.

Red and green is a great example of a complementary colour scheme (using two colours opposite each other on a colour wheel) whilst the necklace I have finished is monochromatic (using just examples of one colour) and the unfinished one is analogous (using colours next to each other on the wheel, with this example using all the colours in the wheel.)

If you want some help coming up with a scheme then this is a great website.

Tuesday, 27 October 2009

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.





Thursday, 4 June 2009

Secret yellow lover

After all my saying how much I don't like yellow, especially with black, I realised yesterday that one of my favourite outfits (this yellow t-shirt, black cardigan and multi-coloured scarf) is based around yellow and black!

It actually makes a nice palette- and seeing as today I got my new polymer clay extruder today I may make something inspired by it!

Secret_yellow_lover
Color by COLOURlovers


Sunday, 17 May 2009

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

Saturday, 16 May 2009

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

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

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

Art_Deco_432
Color by COLOURlovers
Art Deco- wow- but too like the analogous scheme I plan to use later

boat_floaters
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

Tuesday, 12 May 2009

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?

Sunday, 10 May 2009

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!